I've been reading the comments. It seems like most are extrapolating from their experience to create generalizations. I imagine what I want to say won't be popular, but I think there are lots of wonderful, compassionate, intelligent men who don't like being accused of toxicity. Who can blame them. I think there are some perfectly awful women who express themselves in toxic ways. That leaves lots of men, and lots of women somewhere in the middle, often searching for an identity in a world of manufactured, media-driven choices. There are women who are drawn to aggressive and sometimes violent men. There are men who are drawn to physically beautiful women. And there are those of both sexes who are drawn to intelligence, to humor, to wealth, and so on. There are lots of trailer parks, housing projects, skid rows, and beer bars inhabited by men short on choices, powerless, and filled with aggression, who have been swelling the statistics...well, forever! they are not likely to change their ways. "Gentlemanly" behavior has always had a dark underbelly. #Metoo lacks a sense of proportion.
My late mother used to say, "Form invites the corresponding spirit." I believe it's true. If we behave in a way that inspires trust and respect, eventually that is who you will become.
Testosterone should not be underestimated as the driving force of masculinity, it can even be found in academic circles, and certainly in competition. It can be masked, it can be denied, It cannot be ignored.
23
Steven Pinker nails it: "One could argue that what today’s men need is more encouragement to enhance one side of the masculine virtues — the dignity, responsibility, self-control, and self-reliance — while inhibiting others, such as machismo, violence, and drive for dominance."
15
I liked the Gillette add. It was beautiful and a real tear jerker. However, the part with the little boys wrestling on the grass at a bbq, is exactly what is wrong with these studies. There is no research that shows boys who rough-play/wrestle/physically express their feelings etc. will grow up to be toxic and violent.
Many of our worst mass shooters, serial killers etc. were found to be withdrawn loners- not big burly mainstream masculine jocks like the men transforming before our eyes in the razor commercial. The recent Wisconsin kidnapping and brutal murder suspect was described as a "quiet good student".
Adding to this is the issue of much of the men incarcerated for violent crimes come from exactly the backgrounds where they had little "social power".
9
According to APA, achievement, adventure, competitiveness & risk-taking are now pathological.
11
What drivel! We are humans. All of this gender-attributed behavior is random and/or learned.
It’s not about genes, it’s about talking and listing intelligently. That’s who we are as a species. We are simply human. Gender is the flip of a coin.
3
I would share my feelings but I am feeling very masculine today
12
Common recognition that “nature and nurture interact endlessly”, as you put it, would enable us all to have constructive discussions of gender and other matters. Principled studies support that conclusion, but sociopolitical partisans are having none of it.
If the “nature” contention that prevails among Republicans is largely unthinking, the “nurture” contention that prevails among Democrats is hyper-thinking. One sees how any concession to nature could become a spoke in the wheel of social progress, and so one makes no concession. Reactionaries dislike science. Progressives like it as long as they can tame it.
The triumph of political predisposition over reason shows up in the reversal of positions on the subject of homosexuality. Archetypical Republicans resisted the emerging evidence of a biological factor. Archetypical Democrats quickly got out ahead of the science and adopted this factor as the only thing one needs to know, while entirely discounting the environmental factor of parent-child relations.
Steven Pinker’s remarks to you deserve re-reading and remembering. The “blank slate” thesis is a demonstrable fallacy. So is biological determinism. If we’re to do our society any good, we must first liberate ourselves from politically-driven substitutes for knowledge and reason.
5
Has it not been generally accepted that being gay is not a "choice"?
There is something coded into the genetic makeup that scientists will probably be able to isolate someday.
So being a "non-gay" male and exhibiting "aggressive" or "overly competitive" behavior may not be a "choice" or a behavior that is driven by parenting or culture either.
Again, it could be driven by genetics and the presence of hormones that are very strong drugs indeed.
So there seems to be a contradiction here with regards to cause and effect.
Since gay people have been oppressed for a long time the realization that there are root causes based in DNA is an overdue conclusion and certainly will make lives better and safer.
However, in fairness, these same basic chemical compounds are swirling through everyone.
Don't hate a boy for "acting like a boy" when they are being driven by factors beyond their, or parents, control.
7
Excellent article.
If crashing birth rates and a changing economy ever seriously squeeze our universities, I hope that Professor Hibbing--in the circumstance that what he brings to the table is no longer required--has the wherewithal to change. It may not be easy.
3
The APA has to provide professional cover for the drugging (often involuntary over parental objection) of so many school boys in this country. Schools also eliminate elementary school recess time, making the school day a lot tougher for many boys.
I don't think 'toxic masculinity applies to more than 10% of the male population below age 40 and a lot smaller percentage of those over 50.
20
Why a "fight over men"? Perhaps it stems from the Me Too movement.
I think this movement has gone way too far. I have no doubt that many of the accusations are true. But it is likely that many are not. And it seems unfair to rush to judgment based upon unproven accusations.
Moreover, there seems to be confounding of several problems, a bad joke seems to be regarded equivalent to sexual assault. In the court system, different actions get different punishments. With Me Too accusations the punishment for everything is the same, complete career annihilation. And there is no forgiveness.
We saw what happened in the Brett Kavanaugh hearing. In contrast, the charges against Clarence Thomas were quite believable; there was evidence of repeated instances of harassment. And he was ultimately seated on the Supreme Court.
But in the case of Kavanaugh, people just couldn't remember a single high school party that had happened three decades ago.
Sometimes it is clear that too much time has passed to make a determination. That's why we have statutes of limitation.
Susan Collins stated that the evidence in the Kavanaugh case did not meet the standard of "more likely than not."
Yet so far as I can tell, no Democrat made such a statement. Instead, they found some way to interpret the results as providing evidence that Kavanaugh was unfit to serve.
Republicans might be forgiven for concluding that ANY candidate they proposed might be subject to a manufactured charge.
6
@Jake Wagner
The Kavanaugh case would be a great opportunity to critically question this metoo and "belive women everything they say " madness.
Sadly the left is not willing to do that.
And I think further Trump's next SC candidate will be a woman. A conservative man must be crazy to run for a SC seat now.
4
Lordy. Why is it that we aren't have protracted debate and piles of academic studies on "womanhood" or "femininity"? Yet again, it's all about the men.
7
A few years ago, I saw two very different films that demonstrated what it is to be an mature, successful adult man: “Bridge of Spies” and “Locke”. In each, the central character experiences HUGE stresses to his personal and professional life, with possibly tragic outcomes. Each man rises to the occasion with honesty, dignity, maturity— doing the right thing and willingly assuming responsibilities to create positive outcomes. Highly recommend viewing!
2
Meh... What else is new? Men are better at math. Women are better at medicine. Neither sex has more than a modest plurality of superior native ability at most occupations. So far, the ladies have a monopoly of birthing children, but the end of that is in sight.
4
We are homo sapiens. Our intellects are strong. We can make decisions that override our hormonal biology when the rewards of such are great. But (as scientists) we cannot know until we conduct the experiment.
Let men behave "like women". Let women behave "like men". And all shades in-between. We won't know until we fully test our own capabilities.
4
@Kenneth Brady
We can adjust our behaviour but we can not fight permanently against our nature and biology. That's unhealthy.
Jordan Peterson claims that in the egalitarian societies like Sweden the biological differences between Women and men are bigger than in patriarchal societies.
4
I have something new for the APA to consider: toxic femininity. It is killing the Western male.
14
If you're not quite sure of the effects of preening, chest-thumping masculinity, take a look at what this White House is doing to the country.
7
Edall's column is in the opinion section but it is mostly a regurgitation of other's writings. His "opinion" could be expressed in a couple of sentences. I would appreciate some insight from the opinion columnists - otherwise, this is a reporting article.
4
Normal men are homophobic in the same way that normal women are unhappy about molestation. If you are in the shower with a bunch of dudes, you don't want unsolicited action from the guy next to you. So, it's entirely normal for men to dislike PREDATORY homosexual action, just as it is reasonable for women to resent getting molested on the train.
5
I am looking forward to the DSM adding its definition of toxic femininity, I mean, traditional. Women have dysfunctional behaviors, too. It is telling that this has not happened, especially in addressing psychological bullying and peer shaming. But if the APA decides to do that, I hope they will be more fair to the vast majority of women who are not at all like that, to make up for the unreasonable projection and innuendo they just committed against the vast majority of men.
16
In an effort to support militant leftists contempt for non-compliant cultures, the APA denies a million years of evolution.
8
I think the observation that blue collar men have rejected that they have to change to adapt to economic reality is very important. It could not be more clear that unskilled factory work is not going to return being a major avenue to the middle class. To insist that it has to return is utter denial of reality. To also refuse to accept that government has a role in retraining those who jobs will never return is also an utter denial of reality. To observe Trump playing these people for all they're worth is disgusting and depressing. He is exploiting them and truly has no interest in really helping them. He just wants to stoke their anger and confirm their errant beliefs that "the good old days" can return so they will buy the myth and vote for him. It's sad, but ultimately, if you deny reality and refuse assistance , you will continue to fail.
11
@BA, the problem was arguably created by George H.W. Bush and Clinton, with NAFTA; and then their subsequent push to admit China into WTO, regardless of intellectual property theft. We laughed at them at the time but it turns out Ross Perot and Ralph Nader were both correct in their very similar criticisms. The "giant sucking sound" of jobs disappearing. So say what you want about Trump right now but this issue is more like 25 years old and what did the Bush family (both of them) and Clinton and Obama administrations and Congress do in the meantime?
6
“Hello, we’re from the government and we’re here to tell you what to think and how to behave.”
3
All creatures act according to two basic tenets of Nature. Survival of the fittest and propagation of species. At sexual maturity, propagation takes precedence over survival. So male aggression probably stems from the fact that a fiercely competitive/successful male wins more sexual partners.
7
@Vasantha Ramnarayan
Then why do aggressive males have a "lower marriage market value?" It should be pretty clear and thankfully there is a Darwin effect a work here - they actually get fewer, not more, opportunity to mate and their traits will thankfully die off. Smarter, more self-controlled and adaptable men, let face it, get more babes.
5
lotta guys white-knuckling their grip on privilege. they don't get it, and maybe this gen never will.
4
Women also are aggressive - but passively.
9
Science doesn't care what people believe. Facts is facts, and behavioral endocrinologists have known for decades that hormones, during fetal development, puberty, and in adult life, have major influences on behavior.This is true in all animals, including humans, and to deny it by trying to force boys to conform to female emotional and behavioral norms, is bizarre, cruel, wrong-headed, and destructive. What better way to destroy a society than to undermine, shame, and emasculate its men. There will come a time when America again needs its men to defend us against other men; emasculating our own is suicidal.
14
This article, and its subject report, are about evolving concepts of what it means to be a man, and by implication what it means to be a woman. Fine.
But the overall conversation seems focused on heterosexual norms, and doesn't seem to include much of the existing diversity of human experience in each of these labels, or their alternatives. Where are the details about the LGBTQ dimensions? ...the race dimensions? ... class? ... age? ...religion? ...etc?
As a gay man I can tell you that Queer folks and our kin have been working on these issues for millennia, often at great personal risk, and often with amazing creativity. This article and its summary of the general controversy are not offering me anything new. Male identity is problematic and needs revision but some people will resist that? Yeah, no kidding.
So, by all means, have your simplistic, binary debate, but please tone down the intensity of your public intercourse. The rest of us real, complex people are trying to sleep!
5
I was talking to two gay guys about “toxic masculinity” and the Gillette ad.
I said my version of masculinity would involve making sure a woman gets safely into her Uber or taxi when leaving a bar/restaurant. One of the homosexuals (and I’m waiting to see if this comment gets rejected because I’ve used the words “gay guys” and “homosexuals”) asked well, “What if it was a trans woman leaving the bar? Would you still make sure she was safe?”
And I said “it depends” and he shouted “Aha! Toxic masculinity!!!”
And then I said, “No. If the trans woman was, biologically, a six foot tall man I’d figure s/he had things under control.”
And then he said...”but, but, but...statistically trans women are MORE likely to be attacked because they are trans.”
And I said, if I saw anyone being attacked I would render assistance.
And then he said, “But you would hesistate, and that’s toxic masculinity.”
My point in relating all of this is that there are no blanket answers, many people are afflicted with a victim mentality, and I will never buy another Gillette blade.
If Gillette has made a large donation to an anti domestic violence agency and asked others to do the same they would have won our allegiance.
Creating this morass around toxic masculinity has lost them more customers than Han it has gained them.
8
Beards (and other facial hair) are cooler now than in many decades, so the Gillette ad appeals to women, whose mate choice is the ultimate on pressure men to shave. With this cynical posturing, Gillette hopes to emotionally manipulate women into nagging their boyfriends or husbands to shave, and create the meme that unshaved men are unsexy knuckle-draggers.
Facial hair is (mainly) an innate biological sex difference. Deny such innate differences, shave it off! Beards advertise your testosterone—beards bad! Purify yourself of *toxic* masculinity and become *clean* shaven.
I hope the ad backfires as badly as the Pepsi ad with Kendall Jenner.
4
@Thomas B. Edsall, @Times Editor: "...an ultimate resolution is *light years* away."
Pardon my geekiness, but "light years" means a very long distance, not a long time. Try "many" or simply "years".
6
Worldwide there are over 500,00 murders committed on the planet. Sharks kill just a few people a year. Humans are the most savage and killing species on the planet, and its all men. We love to kill every animal we can including ourselves.....
2
So after reading through the comments, I find many mentions of the Gillette ad.
The reason people are upset about is NOT because they think men should be allowed to be jerks or because they are afraid of women (so stop pretending that you mocking The Other for things that don;t exist is in any way realistic or intelligent). The problem is that the ad presents MEN (not a minority of men) as bad sexist monsters out to get women. It is the blatant negative stereotyping that is the problem.
If Maybelline came out with an ad depicting bullying high school girls, gossiping female office workers, and women who were dishonest and manipulative towards their SOs and went on to insist women need to do something about their bad behavior, a crapload of people would (rightfully) be ticked off about it.
Bigotry is bigotry. Profiling is profiling. Stereotyping is stereotyping. Judging all members of a demographic based on the worst behavior of a comparative handful of them is NOT acceptable, regardless of the "ends" you employ such "means" towards. It is not a-ok to do to certain groups just because it is one "team's" ideologically popular notion of "moral" and "justice" (while being neither).
5
It was a hard pill to swallow, but being a native of Cincinnati, I finally took all of my P&G stuff, soap, shampoo, body wash, tooth brushes, toothpaste, Tide, and threw it all away. I can do better, as a man, than listen to some 'toxic masculinity' garbage from a premium brand.
Get woke, go broke, such as Dick's sporting goods (year over year sales down in a retail block buster year, hunting sales down double digits) or Yeti (where their competitors saw +25% in sales). Men usually are stoic and dont sit around and whine, but every oped saying ' white men bad women good black men ok white women privileged' gets you to a point where the largest voting demo votes as a minority. And that's how Democrats keep losing.
5
@Scott, Colgate-Palmolive makes some decent toothpaste also. . . :)
It's weird business decision by Gillette. Violates the Michael Jordan principle. You know, that all kinds of people buy shoes. So why alienate entire classes of potential customers by engaging in politics? Kind of the same happening with some of these boycotts of Tucker Carlson's show. What every advertiser fleeing Tucker Carlson is shouting is that the only customers they want are supporters of Democratic Party and maybe neo-con Never-Trumpers.
Not former Democrats, political independents, or supporters of the Republican Party. Weird business choices.
3
One out of ten school age boys in on behavior altering, mind bending drugs.
3
@John Patt
Most of them are drugged because of not allowed boyish behaviour. It's a silent tragedy.
3
What I get out of this article and the research summaries is that shocking percentages of both Democrats and Republicans think the women's movement hurt marriage and people's well-being. This is why I'm a radical feminist--the notion that liberal men are on our side has been proven false again and again and this article is further proof.
2
My daughter is considering colleges right now and we are looking at data on admissions. Shockingly, almost every college is admitting many more women than men (not affirmative action but a dearth of as-qualified men). Given the ferocity of the backlash from men so far, this is frightening. And it also makes me worried for my middle school aged son.
6
I don't buy the stat that says that men live about 5 years shorter life-spans than women. Go to any old age home and there are no men -- anywhere. Men die 20 - 30 years before women do. The lives of men in Western Society is one of extreme responsibility for their girl-friends, wives and family, as well as their daughters. Men have all the burdens of life -- a life of self-denial, inability to be weak or acknowledgement of fear, and endless endurance of pain and competition in a dog-eat -world... mostly with other men. Men can acknowledge illness about five days before their death, while women are seriously in need of care for a headache. Women get away with anything and everything from birth till death. Everything is set up for them and are treated as the 'sacred sex' even thought that was an artificial construct of the Victorian Era. Queen Victoria herself was as sexual herself as Catherine the Great, but the great deception of women as virginal saints was perpetuated and widespread in the general population. Today, men are totally confused about what women want from them, since they want everything --- and before saying yes, they can claim sexual harrasment. Everything seems to be for woman who seem to be able to do anything, feel anything and demand everything in life from men. Poor Western men --- your option is to successfully comit suicide --- while leaving a nice Life Insurance package for your wife.
5
The feminist agenda clearly dominates the whole society in the West.
Since the 70's the course of action was the following:
Women have problems in the society = the society has to change.
We pumped billions of dollars into affirmative action programs and changed laws in women's favour. We even invented quotas for women, although I would be insulted to be a quota man.
Now we suddenly recognise that it's boy and men who suffer badly while women overtake them in fields like education.
And what is our response?
We shrug and even intensify the support programs for girls and women and even create a hostile environment for boys and men while we tell boys and men that it's their fault that they fall behind, they must change and go against their instincts and biology.
And we still call this madness patriarchy.
10
I read the A.P.A. guidelines last week and immediately found them to be riddled with stereotypical and offensive dogma regarding men and masculinity.
Several years ago my daughter had to be pulled out of school for a semester because she was being viciously bullied.
By other girls.
But by all means, let's continue to attack men. The left will continue to push their divisive notions about gender until they realize that enough formerly "liberal" individuals such as myself have have had it up to here with being lectured to and scolded by ideologues who's only interest is in pushing social agendas that contravene both science and empirical reality.
14
Part of the reason progressives undervalue traditional masculinity is that the underestimate the role and permanence of evil in the world. Defending decent values, resisting those who would perpetrate horrific violence on the weak -- male or female -- requires warriors or, as they were called in the movie "American Sniper," sheepdogs, capable of protecting their flock.
When faced with evil -- Nazism -- for example, don't we need people with strength, courage and leadership to defend us? That isn't to say that women can't be as courageous, in extremis, as men. Of course they can and frequently are. For me, the inconceivable courage of Irena Sendler comes to mind, but the examples are endless.
Women can also fight effectively -- look at the Kurdish women. But when it comes to the organized application of violence on the largest, national scale-- when it comes to war against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan -- I'll take combat units made-up of men, and only men, and pray that progressive political correctness does not reign when the need again arises. That's because, individual cases aside, men biologically have greater strength, endurance and yes, aggressiveness.
And if you think that evil on the scale of Nazism will not rise again, you haven't read much history and don't pay much attention to the newspapers. We devalue traditional masculinity at our peril.
8
We understand the perpetual liberal mantra - men are bad, women are good. The more we feminize society and it’s institutions, in order to push the feminist agenda, the more difficulties and burdens we interpose to prevent men’s happiness and success.
Personally, I notice that as much as liberal women claim to want feminized men, they almost inevitably pursue traditional, strong, aggressive men.
7
@James
Indeed. There are even studies which tell us that even radical feminists prefer masculine men over feminized ones.
Of course they call masculinity benevolent sexism. Just another radical feminist buzzword.
4
One has to ask if a group identified as being “conservative “ say the Heritage Foundation, suggested that the aggression in males in prison (mostly black by implication) could be reduced by more parental involvement as a child (APA guideline) the political left would be in an uproar over such racism.
3
I think Mr. French might just "get it."
We have privileged people, men and women but many times the latter, all privileged enough to be sought after to write for publications such as the New York Times, complaining that millions of men who today strive for relevance in an economically changing society are the source of all their problems. The only thing this will accomplish is to bring us many more Donald Trumps.
What's the difference, between that elite group gaslighting millions of men whose feelings and personalities they ascribe to a monolithic dysfunction, and Donald Trump calling every Hispanic south of the border a rapist or murderer?
8
When can we discuss toxic femininity? Gynocentric culture and legal system. Hypergamy. Female privilege and entitlement. I’m still waiting...
7
Decades ago all this came out in a book called “The Hazards of Being Male.” Maybe this time we’ll pay more attention.
2
Just substitute “black men” for “men” in these guidelines and they become shockingly offensive. Prejudices traditionally directed to blacks and other racial minorities- violence, aggression, misogyny are now simply being applied to all men. It’s an underhanded form of racism when you consider that the majority of boys born in the US today are racial minorities.
7
Can't have a victim without a villain; thus masculinity has to be toxic.
8
Yup, in essence, globalism, feminism and single parent "ism" is remaking many of our men into people who can not cope with adulthood.
5
@JRSBoys do not develop into functional men as well when they are raised by a single parent. Girls do better. So the agenda for single parenting is a liability for our young males.
3
If too many American men become so sensitive and compassionate that they simultaneously become weak and timid, then who will fight, kill, and die gloriously in battle fighting the wars we have no choice but to fight to defend this country from foes whose cultures still exalt the traditional male virtues of the warrior and soldier? Note: I am a thirty year veteran of the U.S. Army who served four tours of duty in Iraq. After I retired from the Army, I returned to Iraq a fifth time at my own expense to volunteer my services to the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga militia in the fight against ISIS. If we want to fight the toxic masculinity of ISIS, we need men who manifest in a positive way the traditional male virtues of strength, courage, daring, and enjoyment of high risk. We defeated Hitler only because there were enough American men who possessed these traits in 1941-1945.
7
@S. Richey Not to worry. Women are demanding that they be allowed into combat. Our brave, intelligent, adept, cunning, and capable female warriors will defeat any enemy that dare confront us.
2
Insisting that males become females is unikely to be a political winner.
I'm a liberal Demcrat - and I think this report and the logic that went into it is a farce.
Likewise, the NYTimes should take a look at its anti-male bias. It's quite striking.
10
Homophobia is "traditional" solely because it serves as a basis for discrimination like gender, race and religion. The more you can discriminate against other the more you get to keep...It's all about money, not sex.
1
Some of these APA types should learn something about women.
I'm 70 and no something about women. Among other things, lots of them like "traditional masculinity", if that's what you want to call it. Most just call it masculinity or manhood. Everybody who matters, men and women, get it just fine.
6
This is one of the best things on gender roles and gender relations I have ever read in the NYT.
I had just this week sadly canceled my NYT subscription of many years' standing, because in its zeal for "equality," it seemed to have abandoned men and their struggles as men, and become a "partisan" "women's publication" like Ms. or Cosmo.
It is good to know that there are some at the NYT who a digging deeper into gender role issues, and not surprising that it is an older gentleman who is the one to question the current fashion for shaming men, pointing to the truly epochal issues involved.
Maybe I'll re-subscribe. We shall see.
4
Thanks for engaging in this very important discussion. I would like to note, however, that there are too many ideas being conflated in this article as well as in many of the comments. Whether people are driven to masculinity by their genes, hormones, environment, or something else altogether is irrelevant; what matters is how people behave. The beauty of the Gillette ad is that it calls out bad behavior on the part of some men and encourages other men to declare it unacceptable. Toxic masculinity isn't toxic if it isn't expressed. The real problem is that too many men think it's their right to behave like cretins and they resent being told otherwise.
1
So now being a man is harmful?
Is this sarcasm or just twisted leftist thought?
The problem is SOME men. This attempt to emasculate masculinity is laughable not laudable.
Stop trying to make men into pajama betas before you destroy your sons.
5
From the APA, "...the socialization of males to adhere to components of “traditional masculinity such as emotional stoicism, homophobia, not showing vulnerability, self-reliance and competitiveness” leads to the disproportion of males involved in “aggression and violence as a means to resolve interpersonal conflict” as well as “substance abuse, incarceration, and early mortality.”
So, put away your "progressive" doublespeak here and just think this through in plain English. In what universe does "self-reliance" lead to "early mortality" and "substance abuse"? How does stoicism (synonyms:patience, forbearance) lead to "incarceration" or "aggression and violence"?
Why on earth are we taking such an indefensible statement seriously? Here are a few tidbits for those of you who are so worried about how we are raising boys; Depression is more common in women than men. 1 in 4 women will require treatment for depression at some time, compared to 1 in 10 men.Women are twice as likely to experience anxiety as men. Of people with phobias or OCD, about 60% are female.
Women are roughly three times more likely to attempt suicide than men.
So where does the APA stand on "toxic femininity" ?
5
A doctor of my acquaintance provides therapy to teenage boys.
He says many report a poor self-image because of their sex. He calls it a major problem and blames the culture.
And he's not 'macho'. He's relentlessly gentle, compassionate, and positive about any group you can name, definitely including women.
7
The thing I like a lot about this article is that it's written by an old guy. I find, as an old guy, that people assume the worst of me as far as gender attitudes go, and they are not really interested in taking the time to find out the opposite.
5
Yes, sad descent of the nation further into identity politics. On left, ignoring warnings from committed & sincere Democrats such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr in late 80's and early 90's as political correctness first starting taking grip on college campuses; and more recent warnings from sincere Democrats such as Mark Lilla.
As Democrats like Alan Dershowitz (Hillary voter) have said, problem with current era and trends identified here, especially a strain of MeToo movement and Obama era Dept of Ed. regulations, is belief that US Constitution's 5th Amendment right to due process; and 6th Amendment rights for criminal defendants, should be suspended if accused or defendant is born with a Y chromosome. Committed feminists such as Harvard Law School's Elizabeth Bartholet have tried to make this point and been mostly ignored.
Nonprofit Public Citizen seemingly backs up points from MIT economist David Autor. I.e., at least 700,000 high-paying blue-collar manufacturing jobs with good benefits eliminated since NAFTA. And, they say, at least a million more because of China's entry into WTO.
Arguably millions of former voters for the Democrats have been pushed out of the party over the last 4 or 5 years because of these trends. On other issues, there has been a sorting as well, as "Frank Church" Democrats forced out b/c Dems seemingly no longer willing to hold CIA/FBI accountable; & "Barbara Jordan" Democrats forced out on issue of immigration.
6
Maleness bashing is reaching a frenzy. It shows how sick things can get when ideologies that pathologize and blame groups which no one asked to join for all society's ills.
In my view it's groups which people voluntarily join that are the problem.
Bravo Steven Pinker. The Times ought to just publish his entire response on the op-ed page. Would the callow kids from Yale permit such a thing? Not likely. There was probably a real battle just to excerpt these quotes.
Many people are denying or have forgotten that we're all in this together. The same people tell us that Martin Luther King, Jr. was tantamount to an Uncle Tom. Callow is a nice word word for them.
4
This is all we need. An all-out war between the sexes. As if we don't have enough trouble. And by the way, when did women become the embodiment of all virtue? Medea, anyone?
Let's be clear that women have their own power which they often abuse, just as men do.
Women could stop all wars if they just pulled a Lysistrata.
7
So these "experts" in psychology are telling us that masculinity is a "social construct." What rot. We should stop trying to wish masculinity away and start trying to find, as Harvey Mansfield said, "honest employment" for it.
7
Yes the "study" from an unpublished nobody declares that men and boys are broken girls, they have privilege and are the majority of CEOs. It can be summed up safely as feminist nonsense.
Edsall is correct to point out that it has provoked a lot of commentary, paticularly on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jCSUgBFLV8
4
Men--and very nearly men alone--define "masculinity," and what it takes to hold a "man card." For some reason modern men have fixated on those behaviors prior generations classified as criminal, boorish, sinful, prideful, and overall undesirable as the ideals, not the brute-level good men work to surpass. Traits once associated with the "masculinity" of only the lowest, roughest, least-desirable men have come to be the cherished standard of all men.
So what the heck is with men, that they have decided that the most cherished "defining behavior" of Real Men is the behavior of the clueless jerk, the criminal thug, and the total sociopath?
If women rose up as one to protect the "ideal" of femininity as incompetence, dithery emotionality, mood swings, bad driving, math phobia, physical cowardice, gold-digging and shopping addiction, it would make just about as much sense. Do men really cherish the idea that the crook and the outlaw and the bully are the best men of all?
8
I've waited my whole life to see a discussion like this. I hope the public discussion about how to help boy and men will go on and on and catch up with the public discussion on how to help girls and women.
From watching my father, brother, and son, and from reading, I agree that schools, with their emphasis on sitting still and acting like girls, is rarely good for boys, and I also agree that men need to be allowed to/helped to express vulnerability and sensitivity. Boys' spatial reasoning (and the need to move) develop before girls. But they have the same range of emotions women do, even if their instincts direct them slightly differently in relationships or social situations.
7
Great piece of writing. Thank you for clarifying such a complex and politically volatile concept.
5
We need not go far to see the detrimental effects of the Old Time Patriarchal image of masculinity. At its extreme it produces a Donald Trump who is convinced he knows how to do everything better than everyone else. He is a character out of a comic book. A jerk. A chump. A nasty piece of work who cannot feel big or whole unless he is verbally or otherwise belittling others,
like his stupid “getting back at Pelosi.” (Has there ever been a bigger schm—k as President? His long red tie is even a symbolic observance of his need to be the “biggest.” Apparently he also thinks it makes him look thinner.)
And those who love this kind of person are carrying so much of their own anger and resentment and spite that his behavior is acceptable to them and allows them to live out “punishing” the rest of the world at second hand. I have a friend who constantly asks me to “understand” their motivations and point of view. In fact, I do understand but I refuse to let a 10 year-olds mentality make the rules for me. Trump is that 10year-old and the Senate is allowing him to make the rules for them. Men who allow that are nothing but twerps. May their wives and the voters punish them where it hurts their egos the most!
