Why Americans struggle over the future of masculinity
| New York
When Roberta Chevrette explores the idea of a 鈥渃risis in masculinity鈥� with her students, she鈥檒l often have them analyze some of the cartoons that proliferated in the early 20th century as the suffrage movement began to gain momentum.
Some of the cartoons making political speeches, sexualizing their appearance with the caption 鈥渙nly a figure of speech.鈥� images depict women smoking cigars and playing cards in a backroom while a visibly frustrated man in the next room washes clothes and holds a crying child. 鈥淣otice to fathers: wash your shirts with Sud鈥檚 soap.鈥�
Another depicts a sketch of a girl brandishing a rolling pin, glaring at a startled and confused young boy: 鈥淵ou believe in women鈥檚 suffrage 鈥� don鈥檛 you?鈥�
Why We Wrote This
鈥淐risis鈥� rhetoric along with ideas of masculine toughness has recurred throughout American history. Some thinkers are looking beyond political point-scoring to how to address underlying social strains. Part 1: The men who find 鈥渢oxic masculinity,鈥� well, toxic.
鈥淭here is a certain power in these rhetorical tools, which say, 鈥極h, hey, no, women鈥檚 rights? That means that men will be oppressed or somehow feminized,鈥欌�� says Dr. Chevrette, professor of rhetoric, intercultural communication, and gender studies at Middle Tennessee State University.
Similar ideas of a crisis in masculinity emerged as a second wave of battles over women鈥檚 rights emerged along with the civil rights movement. 鈥淪o in the 1970s and 鈥�80s, for example, when U.S. women made major legal victories, the idea that 鈥榤anly鈥� feminists were gaining too much power and demasculinizing men again gained popularity,鈥� she says.聽聽
A global phenomenon
In many ways, similar anxieties animate a revival of聽crisis rhetoric today, she and other scholars point out, not only in the United States but also around the world. While conservative thinkers and populist leaders today focus less on the expanding rights and social roles of women, many have decried what they call the left鈥檚 鈥済ender ideology,鈥� which they perceive as deconstructing the biological differences between men and women and defining masculinity itself as聽鈥渢oxic.鈥�
Government officials in China last year banned media depictions of so-called in pop culture, which many blame in part on Western gender values. They鈥檝e also cracked down on the number of hours children spend playing video games and have committed to a renewed focus on sports education in order to 鈥減revent men from becoming too feminine.鈥�
Populist leaders such as Brazil鈥檚 Jair Bolsonaro and Hungary鈥檚 鈥嬧�媀iktor Orb谩n have also caused by the 鈥済ender ideologies鈥� of the left. Prime Minister Orb谩n has taken steps to ban gender studies programs in the country鈥檚 universities, 鈥減eople are born either male or female, and we do not consider it acceptable for us to talk about socially-constructed genders, rather than biological sexes.鈥�
Attacks on traditional ideas of masculinity threaten not only the civic vigor of a society, but also聽a nation鈥檚 ability to compete with others and defend itself from dangers, these leaders say.
鈥淭he left want to define traditional masculinity as toxic,鈥� Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said in to the National Conservatism Conference last fall. 鈥淭hey want to define the traditional masculine virtues 鈥� things like courage and independence and assertiveness 鈥� as a danger to society.鈥�
鈥淭he problem with the left鈥檚 assault on the masculine virtues is that those self-same qualities, the very ones the left now vilify as dangerous and toxic, have long been regarded as vital to self-government,鈥� said Senator Hawley, who has become one of the most outspoken conservative leaders to proclaim that American men are in a crisis. 鈥淥bservers from the ancient Romans to our forefathers identified the manly virtues as indispensable for political liberty.鈥�
Goal of reviving manly virtues
The idea of 鈥渕anly virtues鈥� can easily be caricatured and made into a silly, cartoonish nostalgia for bygone eras, says Casey Chalk, a conservative in Virginia. He鈥檚 also been concerned by what he sees as 鈥渢he weird extremes鈥� of a militaristic machismo and obsession with guns that men on the far-right express online.
鈥淔rom a classical perspective, and certainly as someone who subscribes to the Catholic tradition, I believe men and women flourish when they鈥檙e participating in the same pursuit of cardinal virtues,鈥� says Mr. Chalk, who did civilian work in Afghanistan as a Persian language specialist for the Department of Defense. 鈥淏ut males are naturally more aggressive, and they need outlets that will help direct that physical or sexual aggression in ways that are socially productive,鈥� he says.
