In two previous posts (Part 1 here, and Part 2 here), I have discussed the recent work about divergent political attitudes between young men and young women. The TL:DR version of that: loss of status, and lack of economic opportunity, breeds resentment. But this also has qualitative aspects: what does ‘good masculinity’ look like?
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My starting point here is a long article about masculinity in the Washington Post from last year by Christine Emba. The usual discourse around masculinity, if it’s not immediately linked to the word ‘toxic’, is about a current “crisis of masculinity”, and Emba uses some of this language here as well. She starts with some notes about some of the men in her broader social circle:
They struggled to relate to women. They didn’t have enough friends. They lacked long-term goals. Some guys — including ones I once knew — just quietly disappeared, subsumed into video games and porn or sucked into the alt-right and the web of misogynistic communities known as the “manosphere.”
And she frames her question around an anecdote from a doctoral student at an American Ivy League university:
“I had this kid show up — well, I say ‘kid,’ but he’s an undergraduate here. I mentor them sometimes. He came over to my house and asked me if we could speak privately.”… “And the first question this kid asked me is just … ‘What the heck does good masculinity look like?’”…“And I’ll be honest with you: I did not have an answer for that.”
Struggling with masculinity
Emba acknowledges that this is may not be a new concern. In 1835, Washington Irving complained about the lack of “manliness” on young American men. In 1958, Arthur Schlesinger wrote that “something has gone badly wrong with the American male’s conception of himself.”
All the same, there’s some well-trodden socio-economic ground as to why men might be struggling with masculinity right now, mostly to do with the decline of manufacturing, the rise of ‘soft’ skills in the the workplace, and the educational performance of women relative to men in schools and universities.
This has consequences for relationships as well:
Last summer, a Psychology Today article caused a stir online by pointing out that “dating opportunities for heterosexual men are diminishing as relationship standards rise.” No longer dependent on marriage as a means to financial security or even motherhood (a growing number of women are choosing to create families by themselves, with the help of reproductive technology), women are “increasingly selective,” leading to a rise in lonely, single young men.
Cut loose from identity
Look around you, of course, and men still seem to be doing pretty well. The number of women CEOs, for example, is tiny. But Emba is more interested in the men who don’t have access to money and influence:
(M)illions of men lack access to that kind of power and success — and, downstream, cut loose from a stable identity as patriarchs deserving of respect, they feel demoralized and adrift. The data show it, but so does the general mood.
It’s a long article, and she lays this ground carefully enough, but for reasons of space here you’ll have to take it more or less on trust. As she says, old models are unreachable or not socially acceptable. New ones are still emerging.
Regressive gender politics
And some of the models that are emerging are problematic, associated with a regressive gender politics championed by people such as Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate. She’s not a fan of Peterson, but she acknowledges that he fills a gap:
The rules aren’t particularly unique: Get fit, pick up a skill, talk to women instead of watching porn all day. But if instruction is lacking elsewhere, even basic tips (“Clean your room!” Peterson famously advises) feel like a revelation.
And she also notes that
the approach of these male models is both particular and aspirational.
There’s quite a lot more of this in the right-wing political space. She namechecks a video by the former Fox TV host Tucker Carlson and Josh Hawley’s recent book Manhood. These versions of masculinity tip quite quickly into misogyny, and then into the wilder conspiracy theories of the New World Order. It is a masculinity
defined solely in opposition to women — or to the gains of feminism, more specifically.
‘Traditional masculinity is harmful’
However, as the American Psychological Association said in 2018, in its “Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men,” this form of traditional masculinity is not good for one’s physical or mental health:
“traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.” The guidelines suggest that “there is a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence.”
One of the issues here is that progressive politics has focussed—not wrongly—on dealing with gender disadvantage. This may have had unintended consequences:
What ends up happening is that, if women are still seen as needing tools to overcome disadvantage, men are often expected to just shape up by themselves… it’s surprisingly acceptable for those on the left to victim-blame men who are struggling themselves.
The risk factor
And this might also explain why quite a lot of the writing on this question ends at the diagnosis stage. It’s politically difficult to do more. Richard Reeves, whose book Of Boys and Men is quite a significant contribution to this landscape, acknowledges as much in an interview with Emba. As he also tells her:
“As soon as you start articulating virtues, advantages, good things about being male … then you’ve just dialed up the risk factor of the conversation,” he said. “But I’m also acutely aware that the risk of not doing it is much greater. Because without it, there’s a vacuum. And along comes Andrew Tate to make Jordan Peterson look like a cuddly old uncle.”[1]
Some notes on what those virtues might be pop up in fragments in her interviews. Scott Galloway suggests that “Real men protect other people.” Reeves’ recipe is similar, if a lot blander: “proactiveness, agency, risk-taking and courage, but with a pro-social cast.”
Distinctive characteristics
Some of the young men Emba spoke to could also describe characteristics they admired, but thought these would be mis-represented:
Physical strength came up frequently, as did a desire for personal mastery. They cited adventurousness, leadership, problem-solving, dignity and sexual drive. None of these are negative traits, but many men I spoke with felt that these archetypes were unfairly stigmatized: Men were too assertive, too boisterous, too horny.
These characteristics are shaped by biology, to some extent, or specifically by testosterone. Biology isn’t destiny, of course, but she suggests that a new model of masculinity will need to incorporate some of the distinctive characteristics of men. Emba again:
In my ideal, the mainstream could embrace a model that acknowledges male particularity and difference but doesn’t denigrate women to do so. It’s a vision of gender that’s not androgynous but still equal, and relies on character , not just biology. And it acknowledges that certain themes — protector, provider, even procreator — still resonate with many men and should be worked with, not against.
Trying to undermine patriarchy has left a gap that needs to be filled in a way that doesn’t try to re-instal patriarchal values. But it is going to be a slow process. Changes in social values take decades.
Footnote
[1] Andrew Tate gets too much airtime in these discussions, usually as evidence that his toxic version of masculinity is product of ‘too much feminism’. But Martha Gill looked at some of the international evidence for this and concluded that the more toxic versions are seen in countries where women have made less progress, not more.
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Hat tip to the Dense Discovery newsletter for pointing me to the Christine Emba article.
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A version of this article was first published on my Just Two Things Newsletter.
the next wave 