2
Stupid is as Stupid does! Both sexes have been doing the "dance" for a million years. Thank god we can still choose to be anything in the US. Perhaps someday we will all be one perfect sex, have AI do our jobs and create families in a lab! Until then I am going to go cook dinner for my family, start a load of laundry, drink a beer and smoke a cigar! I hear a rerun of Rambo is on tonight but I may have to settle for Working 9 to 5!
5
Today's feminism is contrary to any and everything that might be biological. It refuses to allow men to "be men"? Best example, the woman with a plunging neckline who says "Look at my FACE when I talk to you!" The best answer (which he can't say out loud any more) is "If you show it, I'm gonna look!" Why? Because that is the nature of the beast!
Women complain that men think with their penises, but refuse to admit that with so much more testosterone they DO SO because that is the way the body is programmed to function. The sexual urge - or the need to "get your rocks off" - is completely different between men and women. A 55 year old male will masturbate on average as often as a 25 year old! That certainly isn't the case for women, so trying to fit men into a female optique just isn't fair.
In fact, today's feminism isn't about equality as much as it is about dominance - and they are winning on every front. This report is just one symptom of the zeitgeist. When women complain that "I need the toilet seat DOWN! Leaving it up is a lack of respect for women!" - there is nobody any more who dares reply "I need it UP! Leaving it down shows no respect for men!" Too much of the war of the sexes is made up of phony battles that really have nothing to do with equality... if it did, the toilet seat wars would be laughed into oblivion. In the meantime, being male has become more and more difficult. What the hell - in 30 years, with Global Warming, none of this will matter.
12
This has been one of the most depressing discussions I have ever read. So much polarization. So many people sure that they are right and everyone else is wrong. So many people saying things to each other through their keyboards that they would never say to each other face to face. So many accusations; so little understanding. So little generosity. Perhaps it's a microcosm of America. As a friend and a neighbour, I hope you get well soon.
5
"What is patently clear to those on one side of the debate is patently false to those on the other. The pressures to conform to conservative orthodoxy on the right and to liberal orthodoxy on the left sometimes seem to preclude reasonable compromise". This sort of journalistic equivalency of the left and right (in the name of balance, I guess) really misses the point of which side is the most entrenched, the least willing to compromise. Consider: which side thinks you'll go to hell if you compromise "God's word."
1
One of my favorite philosophers, George Carlin, said it best:
"Almost all of the problems of the world are the result of what fathers do to their sons."
4
@mrfreeze6
Cocaine can do terrible things to a person’s mind.
4
I've thought about this a bit and have come to the conclusion that corporate capitalism is the problem, not masculinity/femininity. The feminine seeks security, while the masculine seeks freedom. The U.S.'s economic model provides neither security nor freedom. The mistake made by feminists is that they think the corporate system will give them security.
Birthrates have plummeted in developed countries. Women need to feel secure in order to feel like having a baby. The corporate model has made mincemeat of the men, now the women step up to the butcher's block.
9
Or we just don’t want to have babies, perhaps many of us never did, but were forced to because women weren’t allowed to peruse their own freedom.
1
Female here. Don’t tell me what i seek.
2
Niger has the highest birth rates on the planet. GDP per capita a year ago was something shy of $380. Are the Nigerien women feeling so secure, they all decide to have seven children? Or maybe you need to add a little bit more thinking to the “little bit” you’ve already done. … You did manage to use the word “corporate” in a derogatory sense, though, which is a sure-fire way of garnering Recommends here, however blatant the hand-waving.
2
Unfortunately the leading voices in discussing men’s role in society are female. And many of those women, it seems, don’t like men terribly much.
When we spend as much time and energy listening to what men need and want as we do with women, with an empathetic, rather than skeptical ear, then maybe we can seriously address the challenges facing men.
Until then, I just tune out all the nonsense about toxic masculinity etc. They aren’t serious attempts to help me and they never asked me, or many other men, what changes we would like to see and what challenges we face.
Gender isn’t just about women.
20
@Objectively Subjective, and it is interesting that the New York Times has an editor, Gender Issues (Susan Chira); and a Gender Editor (Jessica Bennett), and they are both the same gender, and only examine issues of the female gender. There is no one like a modern-day Robert Bly; Sam Keen; E. Anthony Rotundo, etc. who have examined gender from the male perspective. Not sure if the New York Times has tried to hire someone like this or even realizes this blind spot. There seem to be voices out there, such as the Canadian Jordan Peterson. Not sure if he would be welcome as Gender Editor or not.
7
I agree and I am a woman and a feminist. But whoever decided men and women should be enemies is nuts.
6
The evidence indicates that the force driving the change in gender roles is capitalism itself by relentlessly transforming work and technology in the interests of private profit and the accumulation and concentration of wealth at the top. Over the course of the last hundred years this has imposed a relative reduction of wages for working class men along with the simultaneous and massive recruitment of women into the workforce in order to make up for the loss in the family wage. The empowerment and growing economic independence of women and the rise of feminism along with the reduction in social status of men is a direct result of this process. Conservatives want the fruits of this process for the wealthy but without the social consequences among the general population that necessarily accompany it. They imagine they can restore an imaginary patriarchal nuclear family - itself a socially limited arrangement of the 19th Century bourgeoisie that never became widespread - without altering the corrosive economic developments that have eroded the possibility of preserving traditional familial arrangements. Pace Marx, Capitalism is an acid that dissolves traditional social arrangements in general, leaving behind nothing but the cash nexus. Modern conservatives are in the untenable position of trying to restrain a monster of their own devise.
4
Why this big nature vs nurture debate? It seems obvious that the social construct of gender roles developed from the natural physiological differences between men and women.
Transgender people want the hormones of the opposite sex--not re education camps on gender roles.
5
Being “a man” means protecting women, children and the elderly. Obviously, women also can be protectors, but any male who fails to perform those duties is not a man, especially if he goes to the other extreme and abuses anyone in those groups.
I would add that it’s “manly” to pay your bills on time and to know how to perform some basic mechanical functions like change a tire. Again, women also can do those things. And again, a male who can’t or doesn’t can’t call himself a man.
It’s also manly to admit mistakes and apologize for them.
And it’s manly, when talking to a small child, to get down on one knee and talk to them on their physical level.
7
One of the first lessons families teach their young children is the benefit of sharing. Somewhere along the way, grown men seem to completely forget this lesson. Men don't share economically-take a look at all the 3000-1 pay packages for CEO's vs average worker pay. (And Les Moonves expected female workers to provide sexual favors too!) While only 24 female CEO's have led the 500 Fortune 500 companies. Men don't share high status traditional posts- female priests yet? Female President yet? Of 881 Nobel Prize winners since 1901, 833 were male. Is this due to nature or nurture? While we're trying to understand the roots of this problem, we must agree that these statistics continue to be alarming for women. Men still firmly hold the catbird seat. So why are men's feathers so ruffled lately?
7
Men’s feathers are so easily ruffled because women seem to think that all men are Fortune 500 CEOs or Nobel prize authors rather than just people trying to make it through the day, just like them.
Next time you look at the proportion of CEOs who are men, take a moment to look at how many unarmed men vs women are shot by police. Or how many homeless men vs women there are.
Don’t just look up. Look down.
If women took a larger view of equality, men might start to think they were serious about it. Until then, no.
11
@Deborah
Tired of endless insults, jealousy and spite.
5
This article assumes masculinity is a socialized construct rather than an actual part of human nature. We, as animals, have innate natural properties. And we also have plasticity that allows behavioral shifts. But masculinity is a hard-wired thing.
Certainly we should modify harmful parts as much as possible. But just as we should not pretend we can grow men and women to the same height (statistics), we should not assume that men and women will have identical hormones, and identical emotions, and identical responses.
14
@votingmachine
Does the article *really* assume masculinity is a ONLY a social construct? Does anyone actually think men and women are identical?
I don't see it. Let's get past reductive interpretations of the other side.
Relax everyone. This is all a part of the process of equalizing the Male/Female inbalance.
Yes men will have to make changes. But women are also having to change.
In the end, we will have a more balanced and fair society. Everyone will be better off.
It's a part of our evolution. It's our destiny.
2
I am not necessarily a fan of Camille Paglia, but just the other day, I intently observed a passenger jet coursing through the sky. I thought to myself, boy, some smart guy or group of guys designed that plane. How is it even possible?
It goes without saying that historically, women were denied access to most spheres of public life.
Still, how did men imagine, design, and produce the engines of history, from cathedrals, to locomotives, to skyscrapers, to cars, to cranes, to planes, to rocket ships?
Could this be the better half of “masculinity?”
20
In my town, a dead woman's body was found stuffed in a garbage can, and her husband, who had been arrested for domestic abuse of her THREE TIMES BEFORE, was arrested again, this time for her murder. This happens ALL THE TIME and remains a critical difference between men and women in this country.
7
Hun? So you are holding all men accountable for the actions of a few? Some would call that sexism.
5
@Carla
Come to NYC, safest big city in the USA.
1
So much defensiveness from men. The crime stats make it obvious that men are more aggressive. Men are for the most part in charge. All of the major wars since Q Victoria were started and fought by men. Our current president proves the point exactly. With a modicum of intellect and self control, these impulses can be dealt with, eg JFK and the Cuban missile crisis.
5
To make a long story short. A large number of American males support a definition of masculinity as offered by the likes of Donald Trump. What could be more dysfunctional or toxic than this? I rest my case.
6
@Barry Lane - Actually 53% of White women voted for Donald Trump. Case not rested so easily.
3
@Sipa111
Sorry, but that is another issue. They should not be confused.
The APA seems to feel that a boy in a dress is normal but a boy who likes contact sports needs therapy. Do we really need any more evidence that psychology is nothing more than quackery?
19
Actually they’re saying that its more harmful. Both physically and emotionally. Wearing a dress doesn’t give you brain damage caused by years of concussions.
1
Won't be any men very soon. They'll be all gone.
Over the last 40 years sperm count (which is directly correlated to testosterone) has dropped 60%, and this sharp decline continues.
That'll be it for the women too.
6
This discussion only goes to prove how distantly separated the modern human is from nature. Go and watch a few nature shows from the BBC. You will see that competition is crucial to survival and progress over time. Nature versus nurture indeed...it has always been both. Now, in this day and time, male sperm counts are down all over the civilized world. Maybe the psychological castration that is being imposed on men is working too good?
7
@Lucifer
Modern humans are animals, right? So we can't be "separated" from nature.
We are more influenced by culture than other species because we have a capacity for language and symbols, but that is because those capacities are part of the nature of our species.
2
The best example of toxic masculinity come from the republican Party's war on women's health and right to choose with regards to controlling their own bodies. A second example comes from parents telling their your boys to "be a man" "act lie a man" when their boy shows emotional or physical weakness.
Girls have the choice of tomboy or girly-girl behavior while boys are socially managed by parents, school, and society to behave like little gentlemen or receive punishment for their instinctual male behavior.
39
@Bayshore Progressive - The war on women's health also comes from the fact that 53% of White women voted for Trump and in every presidential election (except 2) have voted for the Republican candidate. If there is a war on women, its a war on women of color only and white women are on the other side.
6
It must feel very good to look in the mirror and say: "So many problems in the world, and they are all someone else's fault. Someone who is male, white, straight, or otherwise 'other' than me."
But it's a false high. Merely projecting one's true co-responsibility for the world onto defined "others" appears psychologically immature, falsely categorial, and spiritually empty. In the end it is merely a mirror image of the way all hate groups think. And proposing that gender is all nurture and no nature dismisses science in favor of ideology (just ask most parents who have tried to influence their boys to play with dolls or their girls to play with machines).
Say, didn't APA members help justify torture just a couple of presidents ago?
12
I'm not understanding the controversy of these guidelines. They seem self-evident.
It seems patently clear to me that we want to raise successful human beings. And all human beings experience rage, sadness, fear, joy and vulnerability. And successful human beings need to learn how to acknowledge and cope with those feelings. Just as much as they require food and water to physically sustain themselves.
The problem has been that we deny men the ability to be fully human - we shut them down - when we don't allow them to be masculine and express vulnerability at the same time. Self-discipline, restraint, fortitude are all admirable and have their place - for both men and women. But that is not the same as repression.
It is not a question of masculinity. It is a question of humanity.
10
The way the psychologist responds to Pinker's concerns is unfortunate. Instead of shying away from an opinion on psychology enhanced by genes and biological chemistry as not in their academic discipline, psychology should embrace it as an additional data set to make better social recommendations.
6
Historically, for women to gain some of the freedom, power, economic security, social status etc that men possessed, it was necessary for us to suppress some traits that were traditionally thought of as "feminine." Now that society has shifted, and some traits that are designated "masculine" are no longer socially beneficial, is it too much to ask that men try to shift away from those traits in their own self-interest?
5
I thought it was long ago settled that both "Nature" and "Nurture" contribute to make us all the way we are? Why are people still rehashing this stuff? Twins raised apart in different families/circumstances exhibit both similar and different traits and behaviors. Can't we just acknowledge that genetics and society both are instrumental to a child's development? Nature is force that acts upon the genetic inheritance - Why is this still a subject of controversy?
5
@Tony Edwards
Different traits have different nature and nuture components. For example:
90% of height is determined by nature.
97% of your correlation with lifespan is determined by nuture not counting genetic diseases (genes don't determine if you live to be 80 or 100)
So it's important to try to find which is the primary driver in different aspects of life.
2
Being protective and providing of others are good traits whether they are found in a man or woman, those behaviors should be encouraged in both sexes. Being dominate and abusive are bad traits whether they are found in a man or woman, those behaviors should be discouraged in both sexes.
We should focus more attention and energy on the desired future state we want to create; and, spend less time and energy trying to explain the current state we hope to leave behind.
3
You can’t solve a problem without understanding the problem. You can’t prevent that problem from recurring in the future if you cant recognize the conditions in the past that caused it.
The fight over men distracts us from the real problem -- the effect of automation on society. We have developed a new sort of slave -- the machine, robot, AI, whatever -- and this development (as slavery always does) divides us into those who own the slaves (the investors who own the corporations that increasingly employ this new slave labor), those who compete with the slaves (bank tellers, telephone operators, sales clerks, proofreaders, junior accountants and lawyers, and so on), those who manage the slaves, and an ever-decreasing number of people whose lives and livelihoods are unaffected by the new slaves.
If we are all going to share in the wealth the new slaves are producing, we must all own the slaves and/or share what they produce. Since our present economic system does not make this happen, those of us not born to the right parents face a ferocious struggle not to be one of the majority that are being rendered excess or surplus. In addition, robots do not consume the products they produce, so our economic system will lead the economy to shrink unless war or something else provides the necessary consumption.
The survival of our current economic system requires these problems to not be recognized, just as the survival of fossil fuel industries requires global warming to be ignored. So, by complex and intricate mechanisms, the system assures that discussion of them is marginalized and shunned by right-thinking, practical people.
5
Generally, at least in my lifetime, boys have been encouraged to focus on achievement in careers and sports, while girls have been encouraged to excel in communication and in being able to attract a mate. Boys are rewarded for being go-getters, while girls are rewarded for being "sweet, polite, and agreeable." Maybe we need to adjust the way we look at our female children and how we encourage and reward them in life.
3
All one has to do is look at how we treat children to see why boys are falling behind in school. We teach little girls to sit quietly, to be soft & gently... but we teach little boys to be active, to run, to climb, etc.
So when they get to school, girls are already trained to sit quietly, to listen, to be gentle with things (info, books, writing, etc). Boys, on the other hand, are trained to be active & rowdy...so they have trouble sitting & focusing.
There may be some biology at play, but it's far more likely how they've been trained. Only when we start expecting our boys to sit quietly & be proper will they catch up to their already quiet & proper female classmates.
2
A recent study reported on the contrasting academic achievement of Asian and American boys. The Asian boys performed much better due to parental shaping, until the age of puberty. Enough said.
Interesting article. As the mom of two white teen boys, I hear a lot of frustrated comments and questions about what defines masculinity. My answer: Everyone is different. Define yourself and you'll define your masculinity. Be your best self, whatever that is, and strive to be kind.
Funny, I'm experiencing peri-menopause while my boys undergo puberty. I totally get the testosterone rage thing, it's no different than one of my "power surges". I think we all take a little comfort in knowing that we can talk about the (scary and out of control) feelings and learn from each others' strategies for staying cool.
Here's hoping I'm doing it right and one day I might have daughters-in-law who love me for raising good men.
8
@Beanie
You seem like a wise woman. I'm sure your boys will become solid, strong and compassionate men.
It's interesting that hormones are an accepted explanation for female behavior -- but never for a man.
1
Andrew Sullivan destroyed the APA New Guidelines and commentary in the New York Intelligencer.
New Guidelines for dealing with bullying? Only one thing works- fighting back. I was bullied for years by a combined family of boys. Tormented my grandparents, threw stones at my dog, hit my sister- the whole 9 yards of bullying.
The oldest and biggest was 2 years older than I was. I hit puberty and grew 6 inches in 6 weeks. I was his size.
He and I had it out. I beat him, badly. And he had it coming.
He got up, looked at me and walked away. I asked the rest of the guys whether anybody else wanted to fight. Nobody did and after that they left me alone. Left my sister alone. Stopped tormenting my grandparents. Stopped throwing stones at my dog.
Asked me to play basketball with them.
That's how boys do it. IF the APA is going to try to change that, then guys will not go to counseling.
101
@Lefthalfbach
Hmm, I had a similar experience growing up - "brainiac" was the taunt. Eventually I did stand up to the bullying trio of brothers, only to find out that they were hemophiliacs - that's when I learned the term, 3rd or 4th grade - and that I might well have caused them serious harm or worse had our reckoning taken place in the woods instead of on a playground near their home, where they could get immediate medical attention. Did that stop them from bullying others? No, they continued to terrorize other kids long after that incident and I'm sure, long after my family moved away to another state. The point being that someone might have stepped in and tried to moderate those boys' behaviors instead of leaving it all up to children who know nothing of the damage they might cause another human being when the stuff hits the fan. Lord of the Flies, anyone?
30
@Lefthalfbach
The solution is not to beat up the bully, but to teach and show that bullying is unacceptable.
Recent developments are encouraging in this regard.
18
Perhaps if those boys were raised with the ADA guidelines, they wouldn’t have felt that they needed to bully you in the first place.
I too was bullied. By girls in elementary school. But the worst bullies I’ve had were three - THREE - men who have stalked me over the years. Two men I don’t know struck me on public transit in San Francisco. A group of men grouped me on a bus in Los Angeles. Men need to get over themselves, put the entitled attitude that they have the right to be angry when they “feel” like it, and HEAR THOSE WHO ARE VICTIMIZED by toxic masculinity.
17
My guess is that there are actually as many genders as there are people.
3
@Joe Runciter
Bravo! And probably as many religions too.
This Manichean struggle is a typical conflict in American culture: Simplistic and entrenched black-and-white stances, exacerbated by cottage-industry ricebowls of advocates, decriers, adherents, pundits and chatterers.
The truth of this struggle is that there are verities on both sides, and things are much more nuanced and complicated than either will stipulate, for political and egoic reasons. Traditionalists are desperate to hold onto "all the answers" that they are falsely comforted by - as well as hold onto established power and control others - and liberationists are desperate to escape repression in service of their aspirations of freedom and identity, and thrive on the thrill of revolution. Traditionalists are seen as repressive, and liberationists seen as a threat to the "moral order." Both have their political correctness dogmas and both have their hypocrisies. And both can transgress reasonableness and respect for others in their excessive zeal. Both can be aggressive and violent, not just physically but in discourse and relationship. It's just fear at heart...
Less acrimony, more communication and understanding. And mutual respect. And we need to be wary of these classic diversions by inciting conflict, very useful to the deeper dark powers at work exploiting and looting the world, and modeling theft and hoarding for exclusively personal and tribal use. Meanwhile, the humanitarian and environmental Titanic keeps sailing toward disaster. But have some Champagne!
5
In the old, tired, simplistic nature vs. nurture argument, conservatives have long favored the nature side (birthright), whereas liberals favored the nurture argument (environment plays a more important role in development and competence than birthright).l By now, of course, research indicates it is both together.
In an ed psy. textbook I used in the 1980s for a course, the link was made to politics based on some research that showed: When the conservatives are in power, they support the nature argument in education--meaning no need to spend taxpayer money on social programs to help poor children, because they are biologically inferior anyway, & the money spent won't make any real difference. Forget the research, they know what they believe.
Why? Because the conservative nature argument/natural law: (a) favors those born rich with the means to fund their own education; and (b) means that societies waste money on poor people's children and on "social engineering," which, of course, keeps taxes on the wealthy low, and also (my view) dampens the competition of smart kids from poorer families (e.g., Obama) doing better than entitled rich kids (e.g., Donald J. Trump)
So, in the end, conservatives like to believe that biology is destiny and there is not much anyone can do to change it. Ego, males must conform to the tough guy, patriarchal/superior myth (since it gives males the advantage), and women are relegated to their handmaidens, child-bearers, and supporters.
3
For your edification it’s not conservatives who favor nature it is the fundamental underpinnings of science and DNA.
I watched that Gillette ad.
We should remember that civilization is little more, or nothing more, than an attempt to restrain bad people, whether women or men. Good civilizations restrain them better.
Luckily, people are on board with non-violence, the overwhelming majority of men and women both. Everyone realizes that, surely? If you do, then you acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of men are already on the right side of things. I ask you to let that sink in.
This brings us to the ad, which seems to aspire to depict the way things are. It shows a group of 14 men standing in front of barbecues, which are commonly accepted as tokens of masculinity. They appear to be uniformly average and, in their unfriendly posture, identical. Ads being so carefully produced as they are, their most obvious messages are apt to be the intended ones. The same care is taken to avoid unintentional messages, but most especially ones which might give offense. In this case, it's easy to assume, and very difficult to deny, an impression that these men simply represent ordinary men. Not particular men but men generally. Then they offer a socially destructive response to the aggression of their boys.
Now my point is made, but I shall spell it out. Ordinary men are shown as being uniformly bad. That's deeply wrong, something that should need no pointing out.
8
I guess what I don’t understand is why, in 2019, in America, there can’t be space for both men who want to live a conventionally masculine life (with the women who love them) and men who want to live an unconventionally masculine life (with the women who love them).
132
@Ed I think the problems usually occur when a traditional male and a non-traditional female work together and there and love isn't their purpose for being together.
3
@Ed
Because the Mad Men (conventionally masculine?) insist on forcing their concept of "traditional" gender behavior on others, especially women, who they view as second class members of society. Aggression is intrinsic in their word view that they are supreme and everything revolves aroung them, therefore they cannot sequester themselves.
13
...or the men that love them...just sayin'...
12
Why are "dignity, responsibility, self-control, and self-reliance" "masculine virtues"? The answer to the question, "what does it mean to be a man?" is the same as the answer to the question "what does it mean to be an adult." Maturity as a human being means leaving behind impulsiveness and self-centered dependency to become a person upon whom others can reliably depend. Not all people, male or female, achieve this. When they don't, we see them as childish, not more or less masculine or feminine.
204
@ilmerlo
Thank you for pointing this out... I wonder if Steven Pinker has even considered the possibility that by merely associating these personal characteristics with Masculinity, that he is betraying his coveted mistress Progress.
15
I wish I could like your comment more than once, having also wondered why these particular attributes of maturity were supposed to be gender-specific.
23
@ilmerlo...great answer. i'm an 80 yr old woman who has worked all my life to be responsible, self-controlled, self-reliant, and dignified enough to be taken seriously. i also don't see why these are male characteristics related to levels of testosterone. in the 40's, during the war, i lived on a naval base with my parents, and attended school on the base. it was during the period after president truman integrated the armed forces. so we children experienced some diversity and both boys and girls were expected to be respectful, independent in our work, and to control our anger. i never saw a fight on the playground or neighborhood; both boys and girls were expected to be civil and we were. no system is perfect, but going to school in those days was a lesson in equality and self-respect for ourselves and others. it's possible!!!
18
We need separate gender from masculinity and femininity. Masculinity and femininity are a series of traits that are not necessarily related to biology, and in most part defined by what society considered to be the ideal traits of men and women. Respectability, self-control, dignity, are virtues for both men and women and if these are "masculine" virtues, then a woman should be masculine. Compassion, caring, empathy are virtues for both men and women and if these are "feminine" virtues, then men should be feminine.
Masculinity of femininity are not toxic, what is toxic is the misuse of these traits to justify the abuse of one group by the other, because one group posses these virtues while the other doesn't.
5
Thank goodness for a balanced take in an op-ed; synthesizing the best arguments from both sides and coming to a conclusion somewhere in the middle (here, that nature and nurture are both involved in gender expression) has somehow become a rare approach when writing for clicks rather than about ideas.
3
Interesting thoughts here with one, in particular standing out. It seems to me that each gender receives certain societal advantages (privileges) in different spheres and contexts. However, if we presume equality, it seems that one can take an overall "privilege" balance by examining the single greatest privilege: life expectancy. Presumably the privilege of living longer is the single greatest asset and a result of the combination of all others. Here, interestingly, women outlive men by nearly 5 years.
It seems like a fair argument can be made that, on balance across the entire gender subsets, the greatest privilege is enjoyed by females as evidenced by the greater life expectancy.
Or, alternately, we have to admit that the presumed equality at inception does not exist and there are innate, non-societal differences that must be recognized. If we choose this alternate, then it seems reasonable to suggest each gender's different circumstances warrant different treatment (and different societal privileges).
4
The irony of course being that much of the crime in this country comes from men who were raised in single parent families where the majority of them have only a mother as a parent. Mabye the problem isnt that their is too much testostorene in the lfe but rather not enough of it. Since the 1960s there has been a trend to femanize men and while some of it was needed, i think it has gone overboard. Of course in my eyes, it has gone overboard, but in the view of feminism, it hast gone far enough.
7
Where is the strong and brave thing that boys have, every president for the last 25 years who was of draft age has been a draft dodger.
3
When women quit responding positively to the results of various masculine activities, the men will quit doing them. Note that I say the results, not the activities themselves. Society might denounce aggressiveness and acquisitiveness, but victors get more sex than losers, and if all else is even close, rich guys get more sex than poor guys.
It is clear that in the arena of sexual attraction, men contend for favors and women grant them. So men do the things that will give them an advantage.
If you try to understand why men are the way they are without taking this into consideration, you won't get a sensible answer, and you won't be able to change it. Yet this reality is oddly missing from these types of conversations.
111
@mlbex "When women quit responding positively to the results of various masculine activities, the men will quit doing them. Note that I say the results, not the activities themselves. "
- what evidence to you have for this view?
8
@mlbex
So it's our fault men can't stop being overly aggressive? It's sad that men feel so powerless over their own behavior and weak really.
15
@Mary Fitzpatrick: It's what I've seen and what I've done.
7
Why not promote 'positive masculine' qualities referred to in the article (self reliance, independence, bravery, positive leadership and so on) regardless of gender?
6
There is peculiar American obsession with masculinity
One just does not see this kind of discussion in the Northern Countries of Europe (Scandinavia, UK, Germany). Many are ruled by women (Germany, UK, Norway) and while not everyone agrees with the politics of say, Ms. May, or Ms Merkel, the role of gender, never , ever comes up
1
That’s right
They are defeated countries
And thus you see adults controlling other adults in matters of morality etc
Top down nightmares
1
Both testosterone and estrogen are mood-altering hormones. Vive le difference.
2
Like it or not, natural selection is at play here. The most violent and aggressive members of society end up in prison during their reproductive years at a much higher rate than others, thereby inhibiting them from fathering offspring with similar tendencies. Aggressive and violent men are mal-adapted to modern society and are becoming less and less represented in the population of men with the opportunity to reproduce.
The vast majority of evolution of modern humans took place in hunter-gather societies. It is plausible that more aggressive males were favored under those conditions. They may have been more successful hunters. They also may have been more able to intimidate other men and use their aggression for fathering children without being segregated from society, as they tend to be now.
But the current, modern conditions under which natural selection is operating simply favors less aggressive men. Sexual selection is also at play. Research confirms that women tend to favor less aggressive men as prospective fathers. Given time, natural and sexual selection will continue to result in less and less aggressive men in society.
3
"Many Democrats defend the basic theory of evolution but remain wary of, if not hostile to, biological explanations of human behavior, in part because of their belief in the efficacy of government or other societal intervention to change behavior."
As both a biologist and democrat I reject the idea that liberals are hostile to biological explanations of human behavior. The more accurate description is a greater weight attributed by liberals to the role nurture plays in shaping human emotion and behavior. This is not just a feeling, but based in research and mentioned by Stephanie Pappas in a continuing education article in the APA (https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner.aspx).
"Indeed, when researchers strip away stereotypes and expectations, there isn’t much difference in the basic behaviors of men and women. Time diary studies, for example, find that men enjoy caring for their children as much as women do. And differences in emotional displays between boys and girls are small, according to a 2013 meta-analysis (Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 139, No. 4), and not always in the stereo-typical direction. Adolescent boys, for example, actually displayed fewer externalizing emotions such as anger than did adolescent girls.
Getting that message out to men—that they’re adaptable, emotional and capable of engaging fully outside of rigid norms—is what the new guidelines are designed to do."
4
Regarding razor blades. Try Harry’s Razors—they are much better and less expensive than Gillette’s and are based in New York.
My takeaway from Mr. Edsall’s column. Current scholarship on male development tends to emphasize the role of culture and deemphasize the role of biology (testosterone), a divide reflected politically in the different attitudes of Democrats and Republicans toward masculinity and femininity.
Mr. Edsall, I do not mean to offend but I can at most give you a “B,” followed by the comment, “But what do you think?”
I have read only two of your pieces—the other is “White Identity Politics Aren’t Going Anywhere,” December 20, 2018.
Your articles are compilations of extensive citations, so much so that I begin to lose interest.