In that sense, he says, men need to rediscover the virtues of being a gentleman, a special moral discipline that can both channel and control the innate biological drives and special sociological roles of men.聽
鈥淚 think there is a real sense in which men do, you know, eagerly want to be able to be viewed as brave and strong 鈥� not necessarily even physically, but even temperamentally and psychologically,鈥� Mr. Chalk says. 鈥淭hey want to be protectors; they want to be able to defend their family and, more broadly, their way of life.鈥�
But ideological pressures are only part of the current crisis, leaders like Senator Hawley say. Neoliberal policies of deindustrialization have cost working-class jobs, causing a crisis of idleness that then exacerbates problematic addictions to pornography and video games.
鈥淎merican men are working less, getting married in fewer numbers,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e fathering fewer children. They are suffering more anxiety and depression. They are engaging in more substance abuse鈥� 鈥� startling data that thinkers on both the right and left have observed with growing alarm.
But conservative thinkers such as David French and others have echoed concerns on the left about Some of the crisis rhetoric has led to an avalanche of threats directed toward public officials and even stoked the kind of rage behind the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 not just Twitter trolling,鈥� 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just posturing online anymore. It鈥檚 the logic of a movement centered around aggression divorced from virtue that indulges in apocalyptic rhetoric.鈥�
The historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez, however, also points out that this kind of crisis rhetoric along with ideas of masculine toughness and aggression has recurred throughout American history, especially within white evangelical Protestant subcultures, in which the idea of 海角大神 manhood evolved to be seen in rugged, militant terms.
鈥淧art of this definition of masculinity, this kind of rugged masculinity, is the kind masculinity that [Donald] Trump embodies for the right,鈥� says Dr. Du Mez, author of 鈥淛esus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation.鈥� 鈥淚t isn鈥檛 primarily physical strength, but it is a kind of ruthlessness. It is the willingness to do what needs to be done regardless of democratic norms, regardless of traditional civility.鈥�
鈥淭his is kind of taken from the authoritarian playbook,鈥� says Dr. Du Mez, professor of history at Calvin University in Michigan. 鈥淲ith such stark gender differences, women are to be very quote-unquote 鈥榝eminine,鈥� women are vulnerable and need to be protected, and so it鈥檚 the strong, masculine men who have a God-given obligation to stand up and defend their women, defend their culture, and that violence may be necessary.鈥�
But American rhetoric surrounding a 鈥渃risis in masculinity鈥� also recurred in places such as the 1965 Moynihan Report, says Brandon Manning, professor of at Texas 海角大神 University in Fort Worth.聽
鈥淗is report talked about the legacy of slavery and its impact into the latter part of the 20th century, but it also said that Black communities were going to keep struggling because of a growing matriarchy in those spaces,鈥� Dr. Manning says. 鈥淎nd so, essentially, he was doing a similar kind of call to action for men to take their rightful places 鈥� as well as an admonishment of Black women.鈥�
鈥淭he family is meant to reflect and reverberate into political structures, educational structures, and such,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f masculine ideals are not exercised at home, then everything else is kind of, within this logic, out of whack, in a space of disarray.鈥澛�
Economy of 鈥渂rains not brawn鈥�
But such ideas about biological sex and gender have evolved within a much larger sweep of cultural and technological change, says Gloria Feldt, co-founder and president of Take the Lead, a women鈥檚 in Manhattan.聽
鈥淚n today鈥檚 economy that is based on brains not brawn ... the kind of masculinity some men yearn for isn鈥檛 even functional anymore, if it ever was,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd it is toxic because it鈥檚 rooted in inequality.鈥�
鈥淚n reality, gender is a social construct and power is like a hammer,鈥� Ms. Feldt continues. 鈥淵ou can build with it or destroy with it. ... Those men who understand, as women typically do, that the resources that matter now 鈥� intelligence, innovation, empathy, for example 鈥� also understand that the world will be healthier, happier, and more prosperous with greater equality in leadership roles.鈥�
On one level, there have been numerous efforts to encourage men to break out of聽limiting models of masculinity聽and encourage emotional vulnerability and expressiveness.聽
Others such as Andrew Yang, the entrepreneur and former Democratic presidential aspirant, have outlined a greater commitment to vocational education, national-service programs, and marriage counseling to address the growing economic struggles that many middle-class and working-class men are facing, along with increasing levels of opioid addiction and suicide.
鈥淗ere鈥檚 the simple truth I鈥檝e heard from many men,鈥� Mr. Yang . 鈥淲e need to be needed. We imagine ourselves as builders, soldiers, workers, brothers 鈥� part of something bigger than ourselves.鈥�
Second of two parts.聽Part 1: Why these men find the phrase 鈥榯oxic masculinity,鈥� well, toxic
