In an Esquire interview several months back, Clint Eastwood called today’s generation of men a generation of pansies. Actually, he used a much more colorful word than “pansies”, but you get the idea.

Men used to be tough. Now they aren’t.

What happened?

It used to be reasonably easy for a girl to find a “nice guy” who was still a guy. Now an overwhelming majority of the “nice guys” are so weak they practically wet themselves if a female raises her voice to them.

Now, I’m sure some women like spineless men. Clearly, such men aren’t having much trouble finding women. Go to any store that sells women’s clothing and you’ll see numerous guys holding purses while their wives or girlfriends are picking out and trying on clothes.

You can easily spot these guys.

Well, one, they’re holding purses (duh). That’s a little hard to miss. But you can also spot them by the dead look in their eyes. They look like they’ve been sucked dry of their joy.

Occasionally, I will walk up to one of these guys and try to free them.

“You don’t have to live this way,” I will tell them. “Drop that purse. Let’s go look at the plasma televisions. There is a football game on!”

“Ssssssshhhhhh,” they will whisper.

“She’ll hear you.”

“I don’t care if she hears me,” I will shout.

“Look at you! Look at what you’ve become. You make me sick to my stomach.”

“I know,” the guy will sigh. “But…”

“But nothing,” I will interrupt. “Are you wearing a sweater vest? Is that a pink shirt? Did she dress you?!”

Eventually, the wife or girlfriend will make an appearance. I stand back and watch the spineless master at work.

“Did you find anything you liked, dear,” the guy will ask.

“Do you want to watch Beaches when we get home, dear?”

How did this happen?

How did we reach the point where 48% of the men in this country are jerks, 48% are “nice guys” who let people walk all over them, and only 2% are genuinely nice guys who would have no qualms about punching a bully in the face if they tried to take his lunch money?

Allow me to present a few theories:

#1: Everyone Deserves a Trophy (or Why Should He Have to Fight His Own Battles?)

Somewhere along the way, parents decided that EVERY child deserved an award regardless of whether or not they did anything to earn one. This is merely one example of how boys of today are babied while growing up.

In sports, the last place team got a trophy just like the first place team did. Heck, these days, when the kids are young, they don’t even keep scores of the games.

“Who’s winning,” someone will ask.

“Oh, we don’t keep score,” a parent will explain. “We don’t want to damage anyone’s self esteem.”

This might be okay if the children weren’t still handled with baby gloves when they got older. Instead, “mercy rules” are put into place so players on losing teams don’t lose too badly. Some leagues will let every team make the playoffs so no players feel left out. Some leagues choose not to participate in “all-star tournaments” because they don’t want children who aren’t good enough to make the all-star team to feel like failures. And, as I mentioned earlier, every player gets a trophy.

This mentality isn’t limited only to sports either. Look at academics these days.

Parents and school administrators practically bend over backwards to make sure Little Timmy and Little Suzie get good grades. Teachers are forced to give numerous makeup assignments and extra credit. If a student fails, Little Timmy and Suzie rarely have to shoulder any of the blame.

“It was the school’s fault. They shouldn’t make you take Algebra if you aren’t good at math.”

“It was the teacher’s fault. Your teacher didn’t do a good job teaching you.”

“It was your father’s fault. The dog kept eating your homework, and your father kept forgetting to put him in the backyard at night.”

“It was my fault. I was so preoccupied cutting your food for you and changing your diaper, I didn’t have time to write your research paper on World War II for you.”

And so on.

And so on.

And so on.

For boys, this mentality leads them to grow up into “men” who rarely had to face failure and hardly ever had to be accountable.

Losing sucks. It does. But you know what? Losing is also an excellent motivator. It makes you tougher. It makes you try harder.

The boy who never had to face losing or had adults constantly making excuses for his shortcomings inevitably becomes an adult with the mental toughness of a boy who never had to face losing or had adults who constantly made excuses for his shortcomings.

#2: Everybody Loves Raymond-itis

Now, I enjoyed — and still do enjoy — the television show Everybody Loves Raymond. One, it was a funny show. And two, I realize it’s fiction and for entertainment purposes only. The show’s content does not alter my outlook on life.

I am that way with all television shows and movies.

I can watch a movie with profanity in it (even though I don’t like it) and not have my own vocabulary become littered with the sporadic use of four-letter words.

I can watch a television show that features an unmarried couple living together and not think to myself, “If I had a girlfriend it would be totally okay to have her live with me.”

And I can watch Everybody Loves Raymond and not think all husbands are bumbling fools married to women who wear the pants in the relationship.

However, many guys cannot.

Raymond is just one example of an assembly line of television shows and movies in the past decade or two where a weak and/or inexplicably stupid man is dating or married to a strong and/or inexplicably intelligent woman.

It’s little wonder why I see men in clothing stores holding purses and men in video stores carrying some random chick flick.

To them, fiction (TV and movies) is reality.

#3: We are Living in a Metrosexual World and I am a Metrosexual Girl. Err, I Mean Boy

Believe it or not, just a decade ago (give or take a few years) there weren’t personal care products tailored to guys.

Back in the day, we didn’t have shampoos made specifically for men. We could use Head & Shoulders, Pert Plus, or we could use one of the hundreds of women’s shampoos that smelled like fruits and flowers.

Today, there are shampoos and conditioners specifically made for guys.

Back in the day, there was no such thing as men’s moisturizer. We had after shave, which either came in liquid form (i.e. the kind packed with alcohol that set your face on fire) or lotion (i.e. the “cooling” kind that still set your face on fire). The notion of a men’s moisturizer product that improved the quality of a guy’s skin and helped prevent or treat wrinkles was insane.

Today, there are all sorts of men’s moisturizers for every skin type. Want SPF protection in your moisturizer? They have it. Want something to help with dark circles under your eyes? It exists. Want one type of moisturizer in the mornings and another type in the evening before going to bed? Then it’s a great time to be a guy, my friend.

And then you’ve got body washes. And body sprays. And body powder made specifically for men. And two hundred brands of razors to help us achieve the perfect shave.

And so on.

And so on.

And so on.

I’m not saying these things are bad. I’m just saying they are a recently-new development.

Personally, I like having a shampoo and conditioner that doesn’t smell like tropical gardens. I like using body wash instead of unscented Ivory bar soap or bars of Irish Spring. I like having an after-shave moisturizer with SPF protection in it so my face doesn’t look 60 when it’s 40.

I like all that.

But the problem is way, way, WAY too many guys don’t know where to draw the line.

They get pedicures and manicures.

They spend $60 or more to get their hair cut.

They wear body lotion.

(Guys should never wear body lotion. They just shouldn’t. Those who do are just one step away from shaving their legs. And unless you’re an Olympic swimmer, there’s never a good reason for a guy to ever do such a thing.)

Anyway, I guess I’m saying that while some of these things are okay, for the most part it’s gotten out of hand. Guys of today find themselves living in a world where there is an implied expectation to primp themselves much the same way women do.

Show me a man who gets pedicures and I’ll show you a man who is one medical procedure or blujean-zipper accident away from being 100% woman.

These are just a few of my theories. What do all of you think? Is Eastwood right? What happened to men? Do any of you ladies in the audience actually prefer one of these spineless or metrosexual types? If yes, I’d love to hear why.

As always, feel free to leave a comment or two or ten. Oh, and for those curious as to my current body wash of choice (you know you are), here it is. It smells like baseball, but without the beer.