I think it is time to hang up your pen.
2
I’m looking forward to a time where the genders are equal and men aren’t dominant any more. Feminism is freeing for both sexes not just for women. I applaud Gillette for that ad, it took real courage to say, men you’ve got to change.
1
@Natalie Leavenworth: Telling someone that they have to change is a form of domination.
This quote says it all:
“The word “testosterone” appears nowhere in the report, and the possibility that men and women’s personalities differ for biological reasons is unsayable and unthinkable.”
It proves that this wave of liberalism is not a philosophy or idea , it is a religion
Facts can not and will not upend it
10
I have read the APA guidelines. They insult my intelligence starting with the very unscientific "definitions" - and I am a liberal on the West coast. They are not scientists but live in a world of sketchy, politically and culturally motivated surveys and studies to confirm their adgendas, preferences and thesises. To any parents out there - never allow your children alone with a clinical psychologist. In the end, they are often the unknowing henchman of the pharmaceutical industry.
6
As an individual and couples therapist, I feel that the APA's framing of the problem and usage of the term "toxic masculinity" is more harmful than helpful because it pathologizes a lot of male behavior that has very understandable causes. I agree with Autor -- the loss of economic value and social status for the great majority of non-college-educated men has been absolutely devastating, and especially bad for white non-college-educated men since they lost what they had, while minority men may have risen a bit, or not lost as much. Before someone says "they deserved it," don't forget that white college-educated men have lost little to nothing. White non-college-educated men don't deserve to pay for the "sin" of being men when other white men don't.
White non-college-educated women have not lost in the same way. More than that, men are more greatly impacted because practically ALL men, at least in America, attain most of their sense of identity from their work, while women are more able to get their sense of self-esteem from relationships and caregiving roles.
Just about every man I work with or meet sees himself as needing to be a "provider and protector" in his relationship, especially after becoming a father -- and practically every woman expects that when their husband becomes a dad. The new model of family, of two equal partners and helpers, IS working -- but men must feel fully useful to their spouses and children, or they feel hopeless and miserable.
3
I was raised to be a gentleman. I grew up in a family with three sisters (2 older, 1 younger) and no brothers. As a baby boomer, my life was shaped by the changing social and cultural mores of that era. My father was the bread-winner, my mother (a well-educated woman) was the glue that bound our family together. Being strong, both physically and emotionally, and virtuous was as important as academic achievement. My wife and I have been blessed with a son and a daughter as well as four wonderful grandchildren - 2 boys and 2 girls. I have worked with youth of both sexes as an advisor, coach, Sunday school teacher and as a school counselor. I have keenly observed the changing roles and behaviours of both young men and young women over the past half-century. Boys and girls are not the same! They are inherently different. Sex is not a social construct, it is a biological fact. Each possesses unique attributes. While I would not go so far to declare that there is a "war on boys', I believe that young men have needlessly suffered at the altars of female empowerment and political correctness. No one should be denied opportunities or be discriminated against on the basis of sex. Both character and performance are gender-neutral measures. Let us embrace, empower, and celebrate those differences rather than deny their existence.
8
Male biology is clearly unconstitutional.
9
For a number of years I have supported a proposal of Theomas Paine from 1791 and recently revived by the MMT economists such as Stephanie Kelton. The federal gov would become the employer of last resort. It would guarantee a decent job or paid training for such a job to everyone able to work.
There are plenty of things that need to be done--fixing roads & bridges, education, research etc. BTW there are plenty of support jobs in education and research that do not require a degree. As with unemployment benefits today, you could require each worker to show that he had applied for a comparable private sector job periodically.
I supported this proposal for economic reasons. When people are working and producing, when they have enough money to buy stuff, they encourage the Rich to invest in their companies, to pay their workers better, and reduce the amount they use for dangerous financial speculation.
Now according Prof Autor of MIT, such a program would also relieve "male idleness, dysfunctional and destructive behavior (e.g., drug and alcohol abuse), and the erosion of two-parent families, which, research suggests, facilitate children in becoming successful adults."
Sounds like a win - win situation to me.
4
All good points. Let us not forget that our infrastructure is falling apart and that old buildings need to be retrofitted to be Green Buildings. Everyone could work 6 or 7 days a week if the well in society is there, considering what actually needs to be done. When those in power say there is no work they are simply accepting and enforcing that the top 1% wants to keep all resources in own hands and let Society fall apart while declaring that there is no more work.
1
“Traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.”
A much better idea is that stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression, taken to extreme, are harmful. Women can have those traits, and exercise them to the extreme, just as much as men can. People need to stop fanning the flames and be more accurate in their pronouncements. I expect more from the AMA.
9
Decent blue-collar jobs have been disappearing for decades, and we wish to handle the problems this creates without challenging the economic forces behind this change. Unfortunately, mitigating the effects of this change would challenge the economic forces by diverting resources from these forces.
The natural result is that the economic forces remain unchallenged, decent jobs disappear, and the economy evolves to the short-term cheapest and least disruptive way of handling the dislocations. This short-term cheapest way is for those who cannot find decent jobs to disappear, which the economic forces achieve by alcohol, jail, drugs, suicide, self-destructive behavior, and so on. Our efforts to fight these are generally underfunded except when the efforts are ineffective (e.g., prisons), so that our unneeded people continue to disappear.
Getting them to disappear will always involve some cost; part of this cost is programs that allow us to deny or conceal from ourselves and from them that this is what in fact is happening. Such concealment is necessary to prevent or head off organized opposition to the economic forces as such; where such opposition appears, it must be channeled into movements that are ineffective or self-defeating. Trump's policies illustrate this.
Money is being made by throwing out workers and replacing them with robots, and we have no real plan for dealing with this economic force other than minimizing the trouble the discarded workers make.
2
Type 'Masculinity' into Google and the third suggested search term is 'masculinity is toxic'. This is the message that the guidelines and much of the commentary included in this article and in these replies conveys. This approach to addressing the problems that misguided standards of masculinity can cause is ineffective and likely to make things worse.
We would all be better served if researchers, pundits, politicians and the rest of us worked more on redefining masculinity with an emphasis on the existing traits that are desirable as opposed to continually telling boys and men that there it is wrong to want to be masculine. We should be able to celebrate masculinity and its positive attributes while making it clear that there are behaviors that are unacceptable, without insulting and demonizing men.
134
@Carlos
Which positive traits would you consider masculine? Are not women also capable of those traits? Could they not just as easily described as feminine traits?
By designating positive traits as "masculine" you are implying that these positive traits are not normal for women which leads to second class citizenship for women.
How about we teach our children to aspire to positive human traits.
33
@Medusa Because there are certain traits more inherent to males and others to females biologically.
As the author said, testosterone (or estrogen for that matter) is not even mentioned in these guidelines. These hormones are very powerful and drive many (but not all) sex-related traits we have come to associate with the masculine and the feminine.
14
@Carlos -- 'masculinity is toxic' is a real issue. If it is overdone, that is because it was overlooked before. It is only one piece of the puzzle, but it is a piece.
6
As someone with multiple higher degrees in psychology and counseling (so I feel entitled to speak at least a bit on this issue), I can truly say that in grad school none of us were ever taught that it was a "nature vs. nuture" issue, but rather, that it is both intertwined.
Having dealt with the actual literature in great length and detail, I can say that there is evidence for average differences between men and women, and that these certainly have somewhat of a biologic component. But I can also say that the dimensions on which these differences occur are fewer than most people believe, having mostly to do with baseline metabolic rate, visual spatial processing, and verbal fluency; moreover, the variation AMONG members of the same biologic sex is much greater than the average variation BETWEEN them. (And I'm not even getting into non-binary realms.)
And, perhaps most importantly, humans, being conscious lifeforms, can willfully decide to express these differences, or not. We are the only living things on the planet that can circumvent basic life drives--we can choose NOT to eat, reproduce, or even continue living. That makes any biologic determinism suspect.
And, of course, there is plenty of anthropologic evidence that what we many think of as natural gender behavior is not constant from culture to culture, or even era to era (powdered wigs for men, anyone?). So definitions of toxic behavior are very much a product of historical moment, and not gender specific.
189
@Glenn Ribotsky Thank you. Excellent comments that I hope are read by many. I have a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology and have studied and done research on these issues as well, and I fully support your well-written comment. The idea of psychologist or other scientists subscribing to a "nature vs. nurture" dichotomy is so far in the past as to no longer be a discussion anywhere but among the most ill-informed groups. Specific examples of persistent *population level* differences between males and females are present but narrow, not large, and sometimes amenable to change (example: spatial reasoning) Behavior is a product of both genes and nurture, with influences combined in non-linear, cyclically reinforcing complex ways. We know that some traditionally male-associated behavior is harmful to humans. That is all this is about.
15
@Glenn Ribotsky
Equality between men and women?
There's a vas deferens between them!
2
As a woman who tried to work in a super high tech profession, I can tell you that essentially all women, and many - maybe most? - men, are pressured (consciously or not) to fit their expected stereotypes in order to succeed.
Not only does this have an incredibly harmful effect on the individuals, but it is seriously harming the entire STEM enterprise.
In fact, I'll go further and say that false beliefs in male-female stereotypes - like the stereotyping of ALL groups of people - is probably one of the most destructive forces in the world today. Whether it is being applied to women, men, blacks, jews you name it.
In this article, Autor is the person who understands how to analyze a problem intelligently. Pinker comes out as blinded by his own outdated biases. And Butler, who argues that we need to see individuals as individuals free of their group stereotype comes out as the heroine. imo.
92
@Nancy
Pinker also contradicts himself. He criticizes as "dogma" the idea that the behavior of men is shaped by social norms.
But then he goes on to describe how male behavior in Europe changed over time, as aristocratic men stopped exhibiting outbursts of physical violence and began adopting instead the more self-controlled behavior of the "gentleman." Same biology, different masculinities.
9
@Nancy I will say that Pinker taken out of context in this way really does him a disservice. His books (most recently "Enlightenment Now") offer a much more nuanced view, and clearly demonstrate the civilizing process of laws, norms & human rights revolutions on human behavior, particularly in reducing violence. But it's his own fault as well because he can't seem to resist these debates, and makes comments that he must know will be turned into bumper stickers.
5
@Mary Fitzpatrick
I have read enough Pinker to know that he has a flexible and sophisticated way of presenting his ideas. He is a powerful thinker. Alas, he also has a very bad habit of setting up his perceived opponents through straw-man caricatures. He is doing that in his comments here when he claims, without any basis, that the psychologists are refusing to acknowledge biology.
5
Why do we want to force one gender to change and have no initiatives for the other gender to change their behaviors?
I don't think we should be shaming anyone for who they are.
49
@tristan Where is the "forcing"? Suggestions may feel like forcing when you're part of a group that has been given the green light to act a certain way for eons. And, no initiative for the other gender to change? What do you think women have been doing for the last few decades? They've been learning how to assert themselves, say no, and create healthy boundaries, among other things. There is obviously room for All of us to grow. Just because there is some focus on men right now doesn't mean women aren't exempt from change.
As for shaming people for who they are - my guess is that a lot of the criticism about toxic masculinity is shame-inducing for many men, but isn't meant to be shaming. There's a difference. Behaviors can be no longer desirable or acceptable, but that doesn't mean the person who sometimes or always displays those behaviors, or is even associated with the group who most commonly displays those behaviors, is inherently bad.
Yes, there are some who are actually shaming others, but there are many more who are simply shining a light into the shadows...and that can be really uncomfortable.
10
A while ago I read, I believe in NYT, an article about some 20 women who had all used the same sperm donor-- his account was "open" so he could be identified.
So they would all get together from time to time with their children as "family". The man was not in contact, although he had specified that offspring who wanted to could access him.
I don't know the mathematical implications for genetic diversity, but think about it in terms of how "redundant" men really are. Testosterone does give us upper body strength, and the capacity for violence-- a good thing when your chimp troop has to kill off the competition.
But other than that, the species could do just fine, in terms of reproduction, with fewer males-- maybe not 20:1, again for genetic diversity, but certainly we would do fine with one man for 4 women, say. That's what some cultures have in terms of polygyny.
(And, it would not have to be the traditional patriarchal arrangement-- "4 women sharing one man" is not the same as "one man 'having' 4 wives".)
Just something to think about.
17
@arty Don't forget that in polygynous societies, lots of men end up with zero women.
9
@Diane Sunar
I didn't forget that, Diane, it's part of my point about men being redundant.
It's kind of a science fiction exercise, to help us better understand what is really going on in the world we live in.
What if the *birth ratio* for men and women were actually 1:4? Certainly, we have the capacity to select for that, and then we wouldn't have those (unhappy, I am sure) men you mention.
2
@arty
I don't think it is useful in any social sense to look at male or female gender in solely reproductive terms.
7
Life is a journey. We all change as we age. Hopefully, we acquire wisdom as time passes. But there are biological changes that occur as we age that better allow us to become wise.
What are those changes? We calm down. Our energy levels drop. Our production of hormones declines. For men, the decline is steady and begins around age 30. Men won't talk about it. They won't admit it to themselves. But it happens to all of us.
When I think back about how I felt and reacted to the world when I was 35, I say thank goodness I'm not like that anymore. If I had read all if the books I have to date by age 35, I still would have been a mess. The reason is that I couldn't process the information. I was just too nervous and high strung.
Here is a great personal example. When I was 26, I tried to learn ballet. I fell in love with it. I was horrible. Could not make any progress, nothing. I gave up after a few years. Thirty years later at age 59, I tried again. This time it worked! I am making constant progress and I'm now 63!
How is this possible? How can a aged body outperform a 26 year old body? Because back then, my nervousness prevented me from hearing the movement. I could not get it into my body. Now that my hormones have backed off and have calmed down, I can hear it and my body is responding.
I'm much stiffer, very limited range of motion, but am really dancing now. It's wonderful to achieve my dream.
Don't be so hard on us. Nature holds sway.
110
@Bruce Rozenblit
To those who now ask then how does any boy become a ballet dancer, the answer is because they begin their training when very young, usually no later than age 10. The girls usually start by age 5 and many by age 3. The intense training changes and modifies the boy's behavior. They begin before the rush of hormones at puberty takes over. The boys learn the immense behavioral control that ballet requires.
The girls respond similarly. In the summer, I get to take class with teenage girls. I have met many, that when you talk to them, you would swear that they are full grown women in their early twenties. They are in the 10th grade. They are 16 or 17. They have acquired so much poise, confidence and grace that they appear to be full grown, but are still kids. Dance cures us of our brutish nature and makes us sensible. But we pay dancers little, and pay fighters a fortune. We need to work on that.
44
@Bruce Rozenblit Awesome Bruce --- Dance has created and saved me throughout my life!
16
@Bruce Rozenblit
Yes, yes, yes.
In many ways we humans are very similar to the other species of primates as regards to many different traits between males and females.
As an older woman, I am so grateful my hormones have stopped driving much of my thinking and feeling, and my resulting choices and behavior. I am finally living a life that best fits me.
11
And yet there is no discussion of cultural differences between the American male "ideal" and that of other nations? I don't know if the APA did any comparative studies to show cultural differences. If they didn't, I would be shocked. But there is something toxic that is unique to American society that is totally different in some other advanced western countries.
1
With all respect to the APA, all of the guidelines in the world will not change the biological fact that among most mammals and in particular the great apes, young males are more aggressive than females. As human beings we can attempt to modify the expression and consequences of this biology, but we cannot be successful at this without recognizing it.
5
I’m a man who, just before reading this excellent article, happened to be stopped at a stoplight behind a blush-pink
Honda sports car with a "Fight like a girl" bumper sticker. It occurred to me that it represented a tendency among some women to appropriate many of the "masculine" ideals I see mentioned in this article ... without giving up any of the "feminine" characteristics of yore, such as the idea that pink is a woman's color.
2
Perhaps the APA should consider the definitions of some of the words it is using. Are "Achievement, adventure and risk" really only masculine traits? Is adventure only of the Indiana Jones variety? What about intellectual and aesthetic adventure? And if a woman enjoys white-water canoeing or back-country skiing or steeplechases is she unfeminine? There is too much stereotyping here and very little reflection on the variety of human behavior. This is discouraging in an organization that claims to be devoted to the study and practice of psychology.
5
When one group of people repress another, the repressers avoid displaying traits of the repressed. Men have repressed women for thousands of years, which has resulted in men avoiding the display of any feminine aspects. Accusations of 'being girly' are powerful, as girls are perceived as being weak, emotional, and unmotivated.
Women have steadily expanded their range of activities and behaviors, achieving many freedoms, such as to wear pants, be educated, and to own property. For a time, women tried to emulate men, in order to gain equality, but that didn't last very long, because the women sacrificed too much of their humanity acting like men.
Technology has made the things men have been best at obsolete, as pulling a lever or pressing a button will unleash far more power than any human ever had. A women can run an excavator just as well as a man, because brute strength is not required.
The future is demanding things from men that they have traditionally considered 'girly', such as emotional investment in co-workers, the ability to compromise, and a willingness to expand beyond roles they are comfortable with. This article reveals that the mental health profession sees machismo as a threat to good health, which it should, because macho means "I can do something dumber than you can."
6
This article ultimately expresses a simple and unfortunate reality: the vagaries and limitations of communication undermine science when it clashes with politics.
The guidelines do not reject any notion of innate biological factor. The criticism is therefore largely a straw man argument. The fact that the scientifically defendable guidelines are presented equally with the straw man is frustrating, but “both-sideism” like this is applied to every scientific question of political importance. Maybe there’s potential for a new “pillar of society” somewhere between science and journalism and politics that keeps these fields honest and gets us over the political inertia hindering useful science.
The APA is blatantly ignoring - in fact, stifling understandings of genetic- and neurophysiological-differences in behaviors distinguishing men and women, including the attributes of aggression, stoicism, and competitiveness they attribute so blithely to "cultural creation."
There certainly is cultural influence here - but we're quite capable of recognizing one influencing factor along with another or multiple other causes. The evidence of genetic and neurophysiological differences between the sexes is robust.
Social "science" research, especially psychological research, willfully ignores evidence for ideas not popular amongst the academic elite. For example, in 2015 Claire Cain Miller reported in the Times (5-15-15) on research showing "advantages" to children of working mothers, but those researchers failed to report ("file-drawer effect") results for several variables they measured (such as children's self esteem, psychological adjustment, attachment styles) because the results were not in the "preferred" direction. Instead, the researchers used variables like "likelihood of having a wife who works" as markers of "positive outcomes."
Gender is a psychological variable, sex is an *almost*-perfectly-binary variable related to biology and physiology. Gender may well be more influenced by culture than sex (but it is also clearly influenced by nature as much as nurture).
Ignoring robust relationships for political reasons (and career enhancement) is reprehensible.
2
I understand the economists' point when they say the deep decline in manufacturing jobs has hurt men's sense of self-worth - hence the stats about suicide, violence, etc. which stems from such a loss. But changing men's attitudes towards women is primarily a social goal, helped by suggestions from the APA such as this. After all, there was great job security and high incomes for most working men in the '50s and '60s, yet I don't think anyone would argue that men's attitudes towards women and general aggressiveness were better in the '50s than they are today, despite better job security.
6
Men are twice as likely to be murdered than women. Men are 10-14 times more likely to be imprisoned than women. Men have a shorter lifespan. Surely this points to a systemic social problem in which both men an women participate. In discussing gender roles, the characteristics, qualities and predispositions of both men and women need to be examined. Looking at men in isolation is part of the problem
3
It’s about time that this news is open and irrefutable at any and all levels of living.
It’s also imperative to bear in mind that an imbecile is President, denigrating or at best politicizing every such advance made, and he’s supported by a likeminded party and electorate.
The battle is ongoing.
1
“Toxic White Men” is now the scourge of all civilizations. A recently elected Portland city councilor, the first black person to attain that post, used her position to attack a rabble that shows up to council meetings and disrupts the proceedings. It’s mostly retirees that have the time to go harangue their public officials at every turn. The new councilor has to refer to them as ‘white men ,’ although their race and gender has nothing to with their behavior. But it always seems to help her case when she characterizes free speech as an oppression.
1
Several years ago I worked for a time at a private school for girls, one of the most expensive and exclusive schools catering to only the richest and most exclusive families in one of the wealthiest zip codes in the country.
On the wall in the office of the senior admissions officer was a poster. It was a stock photo of two girls in school uniforms having an animated conversation. A voice balloon emanating from one girl's mouth said "First we get better grades than the boys, then we take their jobs!!"
They strung me along almost two years as a temporary employee, and then hired a woman full-time for the position. Message received, unequivocally.
2
@FWS
Sorry to hear you were treated badly by your employers. Unfortunately, no one, whatever sex they may be, is immune to mistreatment by unscrupulous employers. I can say this from personal experience.
As for the cartoon you refer to, I assume whoever put it up thought it was in some way inspirational, when in fact it was in very poor taste. There is no war going on, only people, male and female, trying hard to get ahead.
A very comprehensive and balanced overview of this issue. Thank you.
6
Its interesting that liberals who endorse the view that essentially 'men are the problem' laugh at the extreme right religious types who tell you that the world is 6000-7000 years old. They completely ignore the fact that evolution (supposedly a progressive belief) has evolved men and women differently with different hormones (testosterone vs estrogen) which impacts their mental and physical make up precisely to adapt to different needs. Men and women should definitely be equal but they are not equivalent.
4
@Sipa111
I don't think anyone really believes that men are the problem, only that violence is a problem.
1
@EFM
I wish you were right. Unfortunately, it only takes one glance at the Times' "The Lily" section to realize that is not the case.
1
I was a lifelong Dem. but became an Independent, but after reading this article and knowing how the Dems will pick this up and run with it for 2020, will drive me right into the Republican camp. So be very careful how you Dems use or abuse us men. Some of us do not fit into the frame work that the APA would like to cram us into.
Boys will be boys is no longer a viable adage, so says Gillette. Good bye Gillette.
4
@jfr
I believe the point of the study was that there should be no confining framework.
1
Manic depression to bipolar disorder. Psychopath to anti-social personality disorder. The new changes I view much the same as it’s been for several years. The APA is inundated with staff looking to make ground breaking changes whilst contributing nothing to the understanding and science of human psychology.
I have a suggestion for the APA. While not ground breaking, it does provide more clarity than several of the other recent changes. Rename the profession known as ‘psychiatry’ to ‘pharmaceutical industry account executive’.
4
Women have endlessly adapted to the power of men, and the gentlemen like Edsall predict the end of the world if men move over just a little bit.
Real men don't worry about how masculine they are, real men support smart women, and real men don't have to write editorials whining about real women.
The men panicking about this situation are not men I'd like to know. I will go to my grave believing Hillary's defeat was not because she was "a bad candidate", but due to misogyny. If a woman is nominated in 2020, I predict she'll get the same treatment.
10
@klm : Is there a difference in your mind between discussion, skepticism, and panic? If not, you're stuck with those who agree without reservation, and those who panic and run for the hills.
1
@klm I hope it will be a long time before you go to you grave, but in the meantime you should ponder the fact that 53% of white women voted for Trump despite everything we knew about him. Does that mean white women are misogynous as well?
1
@Jonathan Come on. Men can handle a little growth.
1
Thank goodness Edsall let the authors correct the assertion of critics like Pinker that the report presumes humans are a "blank slate" with no biological differences between the sexes.
Everyone can see a range of behavior in men––all of whom have roughly the same biological make up. On one end of the scale you have the Obama types: controlled, reflective, able to accept women as equals without fear of losing their masculinity. On the other end are the Trumps, who have no ability or motive to temper their aggression and anger, and who cannot feel secularly masculine unless women are belittled or reduced to sexual objects.
It isn't ignoring biological differences to think about how we can all encourage better rather than worse life chances for men, within the range we can clearly see in male behavior.
4
@Nancy B
This will not end well. Condemning men as a group, as you do, and expecting them to accept femnine virtues as their own, will tear our society apart.
And I'm an Obama voter. And I loathe Donald Trump.
1
@manta666
How very strange. I described differences among men as a group––precisely the opposite of "condemning men as a group." Obama's virtues do not make him "feminine"; they inform the way he lives his life as a man.
I am 38 and a woman. Most men above age 50 refer to me as "honey", "doll", "dear" and others along those lines. It makes it easy to determine their politics. Democrat men in that age range don't do that. When something home improvement like needs to get done, I hear the statement "Have your husband _________." Even though I know more about home improvement then my husband because I used to help my dad as a kid. Republicans are flat out wrong about this. Because they are afraid. Afraid of brave women who won't tolerate being called those things and who don't need a husband to change the smoke alarm. Afraid of being useless. Because they were raised to value themselves based on what they can provide. My dad values my mom for her intelligence. Both are retired engineers. 70 and 72. When I told him recently what I get called by men his age, he was surprised. He is, as Gillette is saying, the best a man can BE. Again, Republicans are very wrong about this and frankly, many other things!!!
10
@Fran No one should be pigeonholed or forced into a particular social role because of gender. Men and women are more alike than different psychologically and particular capabilities. Why can't we respect each other as individuals ?
@Fran: Things are getting pretty bad when you can tell what party one belongs to by how they treat you.
This was an excellent read. I appreciated the direct quotation from different sides of the debate
2
I've spent the last 20 years at home as the primary caretaker for my five sons. I've been very involved in each of their schools PTA's and coached scores of teams over the years. David French is dead on with this comment though I am not sure I would use the word "relentless" :
"Male children are falling behind in school not because schools indulge their risk-taking and adventurousness but often because they relentlessly suppress boys and sometimes punish boys’ essential nature, from the opening bell to the close of the day."
Boys and girls are different and this is manifested in their day to day behavior at school and applying one standard, usually that of the more attentive and better "behaved " girls, is evident in many ways. Part of this challenge is that most of the teachers are female and, in my view, generally have a better connection with the girls demeanor. I see this as natural. It would be nice if more men considered teaching roles for younger children. It would be a plus for our society.
3
Mr Edsall spent more time not talking to people within the discipline or even on the pages of citations that covered the science than he did on the pseudoscience that surrounds it.
This includes Mr Pinker, who should know better, but is blinded by his faith in all men.
Cover the controversy is exactly what the right has wanted for evolution and climate science.
I guess Mr Edsall fails to deal with science on scientific terms for political not scientific reasons. One could make a scientific claim that the APA was wrong (claims have changed the guidelines before specifically on things like homosexuality) but even those were addressed ultimately to the science and pathology. Items not addressed here.
I am sure Mr Pinker we al. Had no issues like post partum depression, or other pathologies that effect only women. Are those sexist, or just representing mature understandings?
Me thinks they all protest too much. And me thinks that in a desire to seem reasonable, Mr Edsall is putting forth a POV that is not scientifically or morally sound.
".... the obvious truth that both social and biological forces are at play is cast aside." This may be one of the most important truths mentioned in the article. Unfortunately it is one of the many negative truths we have to live with and contend with - that the two factors both affect the outcome, yet that is largely ignored by the two main political camps. In reality (that is, reality as seen by science, not the reality of "reality television"), not only are genetics and environment both involved in the person, but, IMO, they may have a synergistic effect in their combination, for better or worse - depending on the factors.
2
Thanks Mr. Edsall - a few of your remarks seemed very apt regarding the larger cultural contexts in which these issues are erupting:
"The pressures to conform to conservative orthodoxy on the right and to liberal orthodoxy on the left sometimes seem to preclude reasonable compromise — that nature and nurture interact endlessly. Fundamental disagreements about sex and gender have become so polarized that oversimplification is inevitable, and the obvious truth that both social and biological forces are at play is cast aside."
Allow me to add another oversimplification, one that Aristotle first taught us - that the traditionally understood virtues and vices, for both men and women exist on a continuum, and that the practice of the virtues is a craft born of the ability of reason and correct discernment to aim at and hit the right mark – the mean point between the extremities of deficiency and excess.
If we accept this as a general maxim, and understand that nothing in the psyche exists as stable and fixed opposites, the way forward is clear; to cultivate the ability to know when virtues become vices - when courage becomes cowardice or recklessness, when justice becomes revenge or sentimentality, when ambition becomes arrogance or false modesty. A lot of balance to ask for I guess, and not particularly well suited to the times, but worth remembering.
3
To quote the article: "the erosion of two-parent families, which, research suggests, facilitate children in becoming successful adults". If we could accept that the male/female balance we believe children need also applies to every other aspect of society, we would all be "more successful". The board room, government at all levels, churches, communities will all function more successfully when we finally realize that a balance of male/female decision making serves the same goals we want from raising children.
3
Nowadays in America girls and women are told that "you can be anyone you want" and "your life is your own." The result is the rise of the "badass" woman, who lacks the traditional virtues of both men and women in past centuries but amply exhibits all the vices - especially terminal arrogance. On the right, Ann Coulter is a good example of this, while on the left The New York Times' Sarah Jeong is another.
Men have problems, of course, especially fitting into a society that is increasingly unequal, hierarchical and profit-driven. But a major problem in the United States is what I would call the "Daddy's Little Girl Syndrome" (DLGS). Dad treats his daughter like a princess who deserves everything she wants because she's special (e.g., Ivanka Trump). She thinks she's entitled to do or say anything she wants in the name of her own "liberation." The result is the odd spectacle of American feminists denigrating men and spineless liberal men totally agreeing with them. It is a spectacle that educated men and women in other countries find distinctly odd.
4
@Donald Seekins
Why do you think asking people to not harm others to be denigrating?
From a moral perspective, I have never noticed that either gender was particularly "better" than the other. I have three grown sons and what I taught them was not per se to be "manly men" but to be good men, men of good character; that is, to be honest, kind, courageous, humble, generous...
I never had the good fortune to have any daughters and the grandchild that is on the way is a male. But if we ever have some female progeny in our family, I will try to teach them the same things.
What I have learned is that in the end good manners and thoughtfulness will take you further in life than a good education, money or some combination of factors that allow you to start life on third base.
