Man UP! The Path To Compassionate Masculinity
As a man, I am keenly aware that masculinity seems to be having quite a cultural moment. In a recent interview, Facebook CEO and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg argued that corporate culture has become “neutered” through diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, insisting that corporate America has lost its masculine energy. Influencers like Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes became bastions for an ever-growing online culture of unapologetic misogyny and far-right conceptions of gender roles. The re-election of Donald Trump signaled a concretizing of these values at the federal level, with young men swinging right to fulfill an essential role in securing his win. Shortly after, “Your body, my choice” exploded across social media, with full-throated threats of violence against women flooding the digital zeitgeist with force.
Connected to this cultural resurgence of toxic masculinity is the reality that men are unwell. We are four times more likely than women to die by suicide, with our suicide rate reaching a record-breaking peak in 2022. We are statistically more likely to lack close friends, die prematurely, and struggle to develop romantic relationships. One in five of us are either not looking for companionship or are “unable to find a sexual partner” altogether. Incels who subscribe to norms of toxic masculinity thrive off of a self-pitying disposition, using these findings as a factual basis to condemn society for its unfair treatment of men. Often, those condemnations fall squarely on the shoulders of women, with men blaming the women in their lives for the disparities to which they are beholden.
Who is to blame for this masculinity debacle? I believe one culprit behind the problem is the online discourse surrounding masculinity. There are several ways in which toxic masculinity continues to be societally upheld online even by those who would call themselves advocates against it. Any time a man in an online video demonstrates behavior or mannerisms or dress that isn’t considered traditionally masculine, the comments––from both homophobes and progressives alike––immediately jump to speculations about his sexuality.
Comment feeds full of “denial is a river in Egypt” and the indomitable new favorite descriptor “zesty” stunt the freedom for men to be anything except, ironically, what we don’t actually want them to be: toxically masculine. These comments, while often comedic, belie a pernicious belief that men must fit a specific mold of masculinity in order to be validated. They deny the existence of bisexual men and straight men who are simply not traditionally masculine, pretending instead that any man with perceptively feminine qualities must be gay––that there is no other description that could possibly fit them. This ultimately perpetuates the harmful paradigm of toxic masculinity, making men feel as though they cannot have flexible gender boundaries while still maintaining their individual masculine identity.
This upholding is not isolated to the online world. In real life, we are frequently discouraged from being vulnerable and emotionally intimate, especially with each other. Male friendships are often characterized by an avoidance of emotional expression. With homophobia underscoring this, men who are insecure in their sexuality are quick to aggressively avoid or reject expressions of love commonly seen in female friendships. As a result, male friendships typically offer minimal emotional support or bonding, instead relegating connection to the strict spheres of shared hobbies and activities with little to no profound conversation. As a result, we commonly know very little about the mental health and emotional wellbeing of each other.
When I talk to other men about this, the kneejerk response is usually one of defense. Being manly means being independent, I’ve heard. It’s weird to be that close to each other, they say. Even if you don’t peddle these retorts, I imagine you are connected to men in your life who do. This leads to my next point, a point which may be harsh but bears value in considering: solving the problem of toxic masculinity––and its collective consequences, which harm both men and women––ultimately falls to us as men. We are responsible for this. We don’t get to structure a society in which we hold the majority of power, make the majority of institutional decisions, strip other genders of the majority of their bodily autonomy and societal authority, and then complain when the burdens of that inequality begin to harm us. We don’t get to refuse help-seeking, tamp down our feelings and emotions, make fun of each other for being vulnerable, sensitive, or soft, and then complain when we don’t want to live anymore.
As a solution, we need to talk to each other. We need to ask one another how we’re doing, offering shoulders to cry on and activities to do together to relieve the challenges of loneliness plaguing our generation and, more specifically, our gender. We also need to go to therapy, which is something we can choose to do even if we aren’t depressed or anxious. Therapy can help us unpack underlying issues we may not even be conscious of––issues which damage our ability to connect with each other and develop empathy. Still, most men in my life maintain an aversion to therapy, even and especially when they would benefit from it. Consequently, many of them instead rely upon women for emotional intimacy, support, and lessons in empathy––a reliance which infantilizes men and consigns women as the arbiters of male problems. This reliance outsources the responsibility for a man’s wellbeing and emotional maturity to everyone else, and what could possibly be more unmanly than being irresponsible for yourself?
We have control over how we define masculinity. We get to decide what being a man means. And it is increasingly frustrating to me to watch my male peers inherit and perpetuate a tradition of masculinity which turns scared boys into furious, vengeful men. This does not serve us well. We could be sincerely good and masculine, but accomplishing this balance requires us to redefine what masculinity means to us. The unhealthy conception of masculinity both historically and contemporaneously derives its validity from an oppressive, violent power differential in which all other genders fall underneath men. In this case, masculinity thrives off of domination, control, and anger. But what if it thrived off of something else? What if it thrived off of protecting others, sensibly controlling our own emotions, and being brave enough to be vulnerable? What if masculinity took the shape of involved and gentle fathers, connective and humble spouses, and emotionally sensitive and caring male friends?
This kind of masculinity was modeled to me first by a young men’s leader in the laboratory of a Mormon ward in small-town Hurricane, Utah. This animal biologist for the Division of Wildlife Resources––with feet perennially lodged in dusty Chacos and a penchant for telling each of us boys that he loved us––presented a foreign image of manliness to me. He had a soft spot for wildlife, once tearfully moving out of the road the carcass of a snake he accidentally ran over while driving us to a campout. He stressed rules of environmental consciousness, insisting that we “leave no trace” and “pack out what we pack in.” He encouraged us to speak respectfully of women and girls. He was forthcoming about his own mental health challenges. He cared deeply about us and verbally expressed it often. I was enthralled by the masculinity he embodied––gentle, protective, proactive, respectful, kind. To me, he became an exemplar of a form of masculinity that felt good and healthy. It is the kind of masculinity that I strive to embody, a type of masculinity that I would call compassionate masculinity.
I concede that defining masculinity seems an impossible feat, because it is not a one-size-fits-all paradigm. Masculinity is pluralistic and individual, and people of all genders have a role in defining what it looks like. It’s important, however, for men specifically to reject patriarchal masculinity, which exists at the oppression, mistreatment, and abuse of others and ourselves. Building one’s identity off of this iteration of masculinity is pathetic and unfulfilling. The chief responsibility of supplanting this behavior with healthier modes of masculine expression must fall to those who created and perpetuated the worst versions of masculinity in the first place––and that would be men.
For some thoughtful men, these issues are obvious, yet they still avoid having difficult conversations. They still dodge conversations with the friend who is mentally unwell. They’re still hesitant to have a conversion with another guy when he objectifies a woman. But men who are cognizant of this problem and want to fix it have an essential responsibility to replace antiquated and harmful notions of masculinity. We cannot be flippant about this. Because toxically masculine men rarely value the insights or perspectives of women, it is up to other forward-thinking men to do the hard work of initiating difficult conversations with the other men in their lives in order to fully remove the chokehold of patriarchal masculinity.
The path forward for masculinity is not in Zuckerberg’s melodramatic fear of emasculation through diversity initiatives, nor is it found in Tate’s deplorable treatment of women or Trump’s Christo-nationalistic arrogance. It’s not about being the most threatening or the most domineering. These approaches have tyrannized us and harmed the people in our lives time and time again, and why would we hold on to them when we have better, healthier, and more loving alternatives? We, as the problem, are also the solution, so let’s take responsibility for who we are and what we mean when we say we are men.