In 2024, International Men’s Day is particularly important, because all around the world masculinity is under attack. It feels like it’s never been this bad; like you can’t even claim to be masculine anymore without being told you’re a part of the problem. One might even argue that masculinity itself is beginning to be equated with wrongdoing.
It’s happening everywhere – in the United States, in Australia, Romania, and, even in France.
In the United States this year, masculinity was attacked when prosecutors went after an entertainment legend, simply because he leant into his masculinity. In Australia, a powerful man – a titan of his industry – was brought to his knees because he chose not to deny his masculine inclinations. In Romania, a judge attacked the most famous advocate of masculinity itself, and detained him in prison. And, finally, in a case that beggars belief, the extremes of masculinity were challenged in France, by a 72-year-old woman by the name of Gisèle Pelicot, who will seemingly stop at nothing to redefine what it means to be a man.
Masculinity is under attack. Finally. The characteristics of it, the definition of it, the validity of it and, ultimately, its very place in our modern society.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, Alan Jones, Andrew Tate and 51 men who allegedly raped an unconscious woman while her husband filmed their abuse are all learning that their definition of masculinity is broken.
But, while public dissent rings aloud about the extremes of masculinity, there are signs that not all is as it seems. A man found liable for the rape of a woman, who cheated on all of his wives and boasted about grabbing women between the legs – simply because he could – was just elected leader of the free world.
Why?
There are many interpretations of masculinity – and every person will define it differently. But, no matter yours, it’s a word, and a definition, that is completely made up – like all of the words that we use.
Masculinity is an idea. A belief. A mental image, if you will, of an imaginary figure we will never meet, painted in our minds by the experiences we’ve each had in life. You will find no two opinions on masculinity that are, if they are honest, the same. When you drill into it, masculinity to each of us is simply as we’ve experienced the male figures in our life who left an impression.
For you, masculinity might be muscles, or tattoos, or beards. It might be a special kind of laughter, or the strong, hairy arms, that lovingly wrapped themselves around you when you cried. It might be a deep voice that offers you reassuring words of encouragement when you most need them. It might be picking you up at 3am when you’ve had a fight with a friend, not once making you feel like you shouldn’t have called. It might be teaching you how to ride a bike.
Masculinity might be any number of wonderful things to you. And, if it is, I want to tell you just how lucky you are to have experienced the good side of masculinity. Because, it has a bad side.
I’ve always believed that the best measure of a person’s character is found in the actions they take when nobody is watching – when nobody will know what they’ve done. It’s called moral fortitude, and it’s how we judge most of the people in our lives. Think about the best people in your life – the ones you know do what’s right even when nobody’s watching.
Now apply that same test to the men in your life, or just men in general. Think about what they say in front of women, and behind their backs. Think about the ‘innocent’ jokes they tell, but stop telling when a child walks in. Think about the boys trips they go on, and ask yourself if they would say the same things to women as they say to other men. Every woman on earth has, at some point in her life, experienced this when she’s walked into a room full of men who suddenly go quiet.
So common is this experience with men that most of us accept masculinity as something that gets turned up or down depending on who’s in the room – which is a very long from the behaviour of the best people in our lives, who we know do what’s right no matter who’s watching.
This masculinity, which gets turned up or down depending on who’s watching, is what we’ve associated with and measured men and boys by for millennia.
It’s defined by things like strength, leadership, triumph over challenge, wealth, confidence and the acquiring of things that others don’t own.
These are the traits that we, as a society, look for and celebrate in all men. Accordingly, they are the traits that almost all men pursue – good, and bad.
Every man exists on a scale of masculinity relative to what society defines as acceptably masculine. But, they also exist on their own scale, based on their own definition of acceptable masculinity, which has been almost solely informed by the experiences they’ve had with the men in their lives.
Bad men, who’ve had bad men influence them, tend to push things toward extremes. But even bad men – the violent, abusive, sexually aggressive, predatory men that are so problematic – are just trying to adhere to their definition of masculinity. A definition that is, objectively, just a more extreme example of the very same things we celebrate in good men.
Confidence, at its extreme, turns into arrogance, which drives a sense of entitlement to do things others aren’t allowed to. Strength, at its extreme, turns into an ability to do what others can’t, or don’t want to.
Triumphing over challenges, at its extreme, turns into breaking the law, or ignoring obstacles, like consent. Wealth, at its extreme, adds immunity to ordinary challenges, and greater influence over others. Ownership of things that others don’t own, at its extreme, turns into the ownership of other people, and their freedoms.
The problem with masculinity is that all of its celebrated traits exist on a spectrum that we each interpret differently. Each person’s policing of bad men is different because each of us possesses a unique definition of the traits that make him bad.
Not enough people know where the line is between good men and bad men. That’s why men we think of as good are so often found to have excused the behaviour of men we know to be bad. Some good men just aren’t as good as other men, and their definition of bad men isn’t as bad as yours or mine.
People lament today’s vacuum of good male role models – and yet even good men seemingly can’t explain it. They cannot explain why that vacuum is filled instead by bad men like Andrew Tate. Why there isn’t such an overwhelming response to bad men by good men that no men would ever want to follow someone like Andrew Tate, or vote for someone like Donald Trump….the good men can’t explain that either.
That’s because each man measures masculinity on the same spectrum, and, no matter how vile he finds the views of Andrew Tate, there are parts of what he says that speak to all men. Because all men have been conditioned to think that their less extreme masculine traits are acceptable, so they excuse him as an extremist whilst never questioning the foundations of the spectrum upon which they both exist. For doing so would undermine how all men have been conditioned to measure their own masculinity, and much of their place in the world, for all of their male lives.
How can we expect good men to stand up to bad men in a world where we measure both by the presence of the same traits? How can we ask society to determine between good and bad men when we subjectively assess men on a sliding scale of masculinity, which is almost entirely influenced by our own experiences with them?
How can we expect that sliding scale of masculinity, overlaid differently by everyone, to every man, would ever result in a guide that any man can live by in a healthy and constructive way?
I’m glad masculinity is under attack. Because it’s the expected adherence to its outdated notion of importance that is driving unprecedented isolation and fear amongst men.
Masculinity shouldn’t be something men have to adhere to in order to be considered men any more than it should be something we celebrate in men today.
Perhaps if we started teaching our boys to be kind, instead of to be masculine, not as many of them would commit suicide when they grow up to find themselves living by standards that have no place in society today.
Perhaps if we stopped pushing broken masculinity into the world we wouldn’t live in a world full of broken men.