4
Those who argue that feminists overlook biological differences often have not taken the time to understand why we must also focus on non-biological components of gender. Yes, there are anatomical and hormonal differences in men and women. But when we are talking about the harms of the expectations we put on boys, as the APA has, we are not talking about those biological differences, but about the socially constructed aspects of gender. Strict constructs of what men and women should and shouldn't be hurts people of all genders. Years ago the APA wrote similar recommendations for addressing the problems that strict gender norms cause for women. Now they have followed up with an equivalent set of recommendations for men. As Judith Butler pointed out, no one is suggesting that boys stop listening to that adventurous voice inside them (a voice that some girls have as well). We are only suggesting that people who do not strictly adhere to their prescribed gender roles tend to suffer, and that a loosening of those prescriptions would help everyone.
6
@Mindy
Absolutely untrue. People who argue feminists overlook biological differences do so because feminists overlook biological differences, not because they themselves do not recognize social constructs. These feminist APA guidelines very much suggest that boys stop listening to the voice inside them, because they refuse to recognize there is a voice. How you characterize feminists sounds nice, but it is not how feminists act or speak in real life.
1
We simply have to see what is the response to the APA's guidelines critiquing problematic female behavior, to compare and contrast.
The APA is going to critically evaluate traditional female behavior, right?
3
@JasonM
There is no problematic female behavior. The only issues females have are a result of their victimization by men. That's how our victim culture (as evidenced by the #metoo movement) works.
1
@JasonM
Members of both sexes can be better people.
1
The change is coming, whether Republicans want it or not. Women have to work; they don't have time to take care of men at home as if men were children. Also, women no longer tolerate the harassment and abuse that has been the norm for decades. You can either get on board with these necessary changes, or not.
In a way, it doesn't matter whether women and men are biologically different. Pinker is right insofar as he stresses the necessity for civility and non-violence in a crowded world.
I think what men are having trouble adjusting to is the fact that now they have to compete on equal terms with women. If they are white men, they now have to compete with people of color and immigrants. Good jobs are no longer reserved for white, native-born men. It's hard for me to feel sorry for these men.
Smart parents will raise their boys to be non-violent, self-controlled, and also aware of their feelings. They will teach boys to cook and clean up after themselves and do their own laundry. Girls in the future will not be unpaid maids, and if these boys want to have happy relationships, they will do their part at home. They will keep their hands to themselves at work and on the street. I think they can do it. It's not that hard to be a good man.
9
@shannon
What equal terms are you talking about? Set-asides for women and minorities? Lower bars for female advancement? How can you call for civility right after you compare men to children? You've been encouraged by feminists to be a hypocrite for so long you can't even recognize it in yourself anymore.
1
January 17, 2019
No to have a consensus for resolution is the resolution - We surely will agree that the gender is timeless and forever. That is what makes life living interesting to agree on what is easy and what is not to put off for eternities. The more things change the more they they remain the same. Revisiting the material matters of social commendations is more give and take with discretion for sleeping together and there in we past to generations the answer for the future is now and that is is...... Ode to former President Bill Clinton the guy that is and is - as so says history universal - except for DJT who is ahistorical so sad but only two more years to go and out he is back to his future but not us, fortunately...
1
I'm on the fence about many of the points made in this article, but the one thing I unequivocally and wholeheartedly agree with is this:
"Male children are falling behind in school not because schools indulge their risk-taking and adventurousness but often because they relentlessly suppress boys and sometimes punish boys’ essential nature, from the opening bell to the close of the day."
Boys are harder to teach, so our schools (from my experience, both rural and urban schools) refuse to make the extra effort to teach boys in the manner that they need, and instead try to force boys to learn the same way the (easier to teach) girls in the class do.
3
@Brad
Boys should be a grade behind girls of the same age. I am a guy. I have daughters and a son. He is now in Med School but when he was 7 he could not read "...See Spot Run..." books.
We guys just develop more slowly than do girls.
1
@Brad Absolutely. Some years ago, my son in middle school was in the Honor Society. The rule was that if you did a major infraction (hit someone) you would be booted. The principal (a woman) and other teachers (all women) decided to add the condition that if you got 3 minor infractions (jumping in the hallway, whistling) you would be out. You can imagine what happened - by the end of the year, 1/2 the boys were out, and none of the girls. Women do not understand the nature of boys, especially in junior high.
3
@GeorgePTyrebyter
LOL- I know a kid who was in the honor Scoiety. There was some mass "...bad ..." behavior on a trip. Nothing all that bad, really. However, some kid complained and the Mom, A Bible-Thumper- made a huge deal of it. So, this kid got called in and told that he had yoto name names or get kicked out of the Honoer Society. he stood up, saisd "...I resign from the Honor Society..." and walked out.
You gotta respect that.
I recognize that some men exhibit "toxic masculinity." But it is also true that some women exhibit "toxic femininity" in situations where they have the power, such as mothers and teachers. I would apply to both genders the words of W.H. Auden:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
4
Today I was compelled to review a workplace violence and harassment policy: no problem, glad to participate. Then I was invited to participate in a fact-finding poll exploring gender diversity within the engineering profession (I'm a mechanical engineer in Alberta, Canada). First question, how many female colleagues do I have? I'm personally not aware of any female engineers. Second question, am I aware of any barriers against gender or racial diversity in the workplace? No, it's completely illegal, and communicated vigorously throughout the industry and the workplace. Third question, do I have any idea why there isn't greater diversity?
To me there's some fundamental misconception about what interests people and drives them to pursue some industry or other. For many, it's just whatever opportunity comes along and looks most interesting, and it's complete chance. Personally I read the Tom Swift series when I was in elementary school, and I deliberately chose my profession at that time, and worked towards it for my entire life. So, what barrier do people have toward some industry or other? I'd say this is a personal question, applicable to each and every person, and boils down to what fundamentally interests them or not. As to why women aren't more interested in STEM, well, I do not know why that is. I can only speak about my own personal experience and what interests me personally. Every single individual is unique.
4
@Grunchy To which I add that women are not interested or inclined, in the majority of cases, to such disciplines. We put both of our girls in a "Girls engineering" camp. It did nothing to interest them in engineering. Our son was interested, camp or no camp.
3
@Grunchy I am a woman who loved STEM subjects in school and have an IT career. Most of my women friends are other IT professionals and managers. I think the discrepancies between men and women in STEM is temporary.
However flawed their report, the APA deserves thanks for sparking a discussion of masculinity. Changing gender roles and expectations are often discussed in the New York Times, but almost always from an eastern, female, Ivy-League perspective. There has been way too little discussion of the challenges faced by men who do not see themselves as part of a patriarchy but rather as citizens in a society that no longer has any use for them.
Globalization, loss of their role as sole breadwinners, technological displacement, an educational system that favors female modes of learning and female teachers, coupled with an unresponsive political system (unless they happen to be in the .1%) have left many men feeling angry and hopeless.
Ignoring the pain of a large part of the population (uneducated men) will inevitably lead to that pain being expressed in unhealthy ways: violence, drug addiction, suicide, nationalism, Trump. Let's hope the discussion of masculinity continues, particularly with voices from west of the Hudson River, and that the New York Times covers it.
3
We have to recognize that differences between men, both physical and psychological, are real and they are not the result of cultural expectations. How can progressives account for the fact that, throughout recorded history, men have always been the sex that achieved the most success in all areas of life, be it in government, exploration, science, art, etc.? Of course there are exceptions, but they are rare.
3
@Aaron Adams
The lack of understanding in your comment as to why male dominance has such historical precedence is the reason study/guidelines such as this are still vitally necessary. Progressives are the only ones offering up questions and explanations that does not merely repeat facile biological arguments that require no further thought and/or questioning.
3
@Aaron Adams
Step 1: actively prevent women from getting education, ban them from government and professions, and restrict them from earning money and keeping inherited property.
Step 2: point at women's failure to match men's worldly achievements in government, science, and art as proof of their innate inferiority to men.
A neat trick, but not a very good demonstration of the superior logical powers of men.
2
This seems like way too much analysis for people who have nothing better to do. I have (4) sons and have always simply made sure we focus on happiness and not manliness. Happy people are better at helping others be happy and will tend to make better leaders.
At this point I want a FEMALE POTUS and I've had it with men and testosterone. I've especially had it with the ORANGE wonder who received 3 million less that 1/2 the votes.
5
@stonezen
Wow, I feel very sorry for your sons. I hope they are OK.
People are born with different endowments, including innate competence to intellectualize social problems. Most of those writing about this stuff think about things without recognizing their rare ability to do precisely that. Just what part of this article is Archie Bunker supposed to take to heart?
There are, of course, exceptions. Autor's work on the nexus between employment and male worth seems spot on. Men get their self-worth from doing things women can't. Women can have babies. Fathering babies is just not as valuable a skill. It takes no commitment of time or health.
If we allow that children of intact couples have a greater chance for success, to what do we attribute that result if not gender modeling? But if elitists like Judith Butler have their way, there won't be any gender modeling, because kids are supposed to decide on their own whether to bake cookies or score touchdowns. So, who needs two parents?
The elitist attack on male privilege thus misses the mark, destroying instead the obligation that the privilege entails. If Dad doesn't get to be paterfamilias, Dad isn't going to act as paterfamilias. No glory, no guts.
2
What is a man supposed to be? Me, I'm 55 years old. Happily married for 30+ years. I spent 10 years as teacher followed by 10 years as an at-home dad, caring for my two sons while my wife worked as a chemist. I play guitar in an instrumental rock band. I like beer. But I like wine too. I like fixing things around the house, like the washing machine and the stove - but my wife is smart and quicker than me and sometimes sees the problem before I do. I don't own one, but I like vintage cars. But I also recycle and believe in man made climate change. I'm into building, riding and repairing bicycles. For the last two deer seasons, I've gone bow-hunting with a buddy. But I still laugh when I remember an experience had years ago when I tried to race bicycles as an amateur. Then as now, shaved legs marked a true cyclist. One of my friends urged, "C'mon! Be a man - shave your legs!" I didn't then and never have. So what is a man and how much of "being a man" is a construct anyway? Much of it, I think.
6
@KLM
It’s what we make it to be- not what women tell us it should be.
1
The APA guideline will undoubtedly trigger a reaction because it will be interpreted as declaring males psychologically damaged in need of counseling.
While I agree with the economics-based argument somewhat, culture is a substantial part of the divide. Working in blue collar industrial jobs is a recent development in human history. Men were hunters and warriors for much longer.
What is undeniable, regardless of what one thinks about the sources of gender differences or how they should be accommodated, is that economic and social success within the society will be established by a consensus of lots of small adjustments to norms of behavior.
If the new economy requires use of social skills, brain power, rational thinking, compassion, all participants will,need to adapt to those norms. The APA document may be trying to point that out, but reality will ultimately be the best enforcer.
Laws will continue to be strengthened to constrain violence, agression, and anti-social behavior because the majority of citizens believe it is best for them. The workings of the economy will reward social and vocational skills based on the currently dominant technologies. Those who adapt will succeed.
It is unrealistic to expect society to maintain coal mining and other blue collar jobs and exclude women from contributing in the new economy to enforce existing gender roles through artificial economics.
2
My middle school son told me in passing that his public school now locks all the boy's bathrooms during class hours. I asked why and he said that there has been a problem that boys skip class by going into the bathroom and being on their phones. And for some reason this has been a problem "especially for boys".
Are the "experts" quoted here, like French et al, going to tell us that these kids are skipping class like this because the boys can't express their innate maleness and therefore are acting out by spending like four hours in a bathroom? Please.
How frustrating for me as a parent that these opportunists will turn every single social issue into a moment for their outrage factory and their business of stoking aggrieved feelings. Clearly we have a problem with boys, and in my son's class's case, it's plain as could be that technology is a big issue. Video games, social media, etc.
2
The problem men face is that their traditional roles as breadwinner, handyman, and warrior/protector are disappearing along with career guarantee. Physical human labor is worth much less than a century ago. It is very destabilizing.
Men behaving badly are not the cause of all ills but mostly their symptom.
As far as children are concerned their misbehavior is greatly affected by their environment. Schools can do little about what is happening at home or on the streets but they should be given authority and responsibilities of improving educational environment.
Schools have reduced physical exercises to reduce accidents and liability but most kids need at least an hour of strenuous often unstructured physical activity everyday and not once a week. Schools must also be a place kids learn about rules of social behavior and consequences of causing trouble.
1
*Sigh* Where to begin?
The National Review is completely distorting the matter to appeal to their base. No one is advocating unfettered emotional expression. And repressing anger is not the same as "self-control," (and, in fact, I would argue it's the very opposite).
I agree that there is some biological force that compels my son to become a stick-brandishing, whirling dervish. But his decision to stop wearing dresses at 4 years old was a response to social pressure after being teased relentlessly by classmates. There is no biological justification for this culture norm and no valid defense in favor of such limitations. It's these gender expectations that need to change.
8
It disappoints and saddens me to see in these comments the same pattern I've seen elsewhere on the internet when men and women discuss gender roles in a liberal community: ad-hominem attacks against specific male commenters who question current progressive norms.
Many responses here critique these male commenters' arguments—which is great—but I believe attacking the commenters directly is divisive and counterproductive. Even if they seem to be ignorant or to have bad logic, they deserve respect like everyone else here.
I consider myself quite progressive on these issues overall, but I wish there was greater understanding that privilege is contextual. In most contexts, males appear to have greater privilege. But during discussions of gender roles amongst liberals, in my experience it's more often the men who are ridiculed, shamed, and bullied out of the conversation. I do think that these ad-hominem attacks add to a growing resentment many men feel about gender politics, a resentment that I honestly sometimes feel but try to avoid letting stick.
Thanks to Mr. Edsall for presenting what I found to be a range of mostly thoughtful ideas about prescriptions for masculinity.
5
@Brad Knox
You have started down the dark path to being a conservative- when you notice that liberals hate you just because of who you are. It is a path that I and many others have walked.
Let's be frank - gender norms can't be the same in a society in which men and women have equal political and economic rights as they are in a society in which women have lesser political and economic rights.
If you don't want to go back to the latter kind of society, then you have to reckon with the fact that the respective roles of men and women in society cannot be the same as they were a generation or two ago. Add to this changes in our economy that devalue the work many men are capable of doing and it's no wonder some men feel they live in a time in which masculinity as they understand it is threatened.
Our schools can't and shouldn't teach males how to be male. Their role is to give all students the information they need to function as citizens of our society. Public education is regarded in other counties as an opportunity. Any young people here who don't want to take advantage of that opportunity can't really blame others for the problems that result.
As to the economic role of men, all who want to and are capable of pursuing higher education should have the opportunity to do that without taking on crippling debt. Those who don't or can't should not be exiled from the economy, however. Other countries have a system of vocational training that helps such people find roles in their economy. The only reason the US doesn't have a similar system is inferior leadership.
6
@Mrsfenwick
Agree. Unfortunately, academic recommendations and critiques by social commentators have misdirected the discussion from the fact that changing gender roles are not be so much legislated directly as they are evolving due to other changes that we have made in the society and the economy.
As you imply, the evolving balance of power in the society toward equality of all regardless of gender or race imposes new norms on behavior. Economics requires men and women look at themselves differently in our society and to question what the nature of our selves.
What bothers those who mourn the loss of traditional gender roles is that those roles as a consequence of other overt changes we made democratically. Trying to simply resurrect them without addressing the implications is like expecting to make omelets without breaking eggs.
@Jazz Paw So true. Gender roles can't be what they were thirty years ago. That doesn't mean that men must be devalued, however - the one is not a consequence of the other. Our leaders aren't capable of coming up with ways to harness the abilities of many men who don't pursue higher education and allow them to live independently and with the same dignity that blue collar jobs used to offer. So we need different leaders.
After a half century of studying and understanding the challenges women face, we are overdue for the same sympathetic inspection of the challenges of men. I lean pretty far Left but I am getting tired of the Liberal view that the privilege white males enjoy completely negates our challenges.
I highly recommend Terrence Real's book I Don't Want to Talk About It which is about male depression but sheds a lot of light on the societal factors that have created most things now lumped into the "toxic masculinity" (non-constructive) stereotype.
8
Why is it in The USA, got to always look through the prism of political affiliation even extremely fundamental issues such as sexual dichotomy! As the extremely well written article points out, these are very complicated and complex issues that has to be dealt with as such.
5
Looked at the APA descriptive essay you linked.
It leads with this: “For decades, psychology focused on men (particularly white men), to the exclusion of all others.” Is that true? If not, can we trust the descriptive language and factual claims that follow?
One paragraph correlates traditional masculinity with tobacco, excessive drinking, an unhealthy diet, and not seeking preventive medical care. About the medical care: As a young man the doctors seemed to agree with the football coaches that I just needed to gut it up and ignore the problem. Instead of “toxic masculinity” and “privilege” there were equally broad and vague terms like “malingering” and “hypochondria”. Now, when a middle age male doctor catches my case on a same day medical problem he sizes me up and makes a point of telling me pointedly how right I was to come in.
I doubt gender is the lens through which to view working class American diets. And while gender may correlate with smoking and drinking (and taking booze and pills back in the 50s and early 60s), human nature and context probably explain more.
The essay addresses John Henry and his hammer, a topic we should indeed address in depth. But I doubt notions like “toxic masculinity”, “patriarchy”, and “male privilege” are going to lead to understanding rooted in fact with that topic.
2
The things we don't like about men expressed in the description of traditional masculinity are quite often things we don't like in women, as well. Are these really just things we don't like but progressives and feminist studies unfairly want to hang on just one sex? Was Margaret Thatcher being herself when she fought for the Falklands, as if that were an indispensable piece of the empire? Elizabeth was being a nurturer to the Spanish Armada and the Irish? Golda Meir and Palestine? Are we sure these are just male traits?
8
I'd like to understand these issues within the framework of virtues. Classic western virtues, Buddhist lovingkindness, and even Ben Franklin's 13 virtues would all work. They involve not doing or causing harm. They infer or demand tolerance. They are predicated on compassion and generosity. The Catholic virtues of faith, hope and love (being charity - or good works). The demand the practice of temperance and of humility (we are dependent on others for our good fortune, and we live in an interdependent state).
To the extent that we maximize benefit to others and minimize harms, we should be able to work toward a more just and equitable society, in which all members are found worthy, predation is inhibited via law and sober regulation, and where vulnerable members are protected from the aggression and willful harms of others.
Gender norms would seemingly be diminished in importance, and the promotion of one's abilities, talents and preferences regardless of gender would be seen as societally desirable so as to further the commonweal.
Our political discourse has paid too much attention to the wrongheaded idea that kindness is weakness, and compassion is the antithesis of power. It equates physical power and domination with legitimate power and control. The media has a lot to do with allowing and promoting this. It's up to us to refute and negate it.
1
Republicans are generally older, White men and these men have grown up in the ‘60s when women couldn’t leave the kitchen or work.
So to them, we’ve made enough progress.
2
What Judith said,
2
Perhaps there are biological and personality differences among us all but why insist they are along gender lines?
I am female. I grew up with boys and was pretty average at all the outdoor competitions until my mom banned me from climbing trees and running around. No more shirtless afternoons, competitive sprints or stunts. It was devastating but clad in my new dresses, I found solace in the library and went from getting decent grades to the top of the class, where I stayed through high school. My mom's decree may have limited my physical performance and forced me to focus on intellectual pursuits. But I have remained more stoic and self reliant than the boys. They are aggressive and competitive though and I am not.
3
@T. Clark -- as an old guy now, let me tell you that testosterone is a useful but wicked drug. All of the anabolic steroids are testosterone analogs, and "roid rage" and all of the side effects are shared.
We are mammals -- the broad behavior of mammals is harem mating and dominance battles among the males -- horses to lions to ... There are exceptions (blue whales are one), but it is the norm. If you think human males are bad, look at chimpanzees. (On the other hand if you think human females are weird, look at baboons!)
The facts of the matter is that in almost all mammals in the wild only a fraction of males reproduce, and their lives are Hobbsian: nasty, brutal and short. A new dominant male chimpanzee kills all the nursing infants, to bring the females into estrus quicker. The average breeding life of a male chimpanzee in the wild is about 18 months.
Humans are very incompletely evolved away from being chimps. The prevailing theory is that cryptic estrus evolved to reward males who hang around women, providing support for children that take so long and cost so much to raise; this allowed human bigger-brain evolution, and changed males too.
Adult male chimpanzees weigh between roughly 100 and 140 lbs -- I don't think there's an MMA fighter in the world would could win an unarmed bout with a male chimp -- fangs are part of it, but not all.
Bipedalism & brains & tools & language, but still chimpish behavior.
1
To be a feminist is to want someone to be able to be themselves, regardless of gender norms. From everything I read in the APA essay, that is what psychologists are advocating for in men and boys. They are saying we shouldn't encourage boys to be stoic because "it's what men are supposed to do." If the boy happens to naturally be stoic, then, cool. But if he wants to cry and you tell him not to because it's not manly, that's part of the issue.
There are so many good qualities that all people should have, and some are traditionally masculine, some traditionally feminine. If we could encourage people to strive towards these qualities, like bravery, resilience, compassion, and ambition, everyone would be the healthier for it.
6
One can look at an anthill and see what kind of social hierarchies result from rigidly defined roles. We are immesensly more complex, leading to consciousness and a much greater, though still limited, ability to chose different roles in our society. Without doubt, nature and nuture interact continuously, and individual will power affects one's ability to expand the borders of possible choice.
The above is gender-neutral, but men and women are fundamentally different. Most of us are self-constrained within narrow borders; our adult lives are highly predicable from the circumstances of our birth, genetic and social. Viewed on the historical record, from the dawn of civilization, men tended to go out and hunt and women tended to raise children, but both could do both, as needed.
Technology has had the effect of raising the utility of womens' talents relative to mens'. Large-scale hand-to-hand warfare is largely over and blue-collar work is drying up. Like ants, our social structures will evolve to suit the circumstances, and there may now be advantanges to having men behave more like woman. But this is only possible to a limited extent.
1
Only western culture beats up men. Now men are toxic. This is the " in thinking" of the really with it people :the woke people,the people of Hollywood, the Pacific Coast, Boston, and New York. But, in fact, men are who they are because of their built in nature. The rest of the world knows this and life goes on. And, once our present culture goes the way of all other cultures, for all remaining, it will be just as it always was. The strongest will dominate the weakest and might will make right. We should stop diluting ourselves and do what we can to have all get along and do so without decreeing that men are poison. And, we need to ignore the opinions from the psychologists. They have their own agenda too.
3
The recent Gillette ad angers many men, not because of its general thrust, but because of its blatant condescension. Sadly that is also the main take-away from many feminists. They talk down to men, rather than to them. Men are not women. Evolution designed the sexes quite differently. That is not to say that men cannot do better in their relationships with women. They most certainly can. But I doubt if being scolded by razor-blade companies and overzealous feminists will have much impact.
237
@John Jabo Women have dealt with blatant condescension from advertisements for the entire history of the industry. Only now is it a problem because some men interpret the ad in question that way? The old song “Cry Me A River” comes to mind. The ad wasn’t condescending in the least, either.
261
@John Jabo
Absolutely correct. While we should, as a society, shoot for equality of opportunity for all, we will never- nor should we, necessarily- have complete equality of outcome. Men and women are biologically different, and those differences should be celebrated.
Perhaps two centuries from now, women will be over represented in, say, medicine, while men are over represented in robotics- I see no reason why that should be a problem.
30
@Cass
Nor do I. I love women and they should be well-represented in all fields, including politics and government. The problem I have with the Gillette ad is it compiles all the worst traits of men and stereotypes them to ALL men. Imagine if a similar ad were made about women. I think it would be properly labeled misogynistic.
28
The APA and others need to consider the enormous cultural shifts which have occurred over the last forty years. Once
everyone paid their bills with an envelope and stamp. Couples met at a church dance. There were less roads. There was greater income equality. There were laws which protected labor, and the rights of working men. No degree of good parenting can change this. Once upon a time men looked to priests and ministers for moral advice. Now these same men are either defendants in court, or condoning abusive politicians and policies from the pulpit. Children spend hours in front of violent media even though this changes their brains. Inattentive boys are given stimulant medication even though the long term effects of these same drugs are unknown. Mothers are lucky if they can spend 6 weeks at home postpartum. Men still have sex with women, but not one at a time, but lots of women just by swiping the right way on a cell phone. What is needed kindness and morality, and it needs to come from those who lead.
3
One of the fraternities at my university has become a true fount of healthy male relationships in the past few years. The men who are members of that frat are among the happiest most productive and outgoing people I see on campus. They are encouraged to be vulnerable and open in their friendships with other men. People often read them as “gay” when they’re hanging out with their friends, because our culture’s default is that men are standoffish towards each other — we read openness and vulnerability as sexual access, which is weird. Fortunately, while these men do not want their sexuality misinterpreted, neither are they homophobic, so they don’t take it as an “insult.” It’s a marvelous emerging phenomenon, and it’s very masculine without being dysfunctional. These young men will help define the future.
1
Or should the headline be:
Men's Fight with Women Is Shaping Our Political Future
Which is certainly accurate in the Republican Party and with Donald Trump as POTUS. Divide and conquer, is the GOP model. No vivla difference for Republicans, and that is our national problem. And why does everything have to be a "fight" in this country?
You know what one of the most damaging psychological mindsets is? Self-pity, and we have an epidemic of it in this country.
Self-pity is truly self-defeating, but old Donald and the GOP have stomped all over Obama's can-do spirit and emboldened and aggravated white men's sense of being aggrieved and victimized by all these un-entitled women and ethnic groups.
Or, if working class, all these educated, professional people, most especially uppity professional women/feminists, with decent salaries and a future, who are rate-busters in the job market and economy and taking away men's jobs and promotions, just because of their gender or ethnicity.
Education is the key, but the GOP is working overtime to restrict rather than enhance the opportunities for non-rich Americans of both genders to have a low-cost, affordable, quality, loan-free higher education for all who are qualified. This does not mean pushing for-profit universities that exist for the investors, not the students.
2
The fact that one's political party affiliation now predicts fairly well the positions of its members on matters that are at least partially based on hard science, tells me that these party members are no longer thinking for themselves, but are instead adhering blindly to the ideology of their party. This is not a good omen for our future.
1
Anyone who attempts to live their lives or raise their children based on guidelines issued by an association is already doing something wrong.
4
RE: "Men commit 90 percent of homicides in the United States and represent 77 percent of homicide victims." Men represent the greatest number of convicts. Men commit most crimes in general in cluding rapes and violent crimes against women.
With numbers like these if Republicans looked at men as they do immigrants they would do all that they could to keep them out of the country as they do the "crime infested immigrants."
Of course reasonable men will say "not me, it's not all of us." I suspect that is true of most groups. But if you are going to condemn a group based on statistics its only fair to look at your own statistics.
2
In surveys one sees groups of Republicans & Democrats, even Republican women etc., with the Republicans always having more "conservative" views. What I never see, and wonder about, is what is the percentage of women among those who list themselves as Republican, or as Democrat. My guess is women make up the majority of Democrats and men the majority of Republicans. Anybody know?
"All they want is a decent job, a family, and a society that respects them. Democrats offer them none of these things."
As a woman, our government has only gudging me offered only dribs and drabs of these things. Shirley Chisolm was right. If you don't have a seat at the table you bring a folding chair. I think many minorities and women areno longer sitting around and crying about inequality but are finally taking responsiblility for their rights in our society and under our Constitution.
3
Women understand that to live is to suffer. Men understand that to live is to die.
The title is misleading. It's not a "fight over men," it's a fight over the "behavior of men." The difference seems important.
3
A most depressing essay. The bass-note is this society's mad rush for the utopian extremes. Reduction of the mystery of life to a dollar-value on the right; endless classification into sub-sub-sub-groups of resentment and revenge on the left. Nada in the middle.
There's no fame or, most important, monetization opportunity in the middle; there is no constituency for skepticism as opposed to pre-packaged dogma; communication loses in the race for correctness; who you are loses to what you are; the individual drowns in the murderous soup of identity...always, an identity declared by others, always others, always watchful for the slightest deviation, the slightest hint that you are, in that great Japanese saying, "The nail that sticks up and must be pounded down." The sound of hammers grows louder in our exhausted, war-stupid empire . "So it goes."
2
Another balanced, thoughtful, and excellent contribution to our cultural dialog from Mr. Edsall.
Of all the factors mentioned, I would note that humans generally (and males particularly) remain inherently competitive and cooperative, peaceful and violent, curious and ignore-ant. Modern life, insistent as it is on economic roles that profit the self, and on the privileging of aggression that benefits particular groups, is at the root of our ills.
How can these massive, controling, and historically entrenched factors be surmounted in a culture that constantly glorifies and reinforces them?
1
Surprisingly "fair and balanced" discussion of the nature-nurture debate on male behavior and the political ramifications. Perspectives on male behavior vary not only by political affiliation and ideology, but by education, income, and--though it really isn't explicitly discussed--gender. There is major resistance in academe--especially among feminists--in acknowledging that younger males are falling further and further behind females in educational attainment, participation in school and civic activities, and getting and keeping good jobs--as the report by David Autor mentions.
1
Thanks for your analysis of the problems of "men out" as Andrew Yarrow has described in his painfully detailed book of the same name. There are millions of American men who need help rather than misogynist political tomes like 12 - Steps by Jordan Peterson. I found the APA guidelines a sound antidote to political posturing; however, I believe they would have done a service by addressing some of the biological roots of empathy and cooperation discussed at length by Christopher Boehm (Moral Origins) and other scientists. Steven Pinker's points in your article should have been discussed more fully. Gender is not binary. Also, male-female biological/psychological differences are important to consider when trying to help suffering boys and men.
I think the somewhat laughable guidelines of the American Psychological Association merely show the extent to which self-styled "progressive" activists have captured the social "sciences." The language and tone of these guidelines suggests strongly a political agenda that has no place in any discipline claiming to be a science.
