Being a real man when masculinity is discouraged
It seems like there is a slow push to discourage masculinity. Yet, masculine ideals have arisen independently in various cultures, separating the boys from the men.
James Cameron, the producer of the vegan documentary The Game Changers which seeks to show that veganism is extra healthy because vegan athletes …exist, has said that testosterone is a “toxin that you have to slowly work out of your system.” Cameron talked about several risks he took as a “wild, testosterone-poisoned young man.” Ironically, it was probably the willingness to take such risks that allowed Cameron to become a wildly successful Hollywood director now worth $700 Million.
The funny thing is this reminds me a lot of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appearance in The Game Changers. In the film, Arnold reflects back on his bodybuilding days, saying: “I ate a lot of meat — I ate my 10, 15 eggs a day. I had my 250 grams of protein in a day because I weighed 250 pounds.” After that diet created his physique that was the backbone for his success as the most popular body builder of all time and the best paid actor (at times), he speaks of himself as a misguided youth who didn’t understand you could get all your protein without meat and eggs.
Is it no longer OK to ‘be a man’ anymore?
Nowadays it seems like there is a slow and persistent push against masculinity. It’s hard to put your finger on because it’s hard to point at one thing and say ‘there it is! There’s the attack on masculinity!’ When I was doing a bit of digging for some concrete proof of this anti-masculinity phenomenon, I found a November 2021 article by NPR titled Sen. Josh Hawley claims masculinity is under attack. This historian disagrees. It starts with this Josh Hawley pointing out that American men are working less, getting married less often, having less children, suffering more anxiety and depression and engaging in more substance abuse. For one reason or another, they’re checking out of carrying the burdens men before us willingly took on.
Quote from the article:
Hawley said he did not want to paint all men as victims. But he blamed the left for wanting to define "traditional masculine virtues" like courage, independence and assertiveness as "a danger to society."
"Can we be surprised that after years of being told they are the problem, that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness, and pornography, and video games?" he said at one point.
I’m not sure where exactly he draws these ideas from, but I have to say it kind of does seem that men are being lead to believe that something about them is problematic. The article included comments from Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a gender studies professor at Calvin University.
Traditional masculine virtues are in the service of white Christian nationalism, Du Mez argues. She described Hawley's language as "militant" and said militancy does sanction violence, something that would also resonate with much of his base.
So it would seem the message here is that language that supports traditional masculine virtues is in the service of “white Christian nationalism” and ‘sanctions violence.’
A 2019 American Psychological Association article reads:
APA’s new ‘Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Boys and Men’ … draws on more than 40 years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.
To be fair, the article also says:
It’s also important to encourage pro-social aspects of masculinity, says McDermott. In certain circumstances, traits like stoicism and self-sacrifice can be absolutely crucial, he says. But the same tough demeanor that might save a soldier’s life in a war zone can destroy it at home with a romantic partner or child.
The idea that the very concept of masculinity being a sensitive topic that could be ‘harmful’ to people is echoed even in OpenAI’s recently released language model ChatGPT.
In any case, I think the rise of people like Jordan Peterson and more recently, Andrew Tate, is evidence that young men feel disenfranchised nowadays. Simply put, if it was the norm for men to be encouraged to be masculine manly men, why would they flock to Youtube videos for encouragement?
Andrew Tate is a very controversial figure who was banned from most all internet platforms - Twitter, Facebook, Instagram … even AirBnB and some payment processing companies closed his accounts. More recently, he’s been detained in Bucharest on suspicion of running an “organized crime group.” He’s been widely accused of being a misogynist, though at the same time many young men see him as a source of inspiration for bettering their lives. Apparently his first claim to notoriety was in 2017 when he tweeted
“You feel sad, you move on.
You will always be depressed if your life is depressing.”
Big names like J.K. Rowling and Patton Oswalt chimed in to denounce Tate’s position.
I imagine Tate’s perspective may be inspiring for some, but others may feel like they’re being attacked: ‘don’t be a fucking pussy. Man up.’
‘Man up, you’re not depressed, don’t act sad, don’t cry, don’t show weakness’ - While it might seem intense depending on the context, courage, independence and assertiveness are by no means limited to ‘white Christian Nationalism.’ From the Truk islanders who prove their manliness through willingness to fight to the Samburu who prove themselves through economic self-sufficiency and productivity, none of the peoples studied in anthropologist David Gilmore’s 1990 book would encourage men to show their “vulnerable emotions.”
In his book titled Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity, he tries to answer the question: What does it mean to “be a man” in different cultures around the world? The blurb on the back of the book says:
David G. Gilmore finds that a culturally sanctioned stress on manliness—on toughness and aggressiveness, stoicism and sexuality—is almost universal, deeply ingrained in the consciousness of hunters and fishermen, workers and warriors, poets and peasants who have little else in common.
Gilmore explores several different cultures to get an understanding for how ideals of “manliness” arise. Let’s take a look at how some of the different cultures presented in Gilmore’s book view masculinity and what they think it ‘takes’ to be a man.
Lessons from other cultures
1. Masculinity requires proof
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