“Crises are also catalysts:” When gender progress challenges traditional masculinities, what are the opportunities for equity and healing?
Christine Emba
The last 10 years have witnessed the rise of the “manosphere” online, where internet personalities ranging from psychologist Jordan Peterson to alleged human trafficker Andrew Tate argue that modern men have gone wrong—usually, that men are not masculine “enough” in powerful or traditional ways. Such influencers often rely on domination-centered visions of masculinity which devalue women and queer people.
Many feminists point to the proliferation of misogynist masculinities as evidence of backlash to the power changes brought about by feminism. However, it is also true that men, especially in the Global North, experience material struggles in economic security and educational attainment measured against historical benchmarks and sometimes in comparison to women.
In a recent installment of the Institute’s Clayman Conversations series moderated by psychologist and Postdoctoral Fellow Angelica Ferrara on October 15, panelists debated: Is masculinity in crisis? Whose crisis is it? This conversation convened UC Santa Barbara Professor of Sociology Tristan Bridges; staff writer at The Atlantic Christine Emba; and Equimundo Director of Research, Evaluation and Learning Taveeshi Gupta.
Experts differed on the parameters and validity of the “crisis” framing. Bridges argued that a “crisis” model assumes that masculinity has been a single and stable point of reference, when in fact the “crisis of masculinity” discourse is long-term and ongoing. Bridges attributed the crisis to masculinity’s nature as a status which can exist only through inequality between masculinity and other genders. Instead, he described the emotional experience of crisis as closely tied to the increasing acceptability of naming social privilege:
“[Masculinity] doesn’t stop you from benefitting from privilege, but it absolutely alters the experience of privilege,” said Bridges, “if it stops being as invisible as it once was to the people who benefit the most...that’s what we’re living through right now.” Gupta also argued that masculinity’s ongoing tensions inhere to hierarchies built on gender. When feminists, trans people, and queer people push against this inequality, those invested in masculinity might feel emotionally threatened.
Feminists might not be compelled by the narrative of lost patriarchal power that more extreme online personalities propound. However, according to Emba, the pressure on long-used scripts for masculine maturity and achievement may contribute to the very real crisis in men’s mental health. While loneliness may be a global crisis, Emba noted, men have accounted for three-quarters of “deaths of despair” (including suicide and alcohol or drug-use-related deaths) in recent decades. Younger men increasingly retrench to patriarchal beliefs and also, according to Emba’s field experience with young American men, feel like unstable models of masculinity leave them without a clear path to successful adulthood. She argued that masculinity’s crisis emerged from ongoing transformations in gender norms.
This potential threat to both social scripts and wellbeing for men may speak to the ways patriarchy harms men and boys, such as a lack of male role models among the adults who boys regularly encounter—teachers, nurses, childcare providers—because such feminized care labor is often underpaid for all workers and stigmatized for masculine ones. At the same time, Emba argued, deindustrialization and other factors have reduced the labor market advantage of working-class men (especially Black men and other men of color) relative to other genders.
Bridges differed on this point, noting that “the connection between masculinity and wage labor is a problematic framework...Boys and young men are scared that they’re not going to be able to live up to this ideal; economies are changing that are making it less possible.” Rather than looking to higher wages for men to shore up masculine self-conceptions, can changing our ideas about gender and earning power release pressure on men while supporting greater gender equity in work?
All panelists agreed that the potential crisis of masculinity offers an opportunity for all genders to rethink which gendered scripts and norms work and which can be reimagined for a more successful future. Emba said, “The framing of ‘a crisis of masculinity’ makes it sound very bad and very dire—and there are very bad and very dire things that feel like they’re happening to men in terms of material loss, stagnation of wages—but crises are also catalysts. The crisis might be a very important space to reinvent norms.” The time to model alternative masculinities is now, she said.
Bridges advocated for attention to the “margins” of masculinity, including queer and trans masculine people, for examples of masculinities that define themselves in opposition to traditions of patriarchal dominance. Gupta’s work demonstrates the point directly: men of color in the U.S. often invest in more flexible caregiving arrangements with heterosexual partners that create economic solutions, affirming men’s value beyond the provider ideal and supporting greater gender equity.
Change often occurs in small crises of gender development, too. Citing Michael Flood’s work, Gupta noted that men were most open to adopting healthier models of masculinity when they faced major life changes like getting married or becoming fathers.
Proactive programs like those run by the U.N. and Equimundo, according to Gupta, can work to replace harmful models of masculinity that old traditions or new social media offer to boys and young men. Panelists proposed possible alternative models of masculinity, such as encouraging men to prefer empathy over dominance in their relationships and to ease the stress of the provider role by sharing economic responsibilities with female partners—solutions which could support gender equity, reduce gendered violence, and nurture men’s wellbeing. Despite the significant risks that traditional masculine norms pose to men’s wellbeing, Gupta’s research also shows that alignment with traditional forms of masculinity often corresponds with men’s sense of purpose. Trying on new masculinities can challenge that sense of purpose. She said, “The desire to go toward what feels known and what feels comfortable and what sits within what you know is so much easier, so one thing I’ll say is that we need compassion.”
Regardless of the “crisis” label, this period of gender instability might actually be an opportunity to remodel gender relations for the future, according to panelists. Can this moment of tension over masculinity’s validity and viability actually create opportunities for a more just gendered world?