9
Wow, GREAT writing, and such a breath of fresh air to hear a topic like this discussed in such comprehensive and frankly, logical terms. I like the quote about the report being a living document, likely to change over time. This is a lesson for all of us - try to discuss social issues from different angles, listen, and parse out what's actually, factually, true instead of relying on knee-jerk denials, trying to shove progress backwards and grasp on to ways of living/thinking that no longer serve useful, or playing the blame game on other group. It's clear to me that roles for both genders are changing - as evidenced by the fact I have some great male friends who are the primary caregiver in their households with children. I'm also grateful that for women, it's long been kind of a joke, and offensive, when someone says we should adhere to "traditional" feminine roles - I feel bad that men are still often asked to do this, or are grappling with what that even is. We all need to evolve, period.
3
APA guidelines aside, all I know from my humble male existence is that while no one is perfect and most men and women are fairly decent people, women tend to be better human beings than men in all the ways that truly matter.
7
An interesting article if you read the entire article. Not surprising is Pinker's rather glib assessment of the A.P.A. guidelines. One should would do well to read the responses of those involved in preparing the report. It is a complex issue they are trying to address.
2
I've been watching this attitude toward the genders evolve over the a few decades and up until recently, the tendency was to focus on what was going wrong for women (and minorities), with no attention given to white men, who were considered fine; the standard. Statistics were published and stereotypes disseminated: girls lagged behind in math and science and black kids' test scores were behind. There was a comfortable resignation with age-old inequities that changed when girls began to overtake boys in college enrollment. Then the tone of the reports was slightly panicky, because the social stratification that kept white boys at the top was what seemed right, to many people, even as they casually studied what was "wrong" with everyone else.
Finally the focus shifted to white men. After countless school shootings, for example, not to mention other systemic and violent crimes, the public began to get wise -- maybe women and minorities weren't flawed: maybe something was wrong with the white men conducting the studies. Maybe THEY should be the subject of studies.
There are some serious problems with white male culture in particular, and it's important we look at that. But ultimately, one group doesn't need to be routinely pathologized for everyone to be free and equal. For millennia girls and women have been pathologized, insulted and discriminated for being who we were, and the harm was and is deep and long-lasting: we need to be careful not to completely turn those tables.
11
Men have been caricatured. Such a small percentage of men actually act like the caricature. I know no man, not my father or brothers, none of my male friends, who is violent, emotionless, petty in competition, and bent on asserting dominance. Most are not powerful, and the privilege assigned to them is something they have rarely actually experienced. Boors like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, or personas like Don Draper are far from the norm. It seems that some would like us to believe that these types are the norm, or at least what happens without intervention. The vast majority of men are not just decent, but they teach that decency to their sons, as do their mothers. Casting suspicion on half of humanity, especially the half whose absence results in the very dysfunction in young men that the DSM calls traditional masculinity, is poor science, politically suspect, and socially dangerous.
14
@TD: Poor science indeed but it might help to consider that bad experiences are easier to remember so when you interact with a violent or domineering man, it sticks with you. When you are surrounded by them, it is easy (although incorrect) to generalize to the rest of the population of men.
Also, I am not sure there is any data about the number of "decent men [who] teach that decency to their sons." In fact, the comments suggest that there is no consensus on the definition of decency as it relates to masculinity. I am happy you are surrounded by men you describe as decent but there are people who cannot say the same.
@T. Clark
The vast majority of people not only know men who are decent, even if they have been subject to a dysfunctional man or men directly. That is because the vast majority of men are nothing like the definition of "traditional" masculinity. If you need that quantified by some study to accept that, fine. To project the small minority onto the vast majority is wrong. Additionally, I am waiting for a definition of toxic femininity, not to even things out, but to explain the cruelty we see women commit. But I would never call it traditional femininity, because I also believe most women don't deserve that projected onto them, either. But it does exist.
1
Stoicism, self reliance and competitiveness are pretty useful personality traits unless carried to extreme (aggression and homophobia are not!). There's nothing wrong with women having these traits - I would submit that Nancy Pelosi possesses them in abundance. The challenge is not to abolish all of traditional masculinity but rather to temper it and direct it. I think we may be throwing the baby out with the bath water here.
157
@Hoarbear
RE: homophobia:
Joy Reid wrote horrific blog posts about gay men. These posts recently came to light. At first she denied writing them, saying, of course, that she'd been hacked. When that was shown to be highly unlikely, she abandoned that notion, admitted writing them, and apologized.
Why does she have a job? Would MSNBC let a male writer of that hate speech stay on the job? Would MSNBC, instead of staying silent as they have on Reid, speak up if a FOX host had written the same junk? I don't think so. They have routinely--and rightly--called out many people for past hate speech, which is just what they should do.
Why does Reid get a pass? I am a regular viewer of MSNBC, but on this issue they continue to lose credibility and the moral authority to call out hate speech from public figures. That is a shame.
10
@Hoarbear
"The challenge is not to abolish all of traditional masculinity but rather to temper it and direct it."
You got it. And typically that has been the job of the father to temper and channel male energies into decent and productive avenues.
11
@Hoarbear aggression is also very useful, and Nanci Pelossi (along with all successful people) share in that. Aggressive people get things done. They are doers, movers, and shakers. They attack problems to find solutions and fix them. Of course, when misdirected it could be an issue, but aggression itself is good. We need to remind our young men that aggression and competitiveness are good and useful qualities in a capitalist system. Just don't take it to the extreme. As is often said, they key to life is moderation.
9
I can tell you one thing: if the Democrats alienate all men, and toss them out of the party, then the Republicans will cheerfully accept them.
Will that happen? I believe it is happening. Even black and hispanic men don't like being insulted and put down at every turn.
So if you thought Trump's victory was bad....
165
@Jonathan -- "Even black and hispanic men?"
I hope your were trying to say that a man is a man first, and an ethnic group second, so that he won't overlook insults to him even if "meant" to pander to his ethnic group.
28
@Jonathan
So what I'm hearing from you is because men don't want to even entertain real truths they will hide behind a bully and let him drag them down to the gutter rather than give up something they want to believe.
31
@Jonathan, So you threaten? See? My husband is not alienated by changing social constructs, and there are millions like him.
49
Thought this was a good discussion and exploration of the topic. Well, up to this point:
" Many Democrats defend the basic theory of evolution but remain wary of, if not hostile to, biological explanations of human behavior, in part because of their belief in the efficacy of government or other societal intervention to change behavior."
Who the heck are you talking to Mr. Edsel? Maybe democrats without the appropriate education to integrate nature, nurture, and social engineering into a model? We do it everyday, some of them are called Public Service Announcements.
3
Thank you, Edsall, for giving voice to an issue that we women and a few thinking men have known for millennia: when it comes to the problems of the world most are instigated and perpetuated by men.
In this country alone we have an epidemic of men shooting people en masse on a daily (yes, daily) basis. Meanwhile, 'experts,' wring their hands about not knowing who will be the next mass shooter. "There are simply no demographics that explain this behavior," they bewail.
I can help. Let's start with male. Narrow the search from there.
Perpetual wars, violence, carnage and mayhem the world over. We can certainly see that male aggression and its voracious hunger for power is the cause. "If women were in control, they'd be just as bad," many people say. "It's just human nature." Wrong.
First, let's look at that statement--'if women were in power.' That let's us know that men *know* women are not empowered to affect the world in which we live. Secondly, we do have a few examples of female leaders in both historical and contemporary contexts. Never has one been a Hitler, a Stalin, a Mussolini, a Mao, etc. etc.
It's a fact: male violence and aggression hurts women, children, and even other men. Yet men still cling tenaciously to their ever loosening grip of dominance and power over humanity and the world. Why? When women share power, life improves for everyone. Isn't it time to let go of the death grip of male power and embrace a shared, peaceful future?
201
@Regina Valdez Read Camille Paglia for some of the downsides to your plan for all of us.
13
@Regina Valdez
If men didn't fight our battles for us, we'd have to fight them ourselves.
But then, we do have Indira Ghandi, Margaret Thatcher, Marine LePen, Hillary Clinton, Gina Haspel, Jane Harman, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
14
@ellen1910
Thank you Ellen for pointing out that all humans encompass both good an evil.
17
"traditional masculinity...leads to the disproportion of males involved in aggression and violence....”
Men who engage in aggression and violence against women and children damage the health and well-being of their victims.
Thus, the adverse health consequences of traditional masculinity are not limited to men. They affect women and children too.
2
What is this "the way we think about the past." Not all of us groupthink. I think as an "I" not a "we."
2
As in nearly all things, the republicanism we live under plays a huge roll in all of this.
So many problems would be alleviated if government was valued instead of feared AND if the progressive taxation that built America's middle class was returned to.
Germany, the economic engine of Europe, spends 650 times what the U.S. does to train it's people for employment. And Germany has only one fourth as many people. Imagine!
In America you are on your own unless we put you in jail. And we do that at a higher rate than anyone else by far.
This is the Christian republicanism we live under.
6
Is it ironic or poignant that the discussion so carefully laid out by Thos Edsall is in my view most eloquently synthesized by a woman who teaches the liberal arts (Comp Lit no less!), whereas the comments of the male scientists while razor sharp and smart are less profound. More evidence that the “future is female?” Or just another demonstration of the power of a good liberal arts-trained mind?
3
It would be interesting if the writer did a comparison of the way these issues play out in other cultures.
1
I am a liberal, but also a scientist and engineer, so I need to speak honestly regarding 2 points because the root cause of many issues is not culture ("nurture") but nature:
First, part of "toxic masculinity" is not at all based in culture but is the result of 4 billion years of evolution. For example, hostility toward homosexuals is rooted in a deeper hostility many animals (including humans) have toward abnormality - especially if that abnormality that harms or does not benefit the species.
Second, a major reason why Trump got elected is that he was a channel for the defensive hostility that males (and sympathetic females) feel in response to attacks on who men naturally are.
The out-of-touch liberals who think everything is to be blamed on the white oppressive patriarchy along with hostile feminism have created a class of people who are feeling consistently under attack. While the anger of these liberals may be warranted, their need for easy answers and scapegoats for that anger causes them to lash out. Are some of these men to blame? Absolutely. But, males are the product of many thousands of generations of evolution. These liberals need to look in the mirror and recognize that our dark side is part of who we are. That does not mean that the behavior needs to excused or condoned, but we need to accept it as part of who we are and to teach why it is unacceptable in society and to keep in under control.
10
@VJR
Your argument seems to run up against the notion that, because our bodies run at the top of a vast chain of Heisenberg uncertainty, we actually have no free will. To me, we seem to have free will and self determination, so my world view includes it.
Similarly, as you grudgingly admit while undercutting your point, people can and should develop and exercise self control. That is the big "liberal" bugaboo decried by conservatives - that boys should be socialized to behave differently as men.
I strongly disagree that men are homophobic because of some evolutionary drive to preserve the species. In fact, evolution could be seen as developing a heterosexual approval of homosexuals because it improves reproductive opportunities for heteros. Rather, homophobia is cultural. In our culture it comes from a long tradition of religious intolerance of sexual expression. Religious belief is entirely taught, so it's homophobia.
To bad an issue of health and well-being devolves into yet another political battle. Political trenches are a poor platform for human progress. You can lead a horse to water ...
1
@Some Dude
No, I am sorry but you are incorrect to a point and maybe I can clarify here.
As an example of showing that homophobia is not cultural, I admit to an instinctive level of homophobia in myself. Yet, I do have free will and I willingly do not act on that. I am evolved to have a higher mind to think abstractly and override that instinct. Thus, while my instincts may not be accepting of them, my mind is completely and I support them 100%.
Since you brought up the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (I was a physics major), I assume you are, like me, a bit nerdy. Another example of my point about nature and overriding it comes from Captain Kirk in the Star Trek episode "A Taste of Armageddon":
“We’re human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers . . . but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill — today!”
What I find lacking is the role mother have and continue to play in the formation of male identity. Especially sons raised by single mothers. "Man up" and "make the money" are largely still the only values and socialization boys are taught, at home, the playgrounds, and school soccer fields. Feminist ideals and changes in male behavior will always be out of our grasp so long as women continue to demand men remain the very thing they dislike. There's what women say to men and about men in public and what they say to men in private in a verbal and non-verbal language.
1
Erasing differences between male and female traits by social engineering? Fool’s pursuit.
Engineers of human souls always fail.
The PC culture has now devolved to irrelevancy.
But new voices of sanity are emerging. Try Innate by Kevin Mitchell. Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are ( Princeton press)
Not all scientists can be intimidated by SJW and Twitter.
7
"The future is female and intersectional."
Maybe. But not my future.
6
@KBronson
And if history offers any lessons....not anybody’s future.
1
In "Let's misbehave" Cole Porter inserted the line "We're only mammals". Unfortunately for some, that's difficult to accept.
1
One statistic should stand out clearly and slap every reader in the face: "Men commit 90 percent of homicides...". Of course, we all know this. But this alone should tell every thinking person that something is wrong with the way men are being raised in this country. It is absurd to think that this is an inevitable result of biology.
The "fight over men" should be more about how to to solve this problem! Here's a first thought: get women to commit more homicides!
2
@Reader
second thought: get more men to stop the killing for goodness sake.
"Many Democrats defend the basic theory of evolution but remain wary of, if not hostile to, biological explanations of human behavior, in part because of their belief in the efficacy of government or other societal intervention to change behavior."
This hostility towards biological explanations, and the racist's fondness for them, comes from a confusion between heritability and immutability. There are lots of heritable characteristics which can be changed by environmental factors. Height is the most obvious example. It is clearly heritable, and yet changes in diet can easily erase those inherited differences. These manifestations of toxic masculinity are both heritable and changeable. Philosopher Ed Block wrote the classic paper on this.
https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/Heritability.html
4
This article would have been impossible in 1995, when dogmatic feminists dominated the op-ed discussions of all things gender and everything was men's fault. It's heartening to see reasonable, intelligent discussion of boys' and men's struggles and needs. But so much time and so many opportunities have been wasted.
"In this heated debate, Judith Butler, a prominent feminist and a professor of comparative literature at Berkeley, provided a strong case "
So the role of Men is being prescribed by English Professors?
Expect resentment if not rejection.
6
@Jack
But men have been expounding on the nature of women for centuries!
6
@Jack
Ever read Moby Dick? Or the Odyssey? Loner
heroes?
Yes, there are people who resent intellectualsand
artists.
1
This might be trivial, but you didn't tell us what proportions of the Democrats and Repbulicans interviewed in this work were male, female or something else.
1
Some of the commenters here seem to assume that women are intent on emasculating men. This position brings to mind a quote from Margaret Atwood - "Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them."
A data point from the Centers for Disease Control, 2017: Homicide is one of the leading causes of death for women aged ≤44 years, and rates vary by race/ethnicity. Nearly HALF of female victims are killed by a current or former male intimate partner. (Petrosky E, Blair JM, Betz CJ, Fowler KA, Jack SP, Lyons BH. Racial and Ethnic Differences in Homicides of Adult Women and the Role of Intimate Partner Violence — United States, 2003–2014. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2017;66:741–746. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6628a1)
Honestly, we’re not trying to emasculate you or turn you into a woman. We’d really like to stop living in fear for our lives, though. To those men for whom violence is a first response (and the culture that condones/ignores it), how about if we ask nicely? Pretty please, could you stop killing us?
8
@Claire Elliott All well and good. This asymmetry is true. However over the past five or so years, on the internet, I've noticed that these stats on homicide are always made with the intent to shut down debate. I'm afraid yours is a bad-faith rhetorical strategy.
3
@Claire Elliott---Yes, please stop killing us, for sure. And what would also be nice is if you stop behaving as though you are entitled to our sexual favors. I understand that men need to feel like the initiators, but really, no means no. Buying me a nice dinner also doesn't mean you are entitled to sex. Didn't we just share a meal in order to get to know one another? There's a broad spectrum to this feeling of entitlement, and women can usually sense it right away.
Sure, "nature" is responsible for much of men's sex drive (women's, too) but we all (at least theoretically) live in a civilized culture where people don't act on all of their urges, out of respect and consideration of others.
Don't get me wrong---there are many, many wonderful men out there who treat women with respect (one of them was my late husband). That should be the norm, not the exception, and that is what we need to work towards.
2
@Jack McNally
Not my intention to shut down debate. How can you have a meaningful discussion without data?
i set aside the fundamentally blinkering effect of analyzing social issues in political (partisan) terms. i adhere to no party, and i object.
obviously, all players need to be more alert to the distinction between sex ("testosterone") and gender ("masculinity"). McKelley's demurral that "i can't measure it, so we didn't talk about it" is risible in the context. if it's relevant, you talk about it.
the larger problem is that i simply haven't encountered many men who are "stoical, homophobic, invulnerable, self-reliant and competitive,” and absolutely none who find “aggression and violence as a means to resolve interpersonal conflict."
this is, i think, because human is not a very obedient animal, and whatever individuals are taught, they go their own way. so i question the monolithic and ubiquitous currency of "masculinity" as a dogmatic fiction -- apart from the lack of a dogmatic and ubiquitously oppressive concept of "femininity" ("submissive, superstitious, dependent and cooperative") in itself both sexist and a great failure of intellectual hygiene.
the real "cultural moment" here is that, whether talking about immigrant walls or male masculinity, we've pushed our culture into the realm of concepts, idealisms and fictions. an entertainment culture, in short.
Pinker's empiricism is a voice in the wilderness. a wilderness of people who will say #MeToo to any faddish trend.
1
@drollere
"obviously, all players need to be more alert to the distinction between sex ("testosterone") and gender ("masculinity")."
Except for the problematic fact that testosterone determines the physical expression of gender.
And as for your statement:"the larger problem is that i simply haven't encountered many men who are "stoical, homophobic, invulnerable, self-reliant and competitive,” and absolutely none who find “aggression and violence as a means to resolve interpersonal conflict."" Please see the above reference to the number of women who are murdered by their male significant others.
2
Men are still having sex with women and for them, that's evidence of normalcy. What else would they think?
So, women, -- need to become bisexual and only favor men that are decent and progressive. The Neanderthal men would be unable to pass along their genes and in four generations everything could be fixed. Of course, Fox News women might not follow the rules.
“ Men are afraid Women will laugh at them. Women are afraid Men will kill them “ - Margaret Atwood.
Amen, Sister.
8
@Phyliss Dalmatian Men are afraid that women will take their children, property, liberties, and then incarcerate them.
I'm not afraid of women laughing at me. I'm afraid of the way their lies have changed laws.
The entire history of homo sapiens is written in unecessary and mostly gratuitous violence and bloodshedded slaughter.
Pick any day in history and you will be immersed in some males slaughtering other males somewhere on the planet .
Alpha male homo sapiens are Chimpanzees with pathologies and imaginations which they cannot control.
And yes -hard labor used to mitigate their aggression until some alpha male demagogue came round to offer them pillage and rape and a break in their mindless numbing work (of which the benefits accrued mainly to the men paying for the next mass tribal slaughter)
So now they become alcoholics and drug addicts and buy guns and support knuckle draggers in their own self image -AND with similar mental health issues as their political leaders.
The faster these chimps are reduced to economic and cultural irrelevence - and/or women evolve to asexual reproduction :
The better off the rest of us normal males - And all the abused women and children (and our robots) will be!
Might even save Mother Earth?
2
First, this is far too complex a subject to be effectively covered in an opinion piece. I would encourage a series be authored to allow a better discussion and understanding.
As to the claim that gender behaviors stem only from "nurture", rather than "nature" is upside down and wrong. I have to agree with Professor Pinker that to deny the biological imperatives of behavior is unscientific. It's ironic in fact, that so many who don't question evolution, would argue that there is no biological component to gender behavior. It's certainly not societal pressure that drove evolution!
Can we encourage different responses and behaviors from males? Certainly! But there will always be genetic differences between the sexes shaping how each relates and responds to the world around them. We should acknowledge and respect these and take advantage of them. I think this is the "middle ground" around which reasonable people can gather. But if we continue to be pushed into trying to erase these differences, and worse, demonize them, the "war" between the sexes will continue.
5
What I find disturbing is that these guidelines appear to encourage clinicians to urge men to be a certain way. Any particular man is who he is- though biology, environment, experience combined. I do not care for social engineering from the left or the right. We live in the most diverse and accepting society to ever exist on the planet. There is room for every kid of person- let's encourage all to be responsible and competent, and let the individual determine how to be that is best for them.
4
When comparing Democrats to Republicans, writers suggest our country is equally divided. But a 2017 Gallup poll showed that 31% identify as Democrat, 24% as Republican, and 42% as independent.
As to the APA report, the homicide/suicide statistics alone are enough to merit some attempt to raise and treat our men differently than we do now.
2
So many of the critics, Pinker in particular, cannot see the forests for the trees. It is as MLK, Jr. reasoned 50 years before: racism corrupts not just the victims but also the slavish proponents. We (the APA and others) are talking about being constrained by narrow definitions of what masculinity is as opposed to masculinities (plural), as the report highlights. In essence this report turns the maxim "Be a Man" not into a box but a universe of possibilities. Those who struggle with this work are advised to reflect upon Viktor Frankl's consideration of two races of humankind: decent and indecent man; which side are you on in this culture war?
5
It seems possible that one's views about the status of women and the progress (or lack thereof) toward improvement might be a predictor of one's party affiliation (rather than the other way around as implied by the author in reporting these findings).
2
Men and women are biologically different. Yes. But men and women are also immensely complex social creatures for whom biology is merely a part of their individual psychological gestalts. Indeed, transcending biology is a hallmark of being human. We are more than the sum of biological characteristics with which were born.
Instead of asking what it means to be a man (or woman), we should be asking what it means to be a well socialized person in general: tolerant of others, brave when need be, strong when need be, willing to accept bravery and strength from others when needed, and committed to the well being of the community and those within it.
14
Prof Pinker's suggestion that "dignity, responsibility, self-control, and self-reliance" are distinctly masculine virtues is insulting and infuriating.
8
@AM Justice
Yes!
@AM Justice
That struck me as well. These are simply virtues, neither masculine nor feminine, and he undermined his otherwise valid arguments by gendering them.
4
@AM Justice
When you take words and ideas out of context that will happen.
3
My wife and I raised two daughters and a son. All now adults.
All three were very successful in school.
The idea that differences in behavior between the sexes do not have at least some biological basis is just not born out in our experience or any of our friends who have adult children (we have discussed this with many parents).
Our son for example was always much more physically restless. Pacing, playing aggressively and actively when every possible. Now an adult in his twenties he still reacts to stress physically (by pacing or taking long walks).
Neither of our daughters acted this way. In the words of my old educational physiology professor: "the answer to nature vs nurture is both." Can we do a better job, sure. We need to address the biological differences along with the environmental to do so.
17
@Bob
The fact that you son doesn't pound the wall or another person is what this discussion is all about: socializing males toward less violent or less repressive expression of their emotions.
3
@Bob
Right, let us generalize from a sample size of three with a biased male observer to the entire species.
In the world, there are many active girls and sedate boys. There is great individual variation and one's sex is not determinative of one's intellect, interests, personality and character.
A rare article full of insight, nuance, and a large degree of comprehensiveness. Tries to address some issues I got scolded for bringing up in a comment on a Times article a few weeks ago by other commenters. I just asked whether there is such a thing anymore as masculinity, once you strip away two components: the toxic elements and those elements that females can perform just as well? I admitted I was confused about what, if anything, is left. Just for asking a question, you can get criticized or assumed to have motives you do not, and told I was over-complicating a simple thing. It is not acceptable to be confused about something so simple. Yet, the subject doesn't go away just because some don't want to talk about it, some of its dimensions are not simple, and it needs to be addressed. Edsall recognizes some of the barriers to discussion and shows that it is possible to have a good discussion about it.
5
@Matt Polsky
Ditto, with femininity, which is a social construct also created by males, btw. Once you take out the female toxic elements - corrosive extremes exist in both genders - and what males can do just as well as females. We are left with basic humanity as human beings and two differences that are hormonal/biologic: males can lift heavy objects and females can give birth. Everything else is a post-hunter gatherer invention of agricultural and then industrial males for power, if not autonomy, and wealth or ego. We call it the patriarchy for a reason and it superseded the more genderless egalitarian hunter gatherers.
4
Mr. Edsall's assertion "that nature and nurture interact endlessly" is inarguable. The polarization and "Us v. Them", however — and as he rightly points out as well — keeps the hardcore devotees of one pole from admitting that any observations made by the other pole might be correct, and that a melding of assertions made by members of either pole would be heretical.
Do allow me to complicate matters further, however. Throughout his article Mr. Edsall treats "men" as a monolithic, homogeneous group — which we most certainly are not. We are individuals with not only individual inherent traits but also individual histories and influences. I hate to add more poles to this global overview, but if an accommodation is to be made in this argument, it can't simply be between two competing poles, but among many, many ways of interacting with the world.
To quote that mid-20th century, keen observer of human interactions and wise sociological theorist, Sylvester Stewart, "Different strokes for different folks / And so on and so on and scooby dooby doo."
2
No one is telling men "that they don’t have to answer that voice inside them that tells them to be strong, to be brave, and to lead". Rather, society is finally telling girls and women to answer that same voice, giving those same directives.
11
"One could argue that what today’s men need is more encouragement to enhance one side of the masculine virtues — the dignity, responsibility, self-control, and self-reliance — while inhibiting others, such as machismo, violence, and drive for dominance."
Pinker's comment makes me think of a young working class man I know, in a depressed town in Appalachia, not well-educated, working at one of the remaining manufacturing jobs in his area for less than $15/hr. He has three young children (one of whom resulted from an ill-advised relationship his wife had during a separation). His wife continues to suffer from mental health problems.
Through all this, he has steadfastly -- stoically, one might say, though he probably wouldn't recognize the word -- taken care of everyone in his family. Taking care of people seems to be his prime directive, in fact. He fulfills his responsibilities every day, doing so with dignity, largely without complaint though under constant stress.
I think one might view him as exemplifying the good side of traditional masculine virtues in an economy that decreasingly values them - he and his family are likely one plant closing removed from destitution. But meanwhile he perseveres. I have come to have great respect for him. People like him, and the traits of character they manifest, deserve that respect and recognition from all of us.
26
@rungus ... interesting, not very many " recommended " for this comment.
2
@rungus
i.e. what humans have always done, be they male or female - but females were expected to while men get a trophy for the same concern and work.
3
"...they have become an integral element of contemporary political conflict, which means that an ultimate resolution is light years away."
Some values are not going to be easily compromised or resolved. One side or another may take most of the winnings. I just hope the winner is on the side of inclusion and understanding.
2
"According to an October 2017 Pew Research report, a quarter of Republicans said the country has not done enough to insure equal rights for women, while 54 percent said the country has done enough and 18 percent said the country has gone too far. Among Democrats, 69 percent said the country has not done enough, 26 percent said the country has done enough and 4 percent said the country has gone too far."
So where does this president fit in? Does he think:
The country has gone to far.
The country has done enough. OR
Will he lie again and say The country needs to do more.
Pinker and Autor had especially sensitive and constructive comments. Generally, it appears that the text of the APA's guideline has required refinement and interpretation in order to become acceptable and practicable. Even more generally, it appears to me that the male population of the US has deteriorated in quality during the last 40 years, with that process accelerating in the last 20. There is way too much devotion to inconsequential activities (viewing sports & entertainment rather than doing sports & entertainment), a decrease in respect for male intellectual achievement, less stand-up, more fat, less work of both brain and body, and less working together. (At least the level of male effort devoted to child care has improved.) I don't really care which outside factors one chooses to blame -- we need to pick this up on our own, starting with our inner lives and working outward.
5
Male children don't function as well as girls in a structured classroom environment. Sitting in their seats quietly has been changed with a more open classroom of interaction and mov't. When I was a child I was always talking and playing at my desk and it drove my teachers crazy. Thankfully hyperactivity wasn't a go to diagnosis back then. They sent me to stand in hall or to the principles office. The economic travails facing men who once could get a good job with a high school diploma has changed forever. Globalization and off shoring of these jobs was outside their power to change. The relentlessly growing inequality of wealth in the US and the GOPs worship of tax cuts as a cure all. They totally accept that the gov't is the cause of economic stagnation. Providing better education gets one so far with college tuitions out of sight. Student loans are real drag for both sexes. This trend of the USs declining economic hegemony and breaking down of traditional institutions that propped up the USs economic dominance are going away.
4
@c harris
The evidence becomes useful when comparing males of other nations and cultures and races.
Turns out the #1 factor in boys not doing well in U.S. schools is, wait for it, other boys - their male peers' disdain for learning as a female weakness. And that comes directly from the parents/home life and overall culture, not the school, the teachers, the curriculum, not the other half of the classroom that is girls. Conversely, girls do better when allowed an education because girls (and women) do not lash the process of learning with negatives and weakness. To the contrary, females know the gateway to getting anywhere in life, a basic income and self-protection, is an education, which for many thousands of years men denied females. The manly man patriarchy eats boys and men alive, just as it destroys the lives of girls and women.
7
Edsell writes, "Ubiquitous contraception, for one thing, has altered the fundamentals of reproductive roles. The alteration of these fundamentals has been followed by a series of transformations and dislocations — women’s rights, reproductive rights.."
I'm not sure which country he's living in, but I would point out that Republicans and conservatives have long sought to restrict access to contraception by curbing insurance coverage for it.
Moreover, the battle over reproductive rights is far from over. If anything, pro-reproductive rights advocates are currently losing ground, thanks to the folks in charge at the White House and the Senate.
7
@Lizzy M
"I would point out that Republicans and conservatives have long sought to restrict access to contraception by curbing insurance coverage for it. "
Actually, no.
Conservatives just want people to pay for their own stuff. We are not looking to restrict access to birth control, any more than we want to restrict access to cars or couches.
You are entitled to as many cars or couches or birth control as you want, as long as you are willing to pay for it.
There is a fallacy that "the government" or "the insurance company" provides things "for free".
