Masculinity Isn’t the Problem

In 2018, Terry Crews, actor and former NFL player, spoke in front of Congress about his experience as a survivor of sexual assault. He did it in public, without theatrics, and with clear vulnerability. The reaction was split. Many people called it brave; others said it showed weakness. That moment captured a larger tension we keep circling: can strength and sensitivity coexist in the same space, or does one cancel out the other?

Conversations about masculinity are everywhere right now. Some hear critiques and feel as if men are under attack. Others argue the very idea of manhood needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. Between those poles lies a simpler point. Masculinity itself isn’t the problem. The tension comes from hypermasculinity, the version that treats dominance, emotional withdrawal, and constant control as the only acceptable ways to be a man.

Expanding how we view and define masculinity doesn’t mean discarding qualities like resilience, leadership, or responsibility. It means adding to them, bringing in empathy, vulnerability, and emotional intelligence. That’s not less freedom, it’s more. And when men have that wider range available to them, families are stronger, workplaces healthier, and communities safer.

Masculinity Isn’t Fixed: A Look Back

It is easy to assume masculinity has always looked the same. History suggests otherwise. In ancient Greece, the warrior ideal existed, but so did a respect for self-knowledge and virtue. Philosophers like Socrates talked openly about temperance and the examined life. In feudal Japan, samurai were not only fighters but also wrote poetry and studied philosophy. The Bushido code valued honor and self-discipline, while also allowing for mercy and humility.

Closer to home, expectations changed with the economy. The Industrial Revolution pulled work out of the home and tied manhood to wages. Men were cast as breadwinners; caregiving and emotional life were increasingly labeled feminine. Mid-century films then handed us the “strong, silent type,” the hero who never cried, rarely asked for help, and solved problems through grit or force.

So-called tradition is really a snapshot. Masculinity has always adapted to the times.

What Hypermasculinity Looks Like

Hypermasculinity takes familiar traits like strength, independence, and stoicism and cranks them to the maximum. The message is blunt. Don’t cry. Don’t ask for help. Prove your worth through conquest, control, or money.

That narrow template carries real costs and mental health suffers first. Men tend to seek therapy at lower rates than women, partly out of fear of appearing weak. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention reports that men account for nearly 80% of suicides in the United States. When the only acceptable emotion is anger, other feelings go underground. They do not vanish, instead they return as depression, substance use, or despair.

Aggression also rises under pressure to perform toughness. Many boys learn early that sadness or fear will be mocked, while anger earns a pass. Some turn pain outward. Research has repeatedly linked rigid masculine norms with higher rates of domestic violence and sexual assault. That does not mean “men are violent.” It does mean the culture signals which emotions are safe to show, and which are not, and we live with the fallout.

Relationships feel the strain as well. If vulnerability is off-limits, then real intimacy is hard to build, and communication becomes narrow. Inevitably, families and friendships carry the weight of conversations that never happen.

Hypermasculinity does not describe every man. It does set a standard many men feel pushed to meet, whether they agree with it or not.

A Modern Case Study: Incel Culture

The incel, or “involuntary celibate,” subculture shows how these pressures can twist. Many young men in online incel spaces feel isolated and blame women, or feminism, for their loneliness. They tell themselves that masculinity entitles them to romantic or sexual success. When that imagined contract is not fulfilled, bitterness grows.

In 2014, Elliot Rodger killed six people and left a manifesto that read like a study in entitlement and rejection. He framed dominance as natural, saw vulnerability as pathetic, and described women primarily as validators of male worth. Most people who identify as incel will never commit violence. Even so, the ideology reveals a trap: if manhood is defined as control, sex, and status, what happens to those who come up short? Sociologist Michael Kimmel put it starkly. “These men don’t hate women. They hate themselves for not measuring up.”

Do Women Reinforce This?

A familiar argument says women help sustain hypermasculinity by choosing “bad boys” over emotionally open men. There is a grain of truth to the idea that culture shapes attraction. Movies, music, and social feeds often elevate the brooding, emotionally distant lead as the catch, with both men and women absorbing those stories.

But assigning blame misses the point. As bell hooks wrote, “Patriarchy has no gender.” Everyone can reinforce these norms, sometimes without even realizing it. A mother who hushes a son’s tears might think she is protecting him from teasing. A partner might praise toughness and unintentionally overlook tenderness. The cycle continues not because women demand it, but because the larger culture normalizes it. The good news is that tastes do change. More and more, women say they are prioritizing communication, partnership, and emotional intelligence over the traditional “alpha” approach.

