We can do better than ‘positive masculinity’

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Perhaps it’s a predictable irony that in an election cycle that could realistically deliver the first female president, so much of the commentary has been about men. Or rather, not about men exactly, but about “masculinity.” Because somehow, in 2024, we still find ourselves unable to talk about men and boys without using masculinity as the basic frame of reference.

The electorate is faced with a choice, the story goes, between two models for masculinity. Toxic versus positive. In response to the vein-popping, furious, felon model of the right, the left is offering us a more morally upstanding and expansive “positive masculinity.”

“Positive masculinity” has been around for a while. Most likely coined in early 2000s by psychologists as a way of working with male patients in therapy, the term has now become the go-to framework for the wider progressive discussion about boys and men. It has also inspired a spate of programs and initiatives aimed at enticing boys to embrace more feminine-coded virtues such as emotional vulnerability and nurturing. Masculinity has had an unfairly bad rap, its proponents argue, becoming permanently shackled to the word “toxic.” Positive masculinity is an attempt to rebrand and reinstate it for the next generation, often with the claim that unlike the insecure posturing of the shirt-ripping strongmen, this is in fact “real” manhood.

The model is not a radical departure. Positive masculinity still draws on all the old trappings and anxieties of traditional manliness, the same belief that there is such a thing as a “real man” and the same fears of falling short. As its political standard-bearer, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz, is still required to constantly prove his masculine credentials. It is only by presenting as a man’s man and a veteran who loads his speech with sports metaphors and gun references that he earns the social leeway for his more feminist sensibilities. After all, only a “real man” is secure enough to fight for tampons in the grade school bathrooms.

After the cartoon supervillainy of Donald Trump and the smarmy misogyny of JD Vance, the “positive masculinity” of Walz and his ilk is a joyful relief, and these programs are often doing good work. But when it comes to truly shifting cultural norms for the next generation of boys and allowing them to embrace their full humanity without shame, we might do better to ditch the masculinity rhetoric altogether. Because rather than challenging the old stereotypes and patterns, the whole positive masculinity framework actually seems to be reinforcing them.

“Healthy or positive masculinity is the idea that men can be emotionally expressive, have female friends or mentors, and express their emotions without feeling emasculated,” the website of one such program in North Carolina says. The former professional football player Don McPherson uses the branding “Aspirational Masculinity” for groups he runs for boys and young men that focus on violence prevention and emotional vulnerability. When three psychologists from the American Psychological Association’s Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinities set up a similar initiative for adolescent boys, their stated goal was to preserve the positive about traditional masculinity “while jettisoning what’s bad.”

“While keeping men strong, we want to remove the aspects of strength that get us in trouble,” one of them said, not quite able to get onboard with any conception of manhood that did not basically come down to strength.

It would be hard to imagine a program aimed at busting stereotypes for girls that branded itself “Aspirational Femininity” and told girls that they could be a scientist or CEO or rugby player or president of the United States and “still be feminine and attractive.” Or any mainstream news outlet suggesting that two female politicians were offering the electorate “two models for femininity.” Thanks to the work of the feminist movement, any self-respecting progressive would instinctively flag the framing as either laughably reductive or straight-up oppressive. But we still see masculinity as something innate and immovable, rather than a limiting social construct.

There is a lurking sexism in the whole positive masculinity conceit. If we have to attach the label “masculine” to a behavior before it can have value to men, then we are subtly communicating that embracing anything associated with women is a demotion, even an indignity. “Positive masculinity” is not about de-gendering universal human qualities, and certainly not about encouraging boys to believe that they could have something to learn from women or female cultural norms. It’s more an attempt to scrub away the humiliating stain of womanhood from any trait or behavior before letting boys anywhere near it.

While the implication is certainly demeaning to girls and women, the main psychological harms of this model are to men and boys themselves. These attempts to expand the definition of what can be considered masculine end up reinforcing the idea that masculinity itself is sacrosanct, so fundamental to male worth that boys must never abandon it altogether.

But it is the pressures of masculinity — the constant insistence that there is such a thing as a “real man” and the cold dread of falling short — that is at the root of many of boys’ problems in the first place, making them more insecure and anxious, emotionally repressed and socially isolated.

As research for my book “Boymom,” I interviewed boys from many situations and backgrounds, and this fear showed up keenly. Masculinity didn’t seem to be so much a source of pride for them as a nagging cause of anxiety. The boys told me either explicitly or implicitly about how the pressure to meet some unattainable standard for manliness weighed on them, forcing them into a kind of posturing rigidity and creating a constant background level of fear.

The pressure to be tough and masculine came from all sides — from social media and movies, from parents (especially fathers) and teachers and peers. “I have it ingrained in me that I have something to prove at all times,” as one 20-year-old described it. “There’s a feeling of never being enough.” (A couple of years previously, this young man had shattered a vertebra lifting weights in an attempt to achieve the kind of hyper-muscled physique he had seen from masculinity influencers on social media.)

“You always have to prove and reprove it,” a 19-year-old in California said, in a conversation about the role of masculinity in his life. “It includes the way that you see yourself, the way that you connect with others, the way that you motivate yourself.”

“There’s just this fear of being a feminine man,” a 12th-grader in New York told me. “Like society’s undertone is almost forcing these masculine values — they’re kind of trapping you.” These boys generally presented as traditionally masculine, but felt constantly slightly on edge, always just one wrong move away from being branded a wuss or a pussy. Those who did not conform to the masculine ideal had it worse, having generally internalized a deep sense of shame. As one gay 16-year-old put it, “I just had a sense of guilt in me for not wanting to be all that,” he said, adding, “It just felt like I was wrong.”

They all understood instinctively what our politicians are also frantically demonstrating — that their manliness is under constant scrutiny and that masculinity is, by its nature, precarious, a status that can be revoked at any moment. Men and boys work overtime to avoid the threat of emasculation, because the social price they pay for it is so high.

The shame of failing to meet these rigid gender expectations also has wider consequences. Evidence suggests that men’s internalized belief that they do not meet society’s expectations for manhood can be a major cause of violence. Psychologists call this phenomenon “masculine discrepancy stress,” and research shows that the more acutely men suffer from it, the more likely they are to commit almost every type of violent act, including sexual violence, intimate partner violence and assault with a weapon, as well as to indulge in a range of risky behaviors.

None of this is to say, of course, that there are not many positive qualities associated with masculinity. Strength, bravery, heroism, physical toughness and even emotional stoicism in the right contexts can all be wonderful qualities, even lifesaving ones (though of course they are not exclusive to men). But the idea that boys must use masculinity as a constant reference point for their own value is restrictive and harmful to them and others. What the boys I interviewed needed was not a new model for masculinity but for the important adults in their lives to grant them freedom from that paradigm altogether.

All humans, regardless of gender, have the capacity and the need for toughness and fallibility, gentleness and emotionality, wild courage and tender nurture. If we really want to help boys break free and find more expansive and healthier ways to show up in the world, it’s not “positive masculinity” that they need, but full humanity.

Ruth Whippman is the author of “BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity.” This article originally appeared in the New York Times.