There is no such thing.
3
@G
You say that "Conservatives just want people to pay for their own stuff. We are not looking to restrict access to birth control..." But do you not see that this mandate has the real-world effect of indeed restricting access to birth control for the poor? It's disingenuous to compare birth control services to a piece of furniture. The ability to buy a sofa doesn't extrapolate out to affect lives and opportunities across a nation for generations to come. But your attitude is merely a foil for limiting birth control and reproductive services for poor women and then blaming those women for the negative consequences.
In your thinking, people can have anything they want as long as they are "willing to pay for it." I assume you would then make the point that if a poor woman chooses to spend her limited income on something besides birth control, then it's too bad for her --- and for her offspring and the society as a whole.
Do you not see that such punitive thinking wreaks economic and social costs that dwarf the small investment requred to provide readily available birth control to the poor? Penny-wise and pound-foolish in the extreme.
4
@G. Health insurance should cover birth control for which medical services are required (IUD, implants, shots etc)
Birth control pills should be available over the counter IMO.
This is a very balanced article. Particularly the point about how Republicans embrace the science of sex differences, but reject the science of evolution (and climate) -- as liberals do the opposite. I think the devolution of manhood is also evident in pop culture -- rock and roll, once the outlet of masculine expression, is now replaced by either hyper-violent rap music or crooning "folk" hipsters, who have effectively harnessed the cultural push away from traditional masculine traits. The author mentions 'dignity' and self-discipline, something that is also slowly being stripped from us as every start up in the world is now doing what any competent adult (male or female) should do on their own -- deliver your food, fold your laundry, remind you to take your medicine. Unfortunately the entitlement to the 'arrangements of the past' is exactly what will continue the plight of such individuals.
2
When I was growing up, a boy or a man had to be emotionally tough if they wanted to date. Whether it was something as innocent as a walk in the park, or full on sex, the girls had something valuable, and the boys did not. The boys had to compete with other males and impress the ladies to in order to enjoy their company and (occasionally) their favors.
As a person of somewhat ordinary means and appearance, I had to contend with that reality or ignore it. Either path involved a lot of emotional distress, and without toughening up emotionally, I would have had a breakdown or gone berserk. I developed coping mechanisms that eventually allowed me to mask the distress while allowing for spontaneous interactions. It took some doing, and I'm sure that the masculine ethic got me through it.
Any discussion of how boys become men, how they interact with women in the adult world, and of economic equality has to take this into account. It is part of the mix, and ignoring it won't make it go away, it will just produce undesirable outcomes.
1
@mlbex
When I was a average at best young teenager growing up in the 80's. I found 2 things; Most guys where chasing the best looking women and guys were absolutely terrified of making the first move to ask out a girl.
So, I always talked to or asked out girls at any time I found one interesting for whatever reason and somewhat attractive to me for whatever reason. My biggest stress at times was which girl to date since they all seemed so appealing.
@John: Well you had a better deal than I did. I was able to get dates, but I got many more rejections. And yes, making the first move did involve emotional risk, but I was able to take that risk with the coping mechanisms I mentioned in my OP.
Still, it was clear to me that I was the one asking for favors, and they were the ones granting them. That hardly qualifies as equality.
@mlbex
To be honest, I'm not sure what you mean by "favors".
Thank you for this very well written piece about an intensely important topic that is touching all our lives and policies. I hope it is read by any as it will contribute to a more civil discourse.
1
Most Socially Conscious women, especially those who have tried to get ahead in the work place - especially single mothers - know this, Mr. Edsall, "The A.P.A. guidelines argue that the socialization of males to adhere to components of “traditional masculinity such as emotional stoicism, homophobia, not showing vulnerability, self-reliance and competitiveness” leads to the disproportion of males involved in “aggression and violence as a means to resolve interpersonal conflict” as well as “substance abuse, incarceration, and early mortality.”
That is why Socially Conscious Women are stepping up across America and around the world to take one-half the power and bring balance to the constant destruction sowed by a few men seeking power.
They use OUR hard-earned taxpayer dollars, consumer dollars and retirement dollars - and the lives of our loved ones - to try to get "supreme" power.
HIStory is full of battles, death, destruction, rape, pillage, plunder caused by hate-anger-fear-chaos.
It is time for OUR story of inclusion and relative peace brought about by Socially Conscoius Women and men sharing power.
NOW is the time.
7
Very interesting column from Mr. Edsall. Truly, gender differences confuse me. I am a 71 year old woman. With high school and college in the 60s, I felt like I functioned as a person. I did well in Chemistry, Physics, and Calculus. It never occurred to me not to do well -- I was given those subjects to learn, so I did. My daughters, however, struggled with the "Girls aren't good at math and science" mentality. And I am aware increasingly of the men who don't listen to me and the vocational fields closed to me -- especially as an older person.
But the other part of the discussion that Edsall touches on is the impact of our economic situation. I find myself wondering if anyone, male or female, in lower economic levels, is supposed to be human. We are supposed to work until we drop at 2 or 3 jobs. We are also supposed to load up on debt so that we can enjoy the extended benefits of stress. Never mind family lives, time to educate and impart values, time to love and time to enjoy. When we are done, we are supposed to die quickly and inexpensively as possible.
How are we supposed to function meaningfully as male and female when we aren't even supposed to be human. This state of affairs, I attribute to the Conservatives and then to the Moderate Democrats -- all friends of big business campaign donations. No wonder Trump won. But then, since he, himself, isn't fully human, he hasn't been much help.
54
@Elizabeth Fisher
Thank you for this well-written response that is rife with experience and reflection. I agree with your fundamental point that our society is set up with goals focused on efficiency and productivity instead of humanity--that most of us are in the grind in the economic service of the few privileged. It is a sad state of affairs and especially so, in my opinion, because of our state of technological advancement and relative material wealth. We could certainly find a way to share the bounty more equitably and create a world in which all had more time, energy, and wealth with which to develop and enjoy their humanity.
8
It is good to talk about these issues, but meanwhile we all must live in the world, with men and women, and navigate our lives as best we can.
Societal changes, like the disappearance of good jobs, the high cost of college, etc., are facts we all have to deal with. The men I mostly come into contact with are doing the best they can, to be fair and responsible. I give them a lot of credit for this, because living through social change is hard no matter who you are.
The young adult men I see in professional positions, and getting married, are noticeably different than the men I grew up with. Some people would say they are feminized; other people would say they have been given the tools to successfully live in a world where they are expected to exercise restraint and treat others with respect.
Men who are part of the struggling underclass, where jobs don't exist and drugs ruin lives, are having a palpably more difficult time. Everything in their lives is hard, and expecting them to change how they relate to women is just one more painful thing.
18
Everything needs to either evolve or be subject to becoming part of the past. We shake our collective heads when young men shoot multiple people for what seem to be flimsy motives, yet when we as a society are called to examine some of the elements of masculine 'typing' , we act as if all is unassailable, above reproach. If this was a piece of technology or a car, it would be redesigned at a minimum every year or two. This patriarchal view is not set in stone as some would like to believe. We are moving to a time in the next generation when men's and women's roles will be more fluidly defined. It is time to allow evolution of thought on this matter.
11
@Susan Brown
Men are what women want them to be. Men by nature compete to be the sperm donor. Whatever behavior women demand of them before bearing their children, or at least in engaging in that act biologically purposed for that, is what they will over time evolve towards, both by nature and nurture.
Feminists are complaining about the very men to whom women in general are awarding the trophies that count.
2
OK, concur with most of the left position on this and believe males can evolve to be better - but please leave stoicism out as an undesirable male trait.
"The endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint," is the greatest male attribute.
10
@JoeWhy? Please explain.
@Joe You're right of course. But that description of stoicism reminds me of the Black Knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail, with all four limbs cut off shouting defiantly "it's only a flesh wound!" Stoicism can be taken too far.
2
There's no way to know for sure how much of manifested gender differences in brain structure and function, preferences, etc are due to nature vs nurture. No child has ever been raised without being exposed from birth to gender-specific cultural norms and pressures. Anything short of that is not a real experiment that would confirm or refute any claim of the dominance of nature vs nurture. The only thing we can do is make double-blind selections the norm at any level of schooling or job search. Then and only then, after a few generations, we will begin to get a glimpse of how men and women could fare in different fields in the absence of gender bias. The stereotypes outside these limited selection environments though will still be in effect, and will take a lot longer to eradicate.
2
Edsall allows conservatives to define the conversation. When he summarizes the issue of the health and wellbeing of men in the twenty first century, he defines the problems as being all about traditional gender roles and how feminism eroded them. He says that Republicans are on the side of gender roles being fixed and the Democrats on the side of socially constructed. He concludes with a 'wise' balance. "the obvious truth that both social and biological forces are at play is cast aside."
No, no. 1. This creates a strawman of left arguments. We all agree that both forces are at play. 2. Gender roles is not what ails men! What ails men is that they can't work. What ails men is that they don't have the same value because many male strengths are no longer valuable economically. What ails men is that they are inoculated with endless messages that their values is tied to absurd sexual conquests. What ails men is that they are raised on a diet of violence and distractions and men develop no social skills. What ails men is loneliness and despair and a lack of community and values. What do any of these problems have to do with nature or nurture? [deep voiced pronouncement] "Is video game addiction nature or is it nurture? Dems say nurture, Republicans say nurture..."
Male issues in the 21st century are not brought on by feminism or gender roles. Have a look around please. The real problems are in plain sight.
8
Let's hope young males don't view Trump as a role model, as a paragon of masculinity. His supposed success as a businessman and as a politician, and his dominance in the media may create a false image of what a real man looks like and how he should behave.
2
It's astounding how 6 years of graduate school gives some people the inside track on everything that is wrong with us.
Even more astounding when you consider these are not medical doctors--but they still feel fully qualified to hammer out biological vs environmental without ever using the word testosterone.
Or the high percentage of studies in their field found to not be reproducible.
10
Perhaps the right-leaning biological determinists should also consider reproductive biology alongside endocrinal differences. Because there’s something of Aristophanes Lysistrata to all this: In our current patriarchy men might still own the predominance of power and privilege, but woman own the vaginas (at least as long as they are allowed to keep their current reproductive rights) and if traditional “masculine” men want to have sex with actual modern women they must either resort to coercion — an increasingly discouraged option — or adapt to new gender roles, whether they want to or not. For that reason the sexual emancipation of women is in fact an existential threat to traditional masculinity, as Edsall notes. Of course the very fact that traditional masculinity can’t exist without the legally, culturally, and often physically enforced subjugation of women should be sufficient to invalidate it once and for all.
7
@Michael interesting point, if we all agree straight men are still the majority of men in our culture. As a middle-aged woman, I definitely experience and notice a difference between how a lot of men, let's say 45 years-old and up behave, and how younger men are behaving these days. The younger guys are SO much less entitled to the traditional "perks" that used to come with being a man, at work and in romantic relationships. I have hope....
The argument in the Western world over whether or not there are biological differences between men and women and how much men and women can be made equal to each other?
Civilization, the historical record of such, demonstrates that every advancing, noble culture, is one which is willing to get at fine differences between people to locate useful natural talents and develop them as much as possible. Civilization advances by getting at the natural individuality of people and working around the flaws in people, trying to bring out the natural qualities in people and rectify, patch up somehow the flaws, a to and fro process between nature and nurture, getting as sophisticated and successful in the both as possible.
Degeneration of a society comes from the opposite process, a denial as much as possible of natural differences between people and a dumbing down of nurture over nature or education to point that only that which can be similarly accomplished by all is allowed to exist, consists of the entirety of nurture or education. With this basic framework in mind we can see that the West is obviously in degenerating state. In the West today education is largely a process of indoctrination, committee decided upon environment in which what is allowed is only that which can be accomplished equally by all, and differences between individuals not to mention the sexes and races and ethnic groups is explained away now this way and that to point really it needs to be asked "Learn what?"
2
The quotes in this from Steven Pinker are the biggest load of tripe I've read all week. Does anyone seriously believe that the "gentlemen" of 19th century Europe were any better than their warrior ancestors? Just because they waged war from a drawing room instead of a battlefield? Some of the worst human rights oppressions of colonialism and slavery were done when the "gentlemen" retired to the parlor to discuss politics. Oh but at least they had self-control and reserve! Bull. The problem isn't just lack of self-control. It's a lack of empathy and selflessness. As other people have said, these aren't just "masculine" virtues, they're human virtues. All it is, is trying to teach men to be more emotionally healthy humans.
10
The republican party needs to keep its men folk riled up about something. The party emphasizes the problems that arise in a fast changing world while offering little or no solutions.
Had Boehner allowed a vote, which probably would have passed the entire house, on the immigration bill sent from the Senate in 2013 the U.S. would be on the way to a solution on borders, et al, and there would be no t rump in the White House. But that is not the nature of today's republican party.
It's the same with "masculinity"; tell the coal miners in West Virginia that "beautiful coal" is coming back to its traditional value and the men jump in line. Coal is not coming back, but to offer a solution (retraining) doesn't keep the base fired up. Nope it's all those elites from the coasts that cause the miner's problems.
The Dalai Lama has said if every 8 year old in the world was taught to meditate there would be world peace in a generation.
In deep meditation I am no longer a man but a human connecting with what makes me human. Part of what makes me human is my feminine side. All men have a slice of feminine inside, as all women have a slice of masculine.
It is the balance between the two that completes a human being. It brings great joy to offer care and support to other humans, which is the feminine. It also brings great joy to know that I can help my wife by doing the heavy lifting, literally.
We need balance: male to female; conservative to liberal.
8
I am amazed that neither the author nor any of the commenters have mentioned the alliance of the GOP and the religious right. The religious right maintains strict definitions of gender and gender roles, and fight vigorously to enforce those narrow patriarchal views on society at large.
OF COURSE Republicans have a dim view of any boat-rocking of the "divinely established order" - most of them are fully wedded to the Evangelicals. Extreme conservatism is rooted in fear, and the fear than men have of losing dominance is fully on display among the religious right.
Being from the Bible Belt, I see it every day. Ironically, the most gender-normative, conservative, patriarchal religious regions of the country also have the highest divorce rates.
Toxic masculinity, indeed.
6
"We do not see negativity, shame, unwarranted violence and aggression, gender domination, or hate and prejudice as ways to promote a better quality of life for any one of us."
This is reinforced near the end of the essay when, as was expected, the Republicans (right) vs. Democrats (center-left) dynamic was brought into play. What I read here confirms a distinctly backward, regressive, defensive and hostile view of biological determinants by Republicans. It seems that they (largely) exist only to reject; to deny; to oppose. Anything that does (or cannot) conform to their rigid orthodoxy is automatically branded evil or untenable or against the codes of societal norms from which the directions of the whole are decreed. An example would be "un-American," an ungenerous, ideological label (weapon) Republicans trot out to describe one who may see an event or a movement or a trend that runs counter to their worldview. They wish to eliminate experiment or discovery almost entirely.
It's almost as though Republicans try to laboratize, if you will, built-in biological determinants. The psychological and emotional and physical needs of the human person, regardless of gender, should not be politicized, but it seems to be a determined part of the Republic playbook. "...male privilege often comes with a cost in the form of adherence to sexist ideologies designed to maintain male power that also restrict men’s ability to function adaptively."
And what is more "Republican" than that?
146
@Red Sox, '04, '07, '13, ‘18, Because I read articles like this I will vote for Trump. I was a Liberal-but the constant male bashing is way too much. I need to protect my son.
25
I like your comments so I hope you consider this: The quote you cite, "privileged comes at the cost of adherence to ideologies to maintain power" is civilization distilled.
This is exactly how society functions: you change your activities to be accepted/move up.
The bitter irony is that #MeToo has changed the outcomes, rather than the top down ideology of assimilation or excommunication, with breathtaking alacrity. Men are now hyper, hyper aware about how every comment can be misinterpreted. C-Suite men now strongly state a desire to hire women to hit 50-50 parity and have more women on the board.
These things didn't happen because CEOs suddenly found religion or morality! They happened because that is now the "ideology to maintain power"!!
Progressives think they're fighting against an authoritarian ideology, in reality, you've just changed winners and loser...the game stays the same.
I don't fault the clever, if underhanded, tactics of Progressives. But I am sure glad to be raising daughters not sons for this brave new century...
16
@one percenter
I note you say you were a liberal, but not a Democrat. See, they aren't one in the same. Furthermore, if your masculinity is so fragile that an ad for shaving cream can shake it, what are you?
32
There are so many ways this essay is off base I could write a book. But I'll just point out this one: Stephen Pinker is an adept peddler of his point of view. He sets up a straw man, ie., Blank Slate and then proceeds to knock it down. We can debate endlessly about the relative influence of nature vs. nurture but to suggest that there is a large body of opinion that completely rejects biological difference is a gross distortion. This point of view reduces humans to the status of animals, helpless over their biological instincts. I give men and women a lot more credit for their humanity, which implies the ability to reason and adapt.
6
@JS
It's not a straw man. The blank slate theory is still the underlying philosophy and basic doctrine of the APA.
And Pinker certainly doesn't claim that human beings are "helpless over their biological instincts." On the contrary, he argues that we are adaptive and flexible and able to exercise considerable control over our baser urges.
2
Enough on sex and gender. Inequality and socioeconomic change affect both men and women. Their effects may be gender biased. Focusing on religion, sex and gender is not an effective response to inequality and socioeconomic change. The solution is to provide education, opportunity, medical care and economic security to all. The solution is gender blind.
The political focus on religion, sex and gender has enabled politicians of both parties to posture on these culture war issues, while serving the interests of the wealthy donors and ignoring the interests of working class men and women.
434
@OldBoatMan Yes, we are all affected. The "solution" you mention, however, is decidedly NOT gender blind. There are PEOPLE working in education, medicine, business, etc., who make decisions. The systems are run by people. What are THEIR attitudes?
21
@harpla The last two years under Republican rule reveal a lot. The PEOPLE working in education, medical care and the environment in the Trump administration may not be gender blind in their views, but the effects of their action have such an adverse impact on both men and women that one can correctly conclude that the effects of their actions are effectively gender blind.
When we have an administration committed to advancing policies that produce better results, it is likely that those results will improve the lives of both men and women.
The real problem we face today is forty years of political support for the interests of wealthy donors over the interests of ordinary men women.
34
@OldBoatMan-well written...agreed...see my post.
Amazing that this is one of the first columns on gender where the NYTimes attempts to publish a balanced approach.
Both extremes are wrong, ie the extreme left where today's men must be feminized and atone for five million yrs. of existence and on the extreme right, a woman's job is to stay in the kitchen and bedroom.
28
Thomas Edsall's writings on the culture war around race and gender are incredibly refreshing. He respectfully presents reasoned arguments from all sides of the issues, and does so in a non-judgmental way.
As a white man, I'm always concerned about how these issues are treated on the left and the right; I want to have a reasonable discussion, but it often seems that nobody else does. These are complex subjects, and we need to give each other permission to be respectfully provocative, and occasionally get it wrong, if we're going to fully appreciate the position of well-meaning white men.
Instead, it feels like when the conversation approaches one of these freshly drawn battle lines, the knives emerge and everyone starts looking for transgressions to call out. You can't criticize Gillette without being labeled a toxic male, even though criticizing a corporation is perfectly fair game. Everyone's trying to reduce each other to a one-dimensional caricature, and it's just demoralizing.
So, again, thank you Thomas Edsall and NYT for trying to elevate the discussion.
13
@Patrick The biggest casualty of the social media era is nuance.
3
In all biological systems there is a normal distribution, an bell curve. Psychology studies averages. Our society certainly affects behavior and change is tough, yet there has to be some genetic effect as there is on height and intelligence. Our society has certainly changed in the last 50 years, when women were not expected to be doctors, surgeons, mailmen, truck drivers etc. Now there is no real "male" world that is safe for the boys. Competition with girls in a world where there is no male advantage and perhaps disadvantage, has been tough on the male ego, but it has to happen.
There is another big part of the discussion. Men think they control relationships with women, and that is so misguided. The attitudes of women toward men, he-men vs scholar eg is a major driver of male attitudes. Perhaps men can tolerate a woman boss, but to lose out to the wimp for the girl may be harder. There is a natural resonance that has to be settled at the same time.
1
I often agree with Steven Pinker especially regarding his deeper insights regarding civilization as the process of bringing us closer to the better angels of our nature. But here there are two mistakes in his assessments. The first is historical in his loss to understand that the movements in the 60s, while encouraging self expression and joy in life was more profoundly about personal integrity, honesty, consistency and a corallary for a sort of DeCartian questioning of authority and not his simplistic idea of hedonistic narcissism. The second mistake is directly related to this article: his revealing pronouncement that "dignity, responsibility, self control and self reliance" are "masculine" virtues! No sir. They are HUMAN virtues. From Steven Pinker this is a grave folly. I ask if he will correct the record....
19
Sometimes I really wonder about the critical thinking skills of some of those on the right. Specifically why every new idea has to be met with a knee-jerk reaction and why everything has to be turned into a zero sum game?
Do they seriously believe that teaching men to have healthier emotional lives automatically means that men can no longer be strong and active?
Do they seriously believe that creating more accountability for police officers to try to stop killings of unarmed civilians automatically means the police are disrespected and hated?
Do they seriously believe that gay people getting married automatically ruins marriage for everyone else?
Do they seriously believe that women attaining more equality automatically means the oppression of men?
Do they seriously believe that implementing some restrictions on gun purchasing automatically means no can own or keep their guns anymore?
Helping a minority of people doesn't mean that the majority is automatically oppressed. This seems like basic logic, but then again I wonder...
74
@Alex Many of them do think those things, and much of it is a result of targeted marketing, leading them to talk radio dogma, oppressive religions, violent video games, and other sources that compete to teach them that only by hurting others can they come out on top.
16
@Alex
I agree wholly with your examples, but the left is not immune from such zero sum thinking. It seems to be an inevitable result of ideological sorting.
2
@Dean Reimer
You're right. It's whenever people allow themselves to be fundamentalists. And it happens everywhere.
1
My nephew is now a successful young doctor in a NYC Hospital. When he was four years old my extremely progressive school teacher sister in law banned any form of competitive play for him. She wanted him to play nice, so no cops & robbers, or knights "play" sword fighting. She had to give in eventually, because as soon as he got outside, he'd pick up a branch & start fencing. Directing competitiveness to sports & controlled play makes the most sense. Suppression won't achieve a good result.
8
@Doug R - Yep. I recall seeing in 1991, before visual influences were as readily available as they are today, two very young boys, certainly under 3 years of age and blissfully unaware of the implications of any assignation of gender-based behavior, similarly engaged, and mere seconds away from hearing that clarion call "Stop that before someone puts an eye out!"
A natural tendency toward spontaneous target practice is another example. Not that females can't become wholly proficient at same, but that males seem to be predisposed to gravitate more readily to these oftentimes risky activities.
5
"When it comes to the crisis besetting our young men, traditional masculinity isn’t the problem; it can be part of the cure." I would amend that just a bit: parts of 'traditional' masculinity can be part of the cure. As to which parts, Steven Pinker lays them out probably better than I ever could:
"One could argue that what today’s men need is more encouragement to enhance one side of the masculine virtues — the dignity, responsibility, self-control, and self-reliance — while inhibiting others, such as machismo, violence, and drive for dominance."
I could hardly agree more. I see three essential attributes as being indispensable for healthy, nurturing, real manhood--and they all need to be present: integrity, responsibility and courtesy. Are there any more basic traits we need to cultivate more than these? Feel free to comment, gentlemen.
4
@Brian Meadows
I think self-reliance can become problematic when men are faced with issues they aren't able to solve by themselves or are beyond their control. The 3-1 disparity in suicides between men and women is evidence enough that self-reliance is not wholly virtuous.
4
@Brian Meadows
I agree with the importance of the attributes you emphasize (integrity, responsibility and courtesy) but I question whether these are in any essential sense "masculine" and not simply fundamental human values to cultivate in ourselves and teach our children and youth independent of gender differences. Regarding some of the "virtues" Pinker mentions, in particular "self-reliance" and "self-control," I would suggest we need a more nuanced approach that balances them with a recognition of the importance of cooperation and expressiveness.
2
@Brian Meadows
This is exactly what fighting toxic masculinity is trying to achieve. There's no disagreement.
Not to put too fine a point on the discussions outlined here by Edsall:
1. Steve Pinker fundamentally agrees with Jordan Peterson's analysis in 12 Rules for Life.
2. None of the APA respondents had a good reason for WHY the APA chooses to ignore biological and evolutionary drivers (including mating selection of men by women) of human behavior, when one would think those are important baseline conditions to be taken into account in counselling.
3. None of the APA respondents had a good reason for WHY the APA chooses to elevate unbridled emotional expression over self-control.
4. David Autor fundamentally agrees with Tucker Carlson's critique of unbridled finance-centric, globalist capitalism, and its destructive impact on the ability of 80% of Americans to have the economic foundation to get married, stay married, and thus raise children in stable households.
5. The worship of single motherhood, and the lack of stable, self-supporting, adult males in the lives of about 40% of all boys, and around 75% of boys of color, exacerbates all of the problems arising from #4, above.
Beyond all that, Edsall does not address the fact that 80% of APA practitioners (and a similarly lopsided number of K-8 teachers) are women.
Boys in trouble do have not have fathers at home, male teachers or advocates in school, or male counselors in therapy.
Where, exactly, does this society expect the good adult male role models to come from for at-risk boys, especially boys of color?
10
@Frank. Could you please provide more detail/support for your comment 'worship of single mothers'. Every poll I have read on this subject indicates that the majority in the US strongly disapproves of single motherhood.
I truly feel sorry for men, especially boys. I have raised three sons that seem fine in this world and confident of their place in it as workers, husbands, sons and fathers.
Is the key allowing women to raise responsible, caring, ethical, boy? These young men can grow-up to be a contributing member of society. It is men, who put these nonsense conditions upon boys, not women.
That said, it is much, much harder to be a women. Young girls are restricted to be themselves. Boys can roam free, not girls. Girls must comply to the rules of her father, her husband and society. Women are owned like cattle, not men.
10
@Carol
"Women are owned like cattle, not men."
In American in the 21st century?
First, "dignity, responsibility, self-control, and self-reliance" are not "masculine" virtues, they are human virtues that people of all sexes can and do possess. "Machismo, violence, and drive for dominance" are the virtues of bullies, who also can be and are of all sexes.
Second, since the critiques of the APA quoted here are relying on the "testosterone" biological argument, it's unfortunate that Mr. Edsall did not interview the most prominent academic experts on testosterone, such as Robert Sapolsky, whose 1997 essay "The Trouble With Testosterone" first called into question the idea that testosterone determines men's behavior or character and Cordelia Fine, whose recent book "Testosterone Rex: Unmaking the Myths of Our Gendered Minds," won the 2017 Royal Society's Science Book of the year award. Palaeontologist Richard Fortey, who chaired the judging panel, described it as “a cracking critique of the ‘men are from Mars, women are from Venus’ hypothesis.”
Third, Pinker is blinkered by the "fixed slate" dogma that ALL men and ALL women are the same. There is no scholar of worth alive who would not agree that the differences among men and the differences among women are greater than the differences between women and men on the whole.
13
I echoed your points before reading your remarks.
1
@Amy Luna Did you read Ms. Fine's book? It is one of the most unscientific books I've read in my life. She is absolutely not making her point (sometimes the opposite) and obviously lacks any mathematical skills.
2
@Peter Kriens Your comment begs two questions...how reliable is one's dogma if you have to gaslight the Royal Society to maintain it? And...how much confirmation bias must a person have to believe they know better than the world's oldest independent scientific academy, dedicated to promoting excellence in science?
Worth a read is this article by Christina Hoff Summers in the Weekly Standard from 2009 about how the funds from the stimulus were allocated and distributed under pressure from NOW and other feminist groups. In a nutshell, a solid chunk of that money went to "human infrastructure" instead of to roads and bridges and physical infrastructure. Also, "A team of six AP reporters who have been tracking the funds find that the $300 billion sent to the states is being used mainly for health care, education, unemployment benefits, food stamps, and other social services." And then maybe a better clue can be grasped by those still mystified as to the why the Dems have been losing the heartland since 2010.
https://www.weeklystandard.com/christina-hoff-sommers/no-country-for-burly-men
2
Pulitzer Prize winner Susan Faludi wrote a book - "Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man" - almost 20 years ago which looks at some of the points made by Thomas Edsall in this column. We must realise that one of the most important causes of these developments is not really the Republican or Democratic world view - nor a religious or atheistic philosophy - but rather the ever faster pace of economic and technological change. That has not changed in all this time at all, nor our response, which is a proper masculine "tough luck, loser."
3
The picture of children playing with dinosaurs used to illustrate this piece is brilliantly apt, since the response to the APA report is the sound of dinosaurs roaring on their way to their doom. Come on, asteroid!
Anyone who grew up in the U.S. and was not themselves a bully can see how traditional masculinity, as it's termed in the APA report, is a major problem. Because bullying is the essence of that tradition. Its emphasis is domination and destruction of others to pursue one's own selfish goals, and the derision of any who fall behind in the murder race.
While there are some positive aspects to old-fashioned masculinity, its fundamental aim, its rigidity, and its wild exaggeration are all worthy of total destruction. I for one welcome the asteroid if it does its work thoroughly.
7
Is Steven Pinker an endocrinologist now?
The statistically normal range of testosterone levels in boys and girls between 6 months and 9 years, when an enormous amount of socialization into gender roles occurs, are identical. After that, the male range increases, but the ranges don't completely diverge until the age of 15 or 16.
Whatever the effects of the differences in testosterone levels in the first months of life, one can not, in fact, determine the biological sex of a child by looking at the resulting structure of their brain. One can, however, do so with a high degree of confidence by looking at the clothes, toys, and books that their parents and other family members buy them as toddlers or by looking at how and what they are disciplined over.