Strength That Embraces Vulnerability

If hypermasculinity shuts doors, healthy masculinity opens them, showing strength through resilience and honest self-assessment, valuing both independence and connection, and making room for courage, compassion, leadership, and humility.

Public figures show this mix in different ways. Fred Rogers modeled patience and kindness, never mistaking gentleness for weakness. Barack Obama frequently spoke about emotional resilience, the importance of fatherhood, and empathy as essential components of leadership. John Cena has discussed his issues with mental health and depression while maintaining his action-star credibility.

Their message is simple. Vulnerability doesn’t erase strength. It rounds it out.

The Costs Spread Beyond Men

The effects of hypermasculinity extend to families, workplaces, communities, and healthcare systems. When fathers show up emotionally, children tend to have higher self-esteem and lower anxiety. When men are taught to hide feelings, families lose that benefit.

Workplace culture takes a hit as well. In male-dominated industries that celebrate toughness and constant competition, harassment rates rise and collaboration declines. Harvard research has linked rigid gender norms to a significant increase in harassment risk. Teams that encourage mentoring and psychological safety outperform those that prioritize a ‘show-no-weakness’ posturing approach.

Communities feel the consequences in public safety. The Department of Justice reports that men commit the vast majority of violent crimes. That statistic stems from several factors, but the pattern aligns with a culture that rewards control and anger while punishing tenderness and compassion.

Health systems carry the rest. Untreated depression and anxiety do not stay private. They strain families, emergency rooms, clinics, and budgets.

Not All Men Navigate the Same Pressures

Masculinity interacts with race, class, and sexuality in specific ways. Black men face stereotypes that push them toward a hardened exterior for self-protection, and then face punishment for that same armor. Working-class men often associate their identity with physically demanding work. When those jobs disappear, so does a key source of pride and a sense of belonging. Gay men and other men in the LGBTQ+ community often feel pressure to perform a version of masculinity that hides who they are to avoid backlash.

Any conversation about healthier masculinity is more effective when it acknowledges these differences. There is no single template for what men experience.

What Other Countries Are Trying

If you look around the world, you can see masculinity shifting in different ways. Sweden’s gender-neutral preschools teach emotional literacy and cooperation from the start. Norway normalizes caregiving through paid paternity leave, making fatherhood visible at home and setting expectations for sharing care. In Japan, younger generations are questioning traditional stoicism and experimenting with new ways to express emotion and connection, while older norms still hold strong.

No one model can be copied and pasted. The point is that ideas about manhood adjust to context. They already have, and they will again.

What Moves Us Forward

Culture changes slowly, but it does change. There are practical steps we can take that do not require a culture war.

Schools can add emotional skill-building to the basics. Boys who learn to name and work through feelings are not weaker for it, they are better equipped for real life. Media matters as well. When film and television give us men who are confident and empathetic, they widen the path for everyone watching. Campaigns by groups like the Movember Foundation have helped make conversations about men’s mental health feel normal, not niche.

Workplaces can rethink what leadership looks like. Mentorship, openness, and steady presence are not soft, they are effective. Teams notice when senior men make room for honest conversation, credit-sharing, and repair after conflict.

On the personal level, every man can ask a simple question. What kind of man do I want to be, apart from the noise? Fathers, coaches, uncles, and mentors can model that answer in small, daily ways: an apology when you are wrong, a conversation about worry or fear, a decision to ask for help rather than white-knuckle through it.

This Isn’t About Being "Anti-Man"

Critiquing hypermasculinity is not the same as criticizing men. It is a request to widen the definition of strength so men have more ways to be whole. Healthy masculinity retains the best of the old virtues and incorporates tools that align with the world we actually live in.

The payoffs are real. Healthier men mean healthier relationships. Healthier relationships mean more stable communities. When boys see adults they admire, they model honesty and care, and grow up believing those traits are part of being a man, not a departure from it.

Redefining Strength

Masculinity is not vanishing. It is evolving, as it always has. Broadening the modern definition does not erase toughness, resolve, or responsibility. It adds empathy, curiosity, and connection. Hypermasculinity narrows the scope of manhood and carries heavy costs: mental health struggles, violence, stunted relationships, and lost potential. Healthy masculinity does the opposite. It makes room for men to be leaders and caregivers, resilient and open, ambitious and humane.

Fred Rogers once said, “Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable.” That line sits at the heart of this discussion. When men are free to bring their whole selves to the table, everyone benefits, from the kitchen table to the boardroom to the neighborhood.

Masculinity has never been fixed; it’s always shifted with the times. The real choice is whether we’ll embrace a version of strength that reflects the whole of being human. In saying yes to that, we don’t lose the values that matter; we instead embrace the ones that should have been there all along.