Crisis of Masculinity.

The politicization of the American family as a religious and social ideal became institutionalized in the 1990s. In the traditional, idealized household, the husband and father earned most or all of the income. In return, his wife took care of the house and children. The husband led; the wife followed. God was honored, and everyone prospered. Since the 1960s the ideal had suffered continuous insult from broad social changes, a rising rate of divorce, and increased employment (and empowerment) of women. Most evangelical Christian leaders had merely fretted over such changes in the 1980s, but turned to social and political activism in the 1990s. The secular men's movement, represented by Robert Bly's figure, Iron John, was displaced by two distinctly religious responses. The Million Man March, organized in 1995 by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan (Louis Eugene Walcott), brought nearly...