There is little question that differences in testosterone levels have effects on the personalities and behaviors of adolescent and adult males, though these are much more variable than traditionalists seem prepared to acknowledge. The real question here is how the pre-adolescent socialization of boys prepares them, or fails to prepare them to navigate those changes in a manner both conducive to their own well-being and respectful of that of others.
The APA guidelines concern the particular and well-documented pathological effects of gender expectations on the mental health of boys and men which in turn have social consequences for the lives of girls and women, and shoud be welcomed.
6
@Christopher
Except that Pinker wasn't referring to testosterone in children -- male or female.
What he was referring to was "prenatal testosterone exposure" which has been shown in many studies to influence if not cause differences in the psychology of male and female humans.
2
The two things I noted when I spoke at my father's funeral three years ago were: he competed without aggression, and he treated everyone with dignity and respect, including me, so I guess he was ahead of his time. That must defy some of this research. He wasn't rich or even upper middle class but he had more class than many examples of successful self-made individuals, male or female, I see today. He had humility, something I strive for too. It's almost impossible to achieve.
8
@Anne You were blessed to have a father like that. I hope my own daughters can say that about me someday (long, long, long, long, long time from now).
The robots are here and they're not going away. Time to adapt.
Your grandfather was a great guy, maybe a good man. But you can't be your grandfather. Nobody needs your grandfather anymore.
1
"In Pinker’s view, the A.P.A. guidelines fail to recognize that
a huge and centuries-long change in Western history, starting from the Middle Ages, was a “Civilizing Process” in which the ideal of manhood changed from a macho willingness to retaliate violently to an insult to the ability to exert self-control, dignity, reserve, and duty. It’s the culture of the gentleman, the man of dignity and quiet strength."
The same "civilizing process" that brought us slavery, colonialism, WW 1, and 62 million deaths in WW2 ? you mean that "civilizing process" ?
12
@Jk----------Bravo/Brava!!
@Jk Indeed. It requires a monocular view of human history to make such a statement.
Jk
Slavery, colonialism, and wars existed way before the Middle Ages. This "civilizing process" has more to do with individual behaviors within a society than the behaviors of a society.
3
There are no solutions to “the problem” of gender, but this column provides a sensible and serviceable description of what it is—namely, “it” is a series of problems, to which there are sometimes, and sometimes not, solutions. Some solutions will clash and even contradict others, necessarily so.
What’s called for is standard pragmatic actions designed to ameliorate—make better, help, enhance, mitigate, ease, improve, benefit—the conditions of those whose lives are worsened by the various formulations of the various problems that gender restrictions, requirements, opportunities, identities, etc., pose.
There are no wholesale “solutions” to “the problem,” which is where Edsall leaves us. Oh, and he also shows us that declaring that “toxic masculinity” is an adequate formulation of “the problem” is nonsense, along with any other formula.
Nice column.
5
@rjon-- replying in order to echo your "nice column" comment. Very sensible, level-headed discussion, Mr. Edsall.
2
If anyone wants to know what real masculinity is (and not what the psychologists say it is), I can tell you quickly:
It’s Commander Ernest Evans at the helm of the USS Johnston in October 1944, sailing towards certain death- for God, for country, and for his friends.
We need the heroes of the past to show us how to be better men, not some dumb TV commercial, or psychology handbook.
5
@Greg Thats one of the weakest arguments I have ever heard.
1
@Greg
What makes for heroism? This is clearly not something that is solely within the domain of being a "real" man, (whatever that is). Florence Nightingale as a true hero? Of course!
This article, interesting as it is, begs a more fundamental issue: what is it to be? This inherently and inexorably draws us into more purely existential concerns. What is involved in being anything? An American, a Muslim, a Jew, a human being? The issue of what makes for masculinity is inherently tied to matters of what makes for femininity, and the real world is no respecter of clear lines of demarcation: it's inherently messy and equivocal. The APA piece is a good start in moving the conversation along.
1
Good article. But-- I'd have to object to framing the socio-psychology of gender & behavior, based on a population divided between 'Republican' and 'Democrat'. Are you joking? That belongs to a column on views of the idiocy of US politics, 2019.
Second, looking at the APA document, I'd object to "homophobia" being lumped into "traditional masculinity, stoicism, competitiveness," etc. That's a low-flying attack on the entire list of traditional male virtues, especially since 'homophobia' is a morbid _fear_ of homosexuality, not a lack of sexual interest in the same sex.
Thirdly, one has to lament the fact that this APA document hasn't been identified, in the article, for its basic ideological foundation, which can be called "male feminism," which, incidentally, openly preaches the virtue of "feminizing boys."
6
A few points on the article and quotes within:
It's not nature-nurture or biology versus experience. It is how individuals with varying biology develop within their contexts. Biology is different between males and females (that's the whole point). But within those biological parameters, vastly different outcomes can result.
Traditionally masculine characteristics are neither good nor bad. They are good when they promote/support functional adaptation to current environments. They are bad when they promote/support functional impairment in those contexts. [The same is true for traditionally feminine characteristics, as well as characteristics that are not sex-linked.]
I'm a psychologist (35 years) and have never been a member of APA because of policies like those discussed in this article. Most psychologists make the fundamental error of focusing solely on individuals, and fail to consider social, cultural, and historical influences.
10
In the former Soviet Union, it was confidently predicted that organized religion would die out once 'all the old ladies were gone.'
That did not happen: As someone wryly observed, there always seemed to be another generation of old ladies to take their place.
1
Just look at spousal abuse. 95 percent involve husbands abusing their wives. Regardless of any women's movement that number is carved in stone.
5
It is a basic scientific fact that gender is a social construct rather than some immutable characteristic of biology. Just take an anthropology 101 class if you have doubts. That half of republicans disagree with this rudimentary aspect of knowledge shows just another facet of their boneheaded approach to life.
4
@Jamila Kisses..."It is a basic scientific fact that gender is a social construct rather than some immutable characteristic of biology.".....So how come men can run the hundred meter dash faster than women? Sorry, but no matter what you want to believe, estrogen and testosterone are scientific facts.
6
@Jamila Kisses Really? And our genetic makeup has no part to play? I don't think so. You rely on a soft science of "social constructs" which do indeed play a part. But where is the hard science in your conclusion?
6
@W.A. Spitzer May I ask what does sprinting have to do with gender roles? Men have more body hair than women also, how does that relate to gender?
2
Boys "should" act this way....
Girls "should" act this way....
Men "should" only marry women....
Women "should" stay home with the children...
Employers "should" be able to dictate the birth control options of their employees...
Women "should" allow others to dictate what she can do with her body...
Believers "should" be allowed to impose their beliefs of others...
People need to stop assuming their world views are the "correct" ones, and stop imposing their world views on others.
13
@SLBvt
Shaming men won't get you there.
As a family physician who counsels boys K-12, I see video games and pornography as major factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys. The economic arguments mentioned in the second half of this argument are less persuasive to me, because I see boys as young as 6 years of age who say that school is stupid, “school is for girls” etc. These young boys have little awareness of the marketplace, but they have already learned that boys are second-class citizens in school. Boys doing things that boys have always done – pointing fingers at each other and saying “bang bang you’re dead”, or throwing snowballs – now are disciplined at school.
The APA guidelines never mention video games or pornography, not once. The big problem with the APA guidelines is the notion that preaching to men about “cisgender heteronormative privilege” has any beneficial effect at all. Instead, such preaching is more likely simply to drive boys and men out of the psychologist’s office, which is already happening. I share the data on this point at https://ifstudies.org/blog/psychology-as-indoctrination-girls-rule-boys-drool.
Leonard Sax MD PhD, author of Boys Adrift: the five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men (Basic Books, second edition, 2017).
12
@Leonard Sax MD PhD: Great to see you commenting here, Dr. Sax. Many years ago, you gave my wife and me the courage to pull our son out of his public school and to put him into a private school (co-ed, as it turned out) where he could be a boy once again. He is now a strong, kind, confident young man who will be starting university in the fall.
I just read the article you linked to above. It's by far the best critique I've read so far of the APA guidelines. Please keep up the good work.
@Leonard Sax MD PhD Thanks for the link, that is an a very good review of the APA guidelines. The idea that the ratio male:female in psychology is now 8:1 for the young does not bode well for our boys.
2
"Toxicity" is irrelevant with respect to survival strategies, of which behavior - and especially mating behavior - is intrinsic. Do you think your genes care if you're enjoying yourself, or if you feel fulfilled, or if you live and extra five years? Your genes want to replicate, nothing more and nothing less, and to that end you are engineered to fail and die to make room for your descendants.
Male behaviors will naturally follow whatever abets their ability to reproduce most effectively. This will occur without intervention. As long as women value certain traits in men, men will embrace those traits. And vice versa, as well, though with a marginally lower selection pressure.
I highly doubt toxic masculinity will go away any time soon. You can speak out against it, but as long as it succeeds as a survival strategy, it will be perpetuated. Everything else is words in the wind.
The economic argument, however, is quite useful. Masculinity has in the past and will continue in the future to develop, geographically, to conform to economic necessities. This, too, is a part of the ever evolving competition that exists in nature.
3
Until girls can hop on a school bus without being stalked and kidnapped ( by a man) please figure out why women are so greatly predated by men.
2
It seems lately that Pinker has his agenda and reputation to protect and French is simply not a guy that thinks in depth (about many things).
Biological differences (which absolutely exist) aside, isn't it worth promoting fairness, decency, honesty and integrity as aspirational values for ALL people. If you think being an aggressive, violent, brooding male is just the way men are born to be, you are definitely part of the problem.
Turn the clock back 500 years......isn't it obvious that we have moved beyond what was thought to be acceptable behavior? Our biological make up hasn't changed. Maybe culture and education have something to do with it?
Just sayin......
7
"What is supposed to be, is different to what actually is".
The above is lost in so many of these discussions, because most don't understand this statement.
Another confusing quote: "The unnatural, that too, is natural".
2
"The pressures to conform to conservative orthodoxy on the right and to liberal orthodoxy on the left sometimes seem to preclude reasonable compromise — that nature and nurture interact endlessly." A pejorative definition of what constitutes manhood would take you into an understandable embrace of the recent APA criteria. A focus on positive qualities -- cooperation, courage, perseverance, cover each other's back -- all are qualities making the planet a better place if embraced by both genders. An old sophomore debating trick is to distort what your opponent says, make him/her a straw man/woman, then attack the fiction you have created. I fear the APA is guilty of such a tactic. Perhaps the authors live in a bubble. A wider perspective would have been more realistic. Too many boys are misdiagnosed with ADHD by licensed psychologists and psychiatrists with conflicts-of-interest intent on incompetently medicating children -- see the New England Journal of Medicine articles a few years ago, by Marcia Angel. The APA has been hypocritically silent on this misreading of natural male restlessness among 10 year olds. I mention this to illustrate how pejorative definitions have already done harm perpetrated by licensed clinicians.
8
The definition of manliness has always been evolving. Long ago, Achilles was considered the paragon of manliness. He was motivated by rage and hurt everyone around him. I think it is good that this is no longer what masculinity means.
The APA guidelines are just acknowledging that masculinity is still shifting. When I was in school, the boys were respected for being athletic and sleeping around. Today, they are more likely to be respected for being smart, fun to be around, and fair to the disadvantaged. There is still masculinity today in the sense that boys are expected to improve themselves and compete with others to live up to an ideal; it is just that the ideal has changed in a positive way.
And the people who attribute this on economic conditions in the US are incredibly off-base. This shift is happening everywhere in the world. China has added lots of traditionally masculine physical labor jobs and they are experiencing the same loss of traditional masculinity that we are. The change in masculinity is not due to any factors specific to one country.
2
This is extremely thought provoking to me. I think the great attention and sorting algorithms in social media may be a factor in driving political orthodoxy on gender differences to the edges wherein liberals believe only nurture and conservatives believe only nature. I am a liberal, or even a green, and yet I cannot accept the orthodoxy that gender is a purely social construct. Democrats will make unacceptable errors in judgment if this orthodoxy is allowed to flourish more than it already has.
10
As usual, this man/woman analysis is based exclusively on internal naval gazing. Could there be some benefit in including data from other countries and societies. After all, isn't the nature/nurture debate central to the discussion? What better laboratory to view the differential effects of culture on core genetic determinism?
Perhaps the arrogance and narcissism that drive claims of "American exceptionalism" and "indispensible nation" have deeper roots than xenophobia and entitlement.
Failing schools, a disastrous health care non-system, crumbling infrastructure and a dysfunctional political system might all benefit from a more outward focus on places and peoples who have been more successful at balancing the demands of contemporary life. And where citizens are happier and more fulfilled.
4
I am waiting for the day the APA issues guidelines for diagnosing and treatment "excessive testosterone disorder" that will coincidentally apply to nearly all males.
3
In LA, 80% of all public school children live in poverty. A huge % of all US families are precarious, near the poverty line-- broke. Kids are raising themselves, with the help of TV, the internet, and the parents are working, trying to keep stable. What this produces is an angry, bigoted, agitated, isolated malcontent- male or female.
7
@4Average Joel,, So what?
The critics have it right on this one. The report is nothing but more male-bashing, which frankly, is rather silly and tiresome. Period.
9
So men are told something like this: "Men, share your feelings with us! Don't be stoic and bottle it all up! Be expressive!"
Some men expressed themselves over an advertisement: "I didn't really like that advertisement. I felt it was rather condescending to me."
In response they got: "Well that's because you are a whiny man-baby bigot. Get with the program!"
I'm all for confronting and integrating the masculine shadow, its a necessary part of becoming a full adult male. It's painful and harrowing to realize that you have a darkness inside yourself, but it's something that must be acknowledged and sublimated into useful ends.
What I'm not for is being denigrated on national television and condescended to by multi-billion dollar corporations with cadres of activists cheering them on. As the feminists say, my "lived experience" was not reflected very well by what I saw.
16
@Mark F
It is precisely that "Shadow" aspect both in "men" and "women" that needs both recognizing and integrating, along with what is the corresponding "feminine" aspect in men and "masculine" aspect in women that has created a "toxic" culture composed of "toxic" males and females, along with all the hypocrisy and duplicity that accompany it.
Nothing can be solved/resolved under the current "either/or" thinking and/or approach except more conflict, confusion, competition and conflict. The need to embrace and integrate these various parts and aspects within our Selves and with each other is the only way we can come to some resolution and solution.
And it begins and ends with and within one's Self.
1
@Mark F
What exactly in that ad was condescending to you? It may not have reflected your exact lived experience, but that doesn't mean it didn't ring true for millions of other men. Just because it doesn't reflect you, doesn't mean it doesn;t have value.
1
The APA portrayal downplays biology. I am an evolutionary biologist who has studied sex differences in the brain. The article and the current discussion specifically ignores evolution. We males and females have traits that are shaped both by our genes and our interactions with environment, that have contributed to our survival over millions of generations. These include traits in men related to expression of aggression or violence that may be dysfunctional in a Western society at peace. However, they persist, partly because evolution can take a long time. But even more so because periodically (even once in a score of generations), they can contribute greatly to survival of individuals and groups.
16
Interesting how this report comes out the same week as a report of yet another dead fraternity kid.
1
"Toxic masculinity” is simply another word for "masculinity” As long as the Democrats are at war with half the population, they will continue to struggle.
7
It's impossible to responsibly respond to report in limited space. However, the APA report smacks of a conflation of opinion, fashion in thinking, and American parochialism, all of which diminish its scientific validity. An example, is the conflation of violence with traditional male social attributes. It ignores that almost everywhere else in the world with strict patriarchies and far less progressive cultures, there is far, far less violence against women or men - Japan anyone? The APA has entered into a debate on what a modern society should look like as opposed to the health of the individual. As such, they have taken on the role of social engineer presuming a moral role rather than purveyor of scientific standards. As a father of two successful daughters, son of a mother who was one of three women in her Johns Hopkins Medical School class in the late 50's, and a professional spouse, I support equality and opportunity for women. However, I dont see the APA's work as effective or on mission
15
@Chris
Japan? You're kidding, right?
The statistics regarding sexual assault clearly refutes your claim.
1
"Many Democrats defend the basic theory of evolution but remain wary of, if not hostile to, biological explanations of human behavior, in part because of their belief in the efficacy of government or other societal intervention to change behavior. in part because of their belief in the efficacy of government or other societal intervention to change behavior."
My reading of this article does not support this conclusion: "Democrats (are)....hostile to, biological explanations of human behavior."
Read your article again, Mr. Edsall.
2
Amazing that this is one of the first columns on gender where the NYTimes attempts to publish a balanced approach.
Both extremes are wrong, ie the extreme left where today's men must be feminized and atone for five million yrs. of existence and on the extreme right, a woman's job is to stay in the kitchen and bedroom.
9
each generation experiences revolution of some kind and it will always be a combination of political, economical, global and social- just like it was in the '60s.
how we come out of this one will determine what life will look like for the next generation.
but no matter what, change is inevitable.
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor
the most intelligent, but rather the one most responsive to change.”
-Charles Darwin
8
I like Edward M. Adams saying that the guidelines are “a living document [that] will undoubtedly evolve over time.” I imagine him saying that about a document presented as certification for obtaining a driver’s license or passport or confirming his right to vote. “Here is the document that supports my claim. But don’t necessarily believe what it says; it is a living document and might say something tomorrow.”
2
@PL
No eternal truths in psychology. Just dangerous speculation.
2
@PL
… might say something different tomorrow. Sorry, my all-too-living typing skipped a word.
This article and topic are sure to provoke discussion. Bravo!
Another treatise of interest, again from the standpoint of stimulating thought, is The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen.
I am not an economist, political scientist, nor an anthropologist, so I am unfamiliar with learned critiques of his work. But many of Veblen's statements, difficult as they are at first to read and understand, seem cogent in the world we see today.
One sample: "In the early barbarian, or predatory stage proper, the test of fitness was prowess..."
"To gain entrance to the class, the candidate had to be gifted with clannishness, massiveness, ferocity, unscrupulousness, and tenacity of purpose. These were the qualities that counted toward the accumulation and continued tenure of wealth."
This is only one statement and this does not encompass his entire thesis by any means. IMO worth reading to try to understand where we are now, and how have we gotten here.
2
@Mac
The quotation you reference seems to fit Donald J.Trump, more's the pity.
I'm quite comfortable with gender specific orientation. I believe it is utterly normal, necessary and healthy. Men and women do have unique mindsets, but also while sharing responsibility for mutual respect. The trick is being "well-adjusted", as wooly a term as they come. Toxic masculinity is very real. And men are touchy as hell about masculinity. I believe the sheer numbers of women becoming present in professions, the workplace in general, and in media depictions can be of great help. The dynamic of a room changes when women increase their attendance. Just by being there. So, keep telling men to tone it down and keep telling girls and women to get out there.
8
I'm not sure that it is helpful to divide support for this question by Republican-Democrat lines alone. It would be more helpful to break that down further according to age group at least.
Republicans are more likely to be older, white, male, less likely to have university degrees and to be from rural areas; Democrats are more likely to be younger, urban, female, hold university degrees, and to be more diverse in terms of ethnicity.
Splitting the view along partisan lines could be obscuring the extent to which opinions about gender norms and gender equality is a generational issue.
8
@Valerie,
you are correct; however, the younger, more diverse population has generally been more liberal throughout history.
1
Interesting how this new program to define masculinity as dangerous and harmful coincides with the emerging consensus among radical feminists that women will always be oppressed if any gender norms are tolerated in our society. The idea is that if there are male norms, female norms with be "other" and, by definition, "lesser."
Older strains of feminism posited that "liberation" was about establishing rights for women to make choices about their lives. Unfortunately, choices come with consequences, some of them self-marginalizing in a normative world. Hence the new effort is to blow up the norms, thereby eliminating some of the choices radical feminists view as counter-revolutionary, inappropriate or threatening.
Readers of this column might view this as intellectual tennis being played among academics and psychologists. You would be surprised to learn how much of this anti-male, toxic masculinity propaganda has found its way into elementary and middle school curricula. Whereas young women are being programmed to be strong and assertive and to lead, boys are being programmed to yield, introspect and wallow in their feelings.
To my mind, this seems to be a very dangerous role for public schools to be playing. As a parent, I would be outraged.
27
@AR Clayboy as a parent of a middle schooler, I say check your fear mongering against reality.
TL/DR. Started to feel like the author was "mansplaining" to me. You can argue and cite professionals all day long and it won't stop the changing social constructs of gender equality.
Look, I understand that my husband is more physically capable of rolling a 55 gallon drum of oil than I am, but who rolls the drums is irrelevant to equality in today's society unless you value and rely on physical dominance.
Men are going to have to concede some power and control over the home, religion, education, business and government spheres that they have held tight since women wore bones in their hair, and learn to be equal. And, yes, it might just result in them being happier and living longer, more fulfilling lives. Let's find out.
Men like my husband have no problem with equality and he's not an anomaly; there are tens of millions of men out there who are like him, and women like those men better these days.
12
Since men are resistant to change and want to cling to their macho-ness, why not socialize girls differently so they will be better able to compete? Instill in girls the same emotional stoicism, self-reliance and competitiveness that boys learn. To ensure that women experience a similar degree of social and economic power that men do, encourage traditionally male traits like achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and risk-taking in girls. Teach girls self defense and encourage physical toughness and strength, so men will no longer see them as victims. Men are so afraid of losing their status and their masculinity by yielding power to women, so women should be encouraged to just take what they want, as men do. What a brave new world would result.
8
@Ms. Pea I'd like to see us do both.
@Ms. Pea
If life were a action movie with a female lead then yes, take it from men physically would make sense. But it's not, and the idea that females are physically capable on average of fighting men is ridiculous and not highly recommended. I hate to break to you but there are fundamental biological factors in play that make women and men physically different. I'm not sure why women think their strengths are not strong enough and rather would want to compete with men in a physical realm. Let it go.
2
@Ms. Pea
If this works we should next teach a cat to be a tiger.
1
There is a lot to agree with in what the economists and Hibbing say. Put succinctly, I think conservative people (there are both men and women who adhere to the conservative view) see human experience as an unchanging pie. They divide that pie into two parts, one part accessible/inherent to males, the remains accessible/inherent to females. They do not conceive that human experience can increase, so any change in the proportion of that pie will be a loss to males, who have for millennia defined what females could be, do, have, express, expose and experience sexually/biologically.
So, they are 'agin' change.
The same phenomena explains why those cities of 20th century growth in middle America did not change. While both coasts dealt with various industrial deaths: textiles, whaling, gold mining by reinvented themselves, (even financial services in NYC in this century) the middle of America did not so much. Farms were aggregated into corporations, sure, but wind farms, for example, began in NH. There's plenty of sun and wind in the prairies.
The very ethos they espouse: the seeming rebuff to intellect, evolution, science, equality over the contents of a book compiled by committee at the Council of Nicea in 325AD is witness enough to define The Fear of Change.
4
I find it interesting that no one is similarly outraged by the publication of "Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Girls and Women" all the way back in 2007. "Guidelines ... with Boys and Men" is almost perfect mirror image of "Guidelines ... with Girls and Women" in structure, style, and content. They both start by pointing out pathologies that are more prevalent in one gender, and go on to discuss how gender identity interacts with other identities and social forces to produce those disparities.
Both sets of guidelines get a lot of thing wrong (in my opinion) and both tend to imply that gender differences are greater then they actually are (ironically, since they also both caution against this!). But why are so many apparently ready to accept without complaint that we need special guidelines for treating women and the pathologies more common to that gender, while reacting so violently to the idea of specific guidelines for treating men?
I don't thing the APA guidelines (for men or women) are particularly good, and critiquing them is certainly fair. But "Guidelines ... with Boys and Men" is no more an attack on men or masculinity than "Guidelines .. with Girls and Women" is an attack on women or femininity. They are both imperfect but genuine attempts to articulate the relations among gender and gender-disparate pathologies and how to alleviated them. Claiming that these guidelines are an attack on men says more about the critic than about the guidelines.
7
Thank you Mr. Edsall for this comprehensive analysis, including if not especially Mr. Edsall's inclusion of Steven Pinker's commentary and responses to it. Ryan A. McKelley's comment that the APA guidelines were issued apart from “biological determinants,” such as testosterone because such consideration "was just beyond the scope of those particular guidelines” underscores how compartmentalized fields of study continue to contribute to socioeconomic inequity particularly for what is later in the article described as the "broad backed" workforce. Individual neurochemistry, male and female, guides individual thinking and develops in social context, a context that has traditionally rewarded male risk-taking while dismissing or punishing females. And then there is reproduction where motherhood used to be said to be the most important job, a job whose hours, efforts and neurochemical and physical contributions and tolls have gone mostly uncompensated and ignored in the socioeconomic spreadsheets of most male dominated cultures and most religious cultures are male dominated cultures. Mr. Edsall is probably right in suggesting that an ultimate resolution is light years away.
6
The APA's take on masculinity reminds me of religious doctrine. Akin to "all children are born into sin."
I have no argument with anybody's religious beliefs. They are free to believe whatever they want. But just as our Constitution states that there should be no religious test when it comes to holding office, I believe there should be no male/female test when it comes to politics.
Let's say the majority of Democrats don't belong to an organized religion (and I don't know if that's true). Does that mean you can't be a Democrat if you do go to church? Or say most Republicans believe in God (again, I don't know if that's true.) Does that mean you can't be a Republican and an atheist?
The fact that a majority of one party or another has one belief or another regarding male/female, masculine/feminine, nurture/nature should not become part of the party's doctrine, any more than belief in immaculate conception.
6
Minor quibbles with Mr. Edsall's essay today:
First, calm and reasoned acceptance of reality is in no way a "compromise," reasonable or otherwise. Instead, acceptance of reality is merely evidence of sanity, because in the end, reality always wins.
Second, I think broad consensus on these matters may not be light years away. Consider the progress of the last few decades. Because issues of gender affect us all so deeply, and the facts often so readily observed, this subject area may be the one bright spot where progress can be made regardless of, or in spite of, politics.
This may be especially true as the more primitive religious dogmas continue to decline.
3
"Fundamental disagreements about sex and gender have become so polarized that oversimplification is inevitable, and the obvious truth that both social and biological forces are at play is cast aside."
Well, this is because many men, including those in power, are trying to justify disparate treatment of women, or trying to actively limit women's rights, on the grounds that "gender differences are biological," whether in whole or in part.
That's why it's such a big issue. I don't care one way or another whether Ross Douthat or any other random twerp on the internet thinks that women are biologically suited to be kind, nurturing, and not good at math and science-y things, but it's a HUGE deal when politicians try to limit reproductive rights and/or women face work place discrimination, etc, because of those beliefs.
Men use "biology" as an excuse to perpetuate discrimination and to avoid questioning disparate outcomes. That's why the google memo was so problematic. He wasn't "just asking questions," he was arguing that disparate outcomes was simply the result of "biology" and thus dismissing that anything can or should be done about it.
In this debate, the stakes are much higher for women. Women aren't casting aside the fact that BOTH biological and social factors are at play, they're pushing back on the idea that the presence of "biological factors" justifies the perpetuation of discrimination.
32
@C's Daughter, You have it exactly right.
4
@C's Daughter, you say "Women aren't casting aside the fact that BOTH biological and social factors are at play", but many in this debate are doing exactly that! Also, just to point out something that gets missed often with the Google memo, the author explicitly rejected the idea that nothing "can or should be done about it", and he included several ideas to make it easier for non-males to work at Google.
4
@kavewood
"non-males" is that the exact language the Google author used?
Feels dismissive.
3
Another bill of goods sold by the wealthy power brokers. If men learn to express their emotions who will fight and die in the pointless wars of the Old White Men? Who will run into certain death for some imagined glory?
No wonder men are angry. They've followed the rules for centuries. They've taught their sons and now it's being thrown out the window. A window which the Old White Men who have much to lose are holding firmly closed.
My advice to men who find the Gillette commercial offensive, rather than a knee jerk reaction, ask yourself why? The fundamental message is don't prey upon the weak. Once Upon a Time men prided themselves on this simple rule. In my future world women will pride themselves on this also.
If I could point a finger at our ill society, it would be on this most important issue: Do not prey upon the weak. Lift them up. So simple to state and involving such complexities of character they are almost lost.
23
@mj You raise an excellent point - when we react to something or someone in a way that seems out of proportion - we should analyze why.
There is nothing wrong with many traits identified as masculine. to wit:
Women, children and weaker first.
Work hard and do not complain that a fault lies elsewhere when efforts fail.
Extend one's self to achieve the best, and then try to exceed that achievement.
Provide the benefits of one's work to others less successful in their endeavors.
Need I go on?
2
@K Why are these just masculine traits? These traits ar desirable for women as well as men.
3
@KLS Why are you lumping women into the group of children and "weaker"? The rest of the traits you list as "masculine" seem to me to equally apply to women. We as human beings should work hard, extend one's self... etc.
3
@KLS
You aren't listing "traits," but somewhat unwritten rules of behaviour.
1
There is more to this than whether obstacles are gone or not gone.
Women began a process of introspection, and remaking themselves as a group. They began that 70 years ago. They've made a lot of progress, in waves, in re-imagining themselves.
Women have not been able entirely to bring all men along on their journey to remake the lives and opportunities of women -- some, somewhat, but far from complete.
Far too many men did not start the same journey for women.
Just as consequential, men also did not start the same journey for themselves. They've changed, but not really by the same degree of introspection, not so much, and not in the same ways.
Men are the losers from their own failure. What they've lost is life satisfaction, work/life balance, and joy in their relationships with women and children, and even with other men.
When men have done self-examination, it has too often been to try to avoid changing.
Men are a good 70 years behind in helping themselves.
Women would benefit from that too, just as men benefit from women improving their own lives.
25
@Mark Thomason
Your comment is truly spectacular.
Simply clicking "recommended" is insufficient.
