[This originally appeared on the Mars Hill Church blog]

I was originally assigned the task of looking at advice on how to be a man from a men’s magazine. Problem is, there wasn't any.

Esquire's June/July 2010 issue was called How to Be a Man. Appropriate. With a title that declarative and a tagline of “Man at His Best,” I was anxious to comb through it to see what they had to say about manhood. With a base circulation of 700,000 and competition like GQ, Maxim, and Details, Esquire is arguably one of the largest and most influential men’s magazines in the world. They've got to know what they're talking about, right? Esquire’s website describes their audience as "the affluent and successful man." Should be exactly what I'm shooting for here.

With Irony As Our Guide

[This article orginally appeared on The Resurgence]

He can be sweet, bitter, nostalgic, or cynical, but he cannot figure out how to be a man. - Hanna Rosin

There has been significant attention in the media recently about changing roles between men and women; most notably in The Atlantic, Slate, and The New York Times (Interestingly each written by women). One of the major themes in this trend is the rise of two things: The Omega Male and women who don't need them.

Jay Z and 50 face off after the Kanye fall out continues. Jay Z makes the comment that if 50 was stage when Kanye came up he still would’ve did the same thing because “Ain’t no one scared of 50.” This of course started a whole “battle of words” between the two artists. 50 couldn’t just sit and let Jay Z talk about him, right? 50 had to get back and protect his name, right? Or was it deeper than that? Is a man’s name all he really has? You can read that article here.

What is even more an issue here is the hyper male posturing that continues to dominate Hip Hop, but even more, give young males the idea that to “be a man” you need to call someone out. Manhood representations in Hip Hop are looked at in one of several ways:

• Representing
• Maintaining your own
• Power
• “Providing” for your woman
• Being tough
• Avoiding face loss