3
Any suggestion that men are under attack is utter poppycock that emanates from the same pile of political horse manure that peddles the nonsensical suggestion that Christianity is under attack in America, despite the fact that there's a church on every street corner, Bible Colleges litter the countryside and half of Americans refuse to embrace the separation of Christ and state.
John Hibbing, the University of Nebraska political scientist, said it best:
"What some men traditionally brought to the table is no longer required so they must change. That is not easy but so it goes."
Evolution is required for success, not stagnation.
I'm a man, and fortunately I've never been a member or a fan of the macho male world that overemphasizes brawn over brain.
We reside in a modern, technological world and evolution toward braininess is required.
That's not to say that everyone must go to college, but everyone has to get smarter and continuous education and evolution is the way forward.
In addition, as the article mentions, many troglodytic men lean rightward in their political preference, which only exacerbates their antediluvian instincts instead of remediating them.
The world needs more public education funding, more birth control, and much more serious regulation of excess wealth, income inequality, corporate psychopaths.
Grand Old Patriarchy is extinct as a respectable social model.
Humans have high-functioning brains that must be used to defeat primitive 'manly' emotions.
260
Socrates, I've been reading your posted comments, and just want to say: I'm a fan.
41
@Socrates The pretentious attitude presented here and in a lot of liberal political discourse did a lot to turn off voters to the Clinton campaign and help Trump win in 2016.
14
@Thomas Kehoe
Spite may feel good to a certain portion of American voters, but it will never produce good public policy....never.
Trump delivered coal, corruption, 0.1% welfare and white spite to America.
Maybe Trump voters will consider voting with a more level head next time around, as awful and pretentious as that sounds.
38
How much of male or female behavior is rooted in nurture and how much in nature is as unknown at this point as what is beyond the edge of the universe. Thousands of years of history should give us a clue. But it's fun to argue about, I guess. So while both sides wage this battle for whatever advantage they are trying to gain, where does that leave the struggling lower to middle class male? The world is explored and conquered. Bolts are spun onto cars by robots and not $30 an hour union workers. There are only so many people with minds suited to engineering and science. I don't think that many of these guys could afford a $150-a-pop psychologist, nor would they even perceive having a problem warranting it. And after reading what the APA thinks, it sounds like most of us would be in for a complete brain-wash. Not likely. No, I think that after an ocean of bits and bytes are expended over the topic, in the end, there will be more suffering and lots of name-calling between people who won't have an iota of effect on anyone who is actually struggling. I predict that over time, our genius at adaptation will soften the edges off of the problem, individuals and societies will adapt, and it will be another 'groups' turn in the barrel. And that will be the topic of the next outrage du jour.
1
@Zack
Right on, Zack. Edsall did cover the economic factors, of course, but it did seem as though this debate was in the clouds. However, your optimism about the future also seems to me ingenuous. I've become very pessimistic about our way out of the current maelstrom. Testosterone reigns in governance.
So if sexual orientation is largely biologically determined, why do conservatives insist that homosexuality is a "choice" and should be discouraged? How can someone "choose" to be homosexual (or transsexual, for that matter) if masculinity and femininity are determined by forces beyond the individual's control. You can't have it both ways. The only reasonable explanation for our sexual orientation is that it is a combination of nature and nurture. Male and female exist along a spectrum, from totally heterosexual, to totally homosexual, with the predominant group being heterosexual in order to insure procreation. As far as behavior is concerned, there is no such thing as sexually determined "good behavior." Girls and boys, men and women, hetero and homosexual, should be held to the same standard: treat others as you would like to be treated.
8
Some of these statements by the "experts" are real zingers. Pinker equates repression and self-control. Ms. Cain Miller seems to think that biology is unchanging. Or how about Mr. McKelley's idea of "competitiveness without aggression", that's a good one!
Then there's Mr. Autor's and others' "economic" theory - as if men had been blue-collar assembly-line workers for hundreds of thousands of years and only now had to learn to adapt to social change. Or Ms. Butler's idea that boys can finally "pursue the arts" - who knew?!
No wonder each side thinks the others ideas are "patently false".
Let's call the experts what they are: brands promoting a very particular product in the marketplace of ideas.
And let's use common sense to solve these problems.
12
Having been an expat for 15 years offers a unique point of view on the lives of US Americans. They and we are held hostage to a very cruel and unbending destructive capitalist system which does not offer the society even health care or education without drastic financial consequences. Societies and life changes with the evolution of new technologies, the US for the past 200 years has been dominated by this idea that the working people are expendable. Overall we need a change in philosophy and in leadership to reflect the importance of a healthy and well educated populace. Quit thinking a person´s value is determined by what he/she does or makes in monetary terms. Its and end run killer society that now with extreme disfunction in power and massive discontent and addiction needs a sea change. The reactionaries have no answers. Its a structural problem exacerbated by the republicans since 1980.
77
@P Wilkinson
You are so right: America has constructed a culture that devalues the professions that strengthen our weakest members and enrich our cultural life (social workers; teachers; day care providers; artists) and lionizes the corporation.
Your example of health care is especially apt; here we call it "the health care industry."
16
@P Wilkinson
An excellent comment! You nailed it!
5
From the article:
they have become an integral element of contemporary political conflict, which means that an ultimate resolution is light years away.
This is by design. Reasonable humans have this sorted out a little past puberty. It takes some effort to get grown adults to think boys are gross and girls have kooties. It's amazing how successful the effort has been.
Having said that, anything that stops a human from expressing thier full potential in any way they see fit should be discouraged by law.
3
Slight tangent from Edsall: Pop culture's portrayal of men, bullying in particular, is largely divorced from reality.
The Gillette ad and movies in general get bullying all wrong. Seldom is this a 1:1 relationship. It is done in groups, with an audience. Indeed, having an audience is rather the point of being a bully.
But anyone who has been bullied learned a very different lesson than the one being presented by Gillette. To no longer be bullied you have 2 options: 1) Forcefully confront your aggressor, showing that force is met with force or 2) Ingratiate yourself with the bullying group and become "protected".
I honestly believe the backlash against all campaigns telling men to be better is rooted in a deep behavior we all learned in the schoolyard, those bus rides fraught with terror about being picked on and laughed at.
We learned that if you are "better" or "nicer" people aren't going to stop, they'll torment you even more!
We look ahead and see an entire generation of men being raised to be lambs for slaughter. Whether its willfully taking a backseat to women's careers or literally being overpowered by foreign men, the next generation of men are being conditioned to take these adversities as just deserts.
White guys had a good run but now its time to pay up. That's the message, and i'm astonished how many people accept it.
8
Women, at least middle and upper class women, have more freedom than do men to choose whether to pursue a career full time, to be a parent full time, or to mix it up. There's a stigma against men choosing to be full time parents, and strong expectation that they will work work full time and be primary wage earners. Young women often expect, that whatever their career, that their earnings need not provide the sole or even major part of their families' incomes. Men feel obligated to prioritize
making money, even if they'd rather be home with their children or doing other satisfying things. Divorced fathers of children are assumed to be secondary parents, whom the children may "visit", whose main role is to financially support the children (and often the ex-wife) and to no longer to included in the kids' day to day lives.
9
@semaj II -- Women would benefit from men taking the next steps for themselves. It would have collateral effects of great benefit to women.
Women really cannot get where they wish to go, where they deserve to go, unless the rest of us also make our own journey. Half of us cannot do it alone.
7
I challenge anyone to describe a non-physical trait that is present in only one gender. To describe strength as "masculine" denies it to women. To describe violence as masculine ignores violence from women.
The notion that men must be masculine and masculinity must not be criticized is nonsense. It has given us "boys will be boys" attitudes that lead to the high rates of homicide and suicide among men.
We should all strive to be the best adults that we can. Adults can look critically at themselves and make changes for the better.
19
@Medusa
Sure. Ultimately, even the physical traits are quantitative, exist on a spectrum (though strongly bimodal) and get reduced to being qualitative mostly for ease of reference or simplification.
2
@Medusa 100% agreed. I am not sure there are many things more physically painful and requiring of strength than childbirth. So calling strength a masculine trait seems odd to me.
2
I agree that there is a need to offer a hand to workers, predominately men, that have been displaced by trade and technology. I do have a big problem with the conservative view that the society needs to go backwards to fix their problem. The conservative push to pass restrictive legislation around women's reproductive health, impinges on a women's freedom to choose their own path. Meanwhile they foment the discontent and anger of this non-college educated white male population without really helping them. Women, minorities, foreign manufacturers, they all become the problem. Maybe us women could give these guys a lesson in what it's like to be exploited and then dismissed by the men in power.
18
@edv961, your comments are spot on.... do you think I wanted to go back to school at 40 and relearn a new career? No not at the time, but now at 58 wow am I proud of myself. They can re-create themselves whenever they want.
3
There are a couple social aspects that are not included here. First off: America is now populated by more women than men. Secondly: in the second half of the last century, women needed to join the workforce to maintain the household standard of living due to a widening disparity of wealth. They saw they were "allowed in" to the man's world, but had to accept an inferior position in order to do so. That they eventually found this unacceptable should come as no surprise. As is women finding their new world pleasing . It's like Darwin's finches. A new species enters an ecosystem. The existing species has to either compete, move elsewhere, or be destroyed if it cannot compete. No where is it suggested in Darwin's work that the "invading" species return from where they came because it is unpleasant and stressful for the current resident. In the case of the finches, the efforts didn't include the current resident allowing it, but only offering inferior food to their own, or controlling what part of the ecosystem the new species could utilize, or by mistreating the new comers. Perhaps the opposition to the study should recognize that what is being suggested are ways to find a comfortable niche for men in the ecosystem that is America. Instead of finding a way to exclude newcomers. In short, you can't stop evolution. Time for men to adapt to their niche. Learn to co-exist. Extinction always starts with one individual at a time.
20
@walking man -- "First off: America is now populated by more women than men."
That has always been true, and it about the same proportions and age cohorts.
When women were dying younger in childbirth, men were dying younger too of violence, workplace dangers (railroads, mines, lots of awful conditions), and lack of medical care. Few of any group reached a ripe old age.
8
We are in a cultural revolution, led by, and resisted by, zealots.The political distorters on the left and right have foisted a nearly seamless construct on our society that drones on and on, undermining and/or defending cultural norms.
A useful image here would be Phil Spector's 'Wall of Sound", which made phenomenal hits out of what were really just mildly catchy pop tunes. The "wall" provided context for virtually any melody with any rhythm, in any key.
The wrong-headedness of both sides as presented here would be much more apparent if it weren't for the "wall" of media coverage, online, on social media, on tv, in print, and school curricula.
13
@Allen -- Phil Spector's 'Wall of Sound" worked as well as it did in part because of AM radio and non-stereo speakers. It overcame those limits, as well as the limits of those mildly catchy tunes.
The analogy can be extended. Our own current wall of coverage is in AM, poor transmissions and not in stereo.
Our political failures are made possible and magnified by our media failures.
There are plenty of good people in current media. They are generally on the margins, not the featured roles, that are reserved for those more obedient to power.
3
Why isn't a man using his stoicism to become a moral leader, a thoughtful adult and father instead of the leader of the pack, an impossible task. In the past he was the owner of his family in which competitiveness emboldened men to aggression instead of thoughtful protection. This behavior is self destructive for men as well as others.
4
@barbara -- Stoicism is a respectable and valuable philosophy, little understood and less practiced by those who think themselves stoic. They are merely stunted.
That great tradition teaches, per Wikipedia "the path to happiness for humans is found in accepting the moment as it presents itself, by not allowing oneself to be controlled by the desire for pleasure or fear of pain, by using one's mind to understand the world and to do one's part in nature's plan, and by working together and treating others fairly and justly.
"The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good" for human beings, and that external things—such as health, wealth, and pleasure—are not good or bad in themselves, but have value as "material for virtue to act upon".
Is that really what we see among those who think themselves stoic? No, it is mostly the opposite, accepting the wrong and enduring the wrong, and expecting others to do the same or just obey.
There are at least two institutions which foster and reward what I think of as "extreme" male behavior. First are all males schools. Vanity Fair has an interesting article on the all male prep school attended by Brett Kavanaugh, and the views of women that environment fostered. Fortunately, I think there are fewer of those schools today, and their teachings have changed. The second institution is sports. Male sports teams of all types often create a "dominance" approach to women which can be very troubling. But not all boys and men in those environments become tyrants, home environment can be a strong mitigating factor. The other important part of this equation, ignored in this op-ed, is the increasing prevalence of women at all levels in the workplace (thank you Title VII). An integrated school and work environment, with changing norms which value the contributions of women (and people of color), help cut down on stereotypes and foster collaboration. Too bad Trump went to an all male military academy. It puts him squarely in the misogynist box.
9
@Eero Your picking on sports is part of the anti-male ethos described in this article. There are good people in sports and bad people in sports. I don't believe that male sports teams per se create a dominant approach to women and many male athletes will tell you the opposite. You might spend some time with a few high school sports teams (which is where the vast majority of males participate in sports -- as opposed to professional or Division 1 athletics) before writing off "male sports teams of all types." This why @Jonathan above is talking about men becoming Republicans.
6
@Eero -- There is a place and a role for all-male groups and all-female groups. It ought not be be all encompassing, but some is still needed.
We seem more ready to accept this today for all-women groups.
3
@Mark Thomason
Hogwash. Nowadays, men who claim they are women are allowed to use women's rest rooms, to be incarcerated in women's prisons, to compete in women's athletics and to compete for women-only scholarships. Men will not even allow women to have their own safe spaces.
Maybe the political, not the social nor the economic future. This has so much more to do with Washington DC than the citizens of the United States. Currently the fight is a one sided attack. Listen to the people, not the elites. Be aware if the fight comes back to haunt those doing the attacking by those being attacked, it's a seemingly formidable group. Currently those attacking are pushing on a string.
Simply stated: Grossly overstated.
5
@Matt
The feminists are right about one thing: all men have the capacity for reckless violence- which will always be true. Failure to respect that capacity is always dangerous.
2
I’m glad Edsall quoted John Hibbing. Hibbing and his colleagues wrote a brilliant and engaging book on the general subject of this column. Hibbing’s argument in “Predisposed” is that, as Pinker argued, we do not come into the world as blank slates. Most of us come into the world with various predispositions or default settings. But those predispositions are not determinative of human behavior. The book is well worth the time for anyone interested in this subject.
11
Both sides of this issue are right....and wrong. Boys as well as girls come in an extremely wide range of variations. The problem is a system the seems compelled to treat boys and girls based upon some idealized gender identities. We are all forced through the same gender expectated meat grinder and most suffer because they do not fit the expectations. If we really want a truly healthy change, we must do away with gender expectations all together and let each individual find his or her own interpretation of self identity.
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@Mike Wilson
A nice thought....but not practical.
Gender is a fundamental piece of who we are, and like all such things it must be learned and internalized from outside sources. There will always be social norms and expectations, just as there will always be nonconformists. Does it make sense to do grievous harm to the majority in order to placate a minority?
7
@Greg Can you explain to me exactly the rigid gender norms that have stayed the same throughout all of history and all societies? There has been gender in most societies, yes, but it looks vastly different, and in many, has not been a binary.
16
@Marybeth
I’ll tell you what it’s not.
It’s not the crude stereotypes represented by the activists and psychologists.
It’s what we learn from our fathers, and our role models, and our heroes over a thousand years of history.
3
One important issue we shouldn't over look is, usually Mothers not knowingly, take extra good care of their sons, ie: they do a lot for their males offsprings. Then bang, a boy all of a sudden goes off to University, or becomes involved raising his own family, with a female, who is now his equal, not someone who will look after him. Ever see the joke in an area where you get your coffee at work." Clean up after yourself, your Mother Doesn't work here." Now we have Me Too, which has set up a whole host of boundaries, males will have to maneuver. Most will decide to avoid females at the workplace to avoid trouble. Finding a partner outside the work place will take more effort, but it is safer.
10
@Dan Green That's not really true these days. The gender gap in education opens up in childhood and the achievement gap tends to narrow in adult life. A large percentage of kids nowadays grow up without fathers and single mothers if anything tend to favor daughters .
2
@Dan Green -- "a female, who is now his equal, not someone who will look after him"
Oh, yes she will. It is called love. It goes both ways, and ideology can't make it obsolete or overcome it. See Romeo and Juliet for that theme.
3
@Mark Thomason,
oh no! I won't be picking up after dirty socks and dishes, and tolerating a mess of a home- love or no love.
I will however, nurture a respectful, loving, equality-based relationship if there were a willing partner.
And did you miss the part that Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy - they both died as teenagers.
3
If we really want to better understand nature versus nurture roles in male/female traits or behaviors, we need to include the discipline of anthropology.
4
@ML Amen! Comparative anthropology demonstrates that there are some rough consistencies in sex differences (nature) but a great deal of variation in how those differences are socially constructed and expressed (nurture).
Edsall makes an important point that those who advocate the social construction view (not really the APA) are harmfully alienating people whose common sense tells them that biology is at least a factor. Further, the left looks ridiculous and undercuts itself when claiming that all patriarchal gender expressions are socially constructed, but all trans-gender expressions are pure biology. It is far more helpful socially and psychologically to admit gender is a mixture of factors and then sort out what social practices are most healthy for everyone, perhaps learning a thing or two from other, non-patriarchal cultures.
Biological determinism has absolutely been, and is still, used to legitimate oppressive gender systems. But, ironically, extreme academic allergies to biology leave a vacuum that the right fills with more oppressive ideology. The APA might need to do a better job at least acknowledging biological factors in order to get people to hear its important message on social construction.
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@ML Thank you. It was exhausting to read this from the short-sighted and American-centric viewpoints of those as Pinker.
@Elizabeth MacLean. I disagree with the absolutes posited in your second paragraph. It's ridiculous to assert that "the left" claims that "all" gender roles are purely cultural while "all trans-gender [sic] expressions are pure biology". I'm considerably better versed and read (and experienced) in the permutations of gender, and as left as Bernie and Elizabeth Warren. I could exceed the character limit many times over discussing the interplay of nature, nurture, and the aspects that will likely remain enigmatic and ambiguous.
But from my perspective, it's the rigid, ideological right that traffics in absolutes, and they're the opposite of what you say. There's a dismissive insistence that sexually dimorphic biology answers all questions of gender and all gender roles, that it's just "nature" or "God's will" or "common sense", and that LBGTQ can be dismissed as sin, immorality, or mental illness.
You go on to suggest that all of the above actually exists as combinations of biology and culture, but it's the accusation that progressives are stuck in absolutes to which I object.
Politically, you have it exactly backwards.
1
What a strange sentence: "Many Democrats defend the basic theory of evolution but remain wary of, if not hostile to, biological explanations of human behavior, in part because of their belief in the efficacy of government or other societal intervention to change behavior."
I think you've got the logic reversed. My sense is that many Americans are wary of biologically deterministic explanations because they are not very persuasive when one looks across human history and cultures--perspectives most biologists (and conservatives) do not seriously adopt. From those understandings of human beings and human societies follows a conception of government and its role. I've never heard the position articulated above from a democrat or progressive. But, I have often heard from those on the religious right adopt a position in which their social theory (e.g. Christianity) is used to justify both their positions on government and biology.
19
Edsall gets this wrong. Liberals/Democrats don’t resist the notion that biology contributes to behavior because that leaves a smaller role for government. The problem is that once you accept the idea that biology contributes to behavior, you implicitly accept some of the arguments behind eugenics. Liberals trash Charles Murray for his argument that whites are more intelligent than blacks, and Lawrence Summers lost his position as President of Harvard for suggesting that there might be some biological reason for the imbalance between the sexes in science, technology, engineering and math fields.
Just to get this straight, liberals who resist the suggestion that biology plays some role in human behavior get two things wrong. First of all they make the ecological fallacy of attributing general group characteristics to individuals. You simply can’t observe that men IN GENERAL seem to be better at math than women and then assume that a particular woman doesn’t have the same aptitude for math that men in general may have. And second, they use all or nothing reasoning when evaluating the relative importance of nature and nurture. Scientific studies have concluded that in some domains, nature accounts for about 50% of the variation in behavior. But that means that 50% of behavior can be attributed to factors other than genetics, including environmental influence. Accepting that there is an interaction between nature and nurture would go a long way in improving our society.
4
This is a complex subject and one cannot do justice within one comment. My work has been involved with the development of boys and the problems of men and I am now writing a book on the topic. I regret agreeing with David French, but this response to the APA guidelines is important.
"Male children are falling behind in school not because schools indulge their risk-taking and adventurousness but often because they relentlessly suppress boys and sometimes punish boys’ essential nature, from the opening bell to the close of the day."
If the complexity can be contained in a nutshell, it is this seemingly contradictory notion: The way we suppress boys' "essential nature," particularly in schools, is a major contributor to the aggression and misconduct in adulthood.
Male development is not a continuum, where natural energy, impulsivity, risk taking and restlessness turn into sexual violence, male entitlement and mass murder unless the boys are "civilized." French is right, at least about this part. Schools that expect compliance and conformity are unhealthy and unnatural for both boys and girls. For many reasons girls are better able to tolerate the unnatural environment without exploding, but it takes a toll on them too.
Schools, particularly "no excuses" schools or rigid public schools, are anti-boy. If boys are free to be boys they can develop into loving, healthy, gentle adults, who still play vigorously, take risks and love well. It's almost that simple.
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@Barking Doggerel as the mother of three sons, I could not agree more.
One of my boys was a high energy rambunctious kid. Thankfully we, and his school, channelled that energy instead of crushing him. (Mostly into sports) He is now in high school, doing well (and is a great athlete!). I remember thinking he could really go either way -- his drive could be harnessed for good or for chaos.
13
@Barking Doggerel
You make it sound like boys were once raised in Montessori schools or some kind of anarchistic schoolyard where they all got to get dirty and grow up all energy let-out. Please. As an ex-Hasidic person who knows old-fashioned school systems too well, I can assure you that kids in modern public schools get to express more energy than in the past, by a lot! Look at Hasidic kids and the many, many, many hours they are expected to sit quietly and listen, and the memories will flood back of once upon a time when kids were a lot more restrained and spent many many more hours with their energy just repressed. We've come a long long way. My son gets gym, my son gets to move around a lot, the kids get many opportunities to BE. If anything, the kids are not out and about because of tech, not because of educational values.
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@Barking Doggerel
You mean there is too much sitting in school? I agree, kids need to get their energy out, so that they can focus and concentrate. And because it is healthy to be active (for body and mind) Let's have nice, long recess periods and let them swing on the monkey bars (where as a girl I spent most of my time, fell and broke my arm...does that mean I am the wrong gender btw? Because I also enjoyed risk taking and playing vigorously? 40 years later, I'm still very much a woman)
But if you mean telling kids not to fight or pick on each other is limiting boys development...sorry, have to disagree.
4
"The pressures to conform to conservative orthodoxy on the right and to liberal orthodoxy on the left sometimes seem to preclude reasonable compromise — that nature and nurture interact endlessly." Exactly. In other words: "the truth is often found somewhere in the middle".
Unfortunately, right wing media and to a much lesser extent, left wing voices, have made recognition of this time proven adage a sort of blasphemy. I had a very conservative neighbor tell me around 2007, after I told him I don't listen to or watch Rush, Anne or watch Fox News, that "everyone has to choose a side. You're either a Republican or a Liberal (he did not say Democrat)" I responded: "So you believe that there is a clear, definitive right and wrong answer to every issue? That all things are either black or white, good or evil, and conservatives are on the correct side?" He said: "Yes." I ended the conversation with one more question: "And 'you're either with us or against us' correct?" "Yes." People such as my old neighbor are so entrenched in this "never give an inch mentality" that they'll never concede they're beliefs are in error regardless of any mountain of objective evidence you lay before them. They think there is more honor in literally dying in some cases than conceding they and their right wing apostles are wrong. They'll never move towards the middle and thus in many cases they'll never find the truth.
9
Dorothy Dinnerstein's *The Mermaid and the Minotaur* should be required reading for all those who participate in this conversation.
1
The author cites a perfect example of how is how incompetent and innumerent the APA actually's "specialists" are. Let's work through this. According to the APA, "Men commit 90 percent of homicides in the United States and represent 77 percent of homicide victims."
This is true but it is also true that the total number of murderers is a vanishingly small percentage of all men. Therefore, we would be hard pressed to explain homocide, a rare phenomenon, is terms of very common features of men. It this thesis were true, then many more men would be murderers.
Everyone please take a moment to google "assuming the consequent"
It's alarming that these basic requirements of logical, scientific arguments are absent from the APA's leadership.
If my name was on that APA statement, I would be embarrassed.
16
Fascinating! That so many of the issues, no crises we have today have a root of some kind in the crisis of masculinity in our new world. I kind of knew it, all the different strands mentioned here I am familiar with I never put it together in a larger portrait like this.
Women were told when they first spoke up by men that if they were to be taken seriously then they'd have to step up. They did, much to the dismay of those men. Now the entire world, in everything from family life to religion, work politics, economics, even the arts are telling men that they too have to step up.
If nothing else, the single greatest example of why the previous notion of masculinity is no longer acceptable is Donald Trump. What an example of masculine failure writ large. The size of the job is borne out in the number of fans who find nothing wrong with him.
20
It took the "MeToo" movement to bring about a better understanding of "real" masculinity and how it may be at the root of "traditional" masculinity. The current strain of masculinity is not new. Alexander didn't become "Great" by baking cookies. The real lesson about today's man is that if you put one behind a desk for a lifetime, he's going to have to find a way to deal with the drives within him. Maybe it's the gym, or marital aggression or some other offensive and inadequate stand-in behavior for what would have constituted healthy, good and natural male behavior. Our sedentary world is sadly twisted for men as well as for women. If we do not use our bodies according to their blueprints, they will sour our minds.
7
While the women march for equal pay and "me too" let them carry signs for "NO MORE WAR,"
Our country has been led into too many wars of aggression, and we stand on the brink of war with Iran. This aggression mostly over oil, whipped up by Islamophobia, needs to stop. And women have huge numbers and humanitarian sympathies on our side and many like-minded sisters around the world.
So let's make ANTI-VIOLENCE not just against women and minorities but against whole countries our rallying cry when next we march.
6
@betty durso US wars have a great more to deal with more money for an exclusive few of whatever gender than any biological imperative. The dumbing down of the masses is a bigger concern in US education and the prevalence of vampires like DeVos and fundamentalists within government than any debate over gender roles.
1
@P Wilkinson
I couldn't agree more about who benefits from our wars.
But since women are on the march (men more than welcome) let's carry anti-war signs and green new deal signs along with our very legitimate gender equality signs.
2
@betty durso, very well said. It has been so frustrating to watch too many people on the "left," such as Rachel Maddow, who even wrote a great book criticizing the excesses of the military-industrial complex, turn themselves into pretzels to attack President Trump for his desire to withdraw US troops from Syria; Afghanistan, etc. And for neo-con, Iraq War apologist women like Nicole Wallace to now be celebrated by the main-stream media (presumably because she opposes Trump).
Personally, would love to see Tulsi Gabbard as Democratic nominee in 2020. Unlike Trump & most of the Democratic candidates, she was in armed services. And much more of a realist than the intervention-first, regime-changing "preventative" war types that have prevailed on both sides of the aisle for far too long.
Of course social and cultural constructs regarding masculinity are important but the idea that there is no biological basis for gender differences in "aggression" is ridiculous. Aggressive behaviors were and continue in many cases to be evolutionarily advantageous. Ug the milquetoast isn't much protection for a mother and her child when confronted by Og the tough guy (putative pre-historic names). Testosterone levels are correlated with aggressive behaviors, mate-seeking, etc. and are based on a variety of genes which have been subject to evolutionary forces. This is why people in the "hard sciences" often scoff at Psychology.
8
@Charles K.
Another reason why people in the "hard sciences" scoff at Psychology is because they have very poor theoretical frameworks for understanding human behavior, social organization, cultural variety, history, and on and on, because the full complexity of human beings is outside the scope of their research and expertise. In the absence of this knowledge and expertise, unfortunately many physical and life scientists uncritically over-extend their theoretical and epistemological approaches beyond their limits.
5
@I don't know You make a valid (if a bit condescending) point. As an undergraduate, I double-majored in Biology and Psychology. I distinctly remember a bio adviser asking "why are you studying all that soft touchy feely stuff" while a Psychology adviser asked "Who cares about yeast?" No one field has a monopoly on the full spectrum of human complexity, of course but many, many, many "hard" scientists study the nuts and bolts of who we are at the fundamental level as opposed to social scientists who often deal with anecdotal data (at best) and dismiss the biological constraints imposed on human behavior which is akin to discussing the complexities of automobiles without mention of engines. Granted, the nature of what they study often precludes hard, reproducible data but that doesn't excuse claims based on anecdote or opinion (Freud? Please.. all anecdotal and profoundly, destructively, influential). But yes, many "hard" scientists are closed-minded to the many legitimate insights offered by social science. Interdisciplinary collaboration would seem to be the best path!
4
@Charles K.
Interesting. You assert, initially, that so-called hard scientists "scoff" at psychologists, and then agree with my assertion, but it is I who make a "condescending" point?
I'm simply stating what I observe at elite research universities. Unfortunately, too many scientists are now largely technicians with little understanding of the history and philosophy of science and only somewhat greater grasp of the epistemological status of their work. This is not a put down of scientists because it is an entirely predictable outcome of doctoral training in the sciences (of all types) which almost completely eschew training in epistemology, not to mention the sociology of science. In my view, it is the condescending views of physical and life scientists toward philosophy and social sciences that has led to this sorry state of affairs. Our greatest physical and life scientists from Einstein to E.O. Wilson were philosophically sophisticated in ways contemporary young scientists cannot imagine.
This is an excellent article. I would only add that the analysis of the Republican perspective fails to take the Christian worldview into account. Many Republicans view biological differences as a part of the divine creation and view efforts to minimize the differences as a step away from God's will for the world.
Not sure I agree or disagree with that perspective. Somehow I've managed to be a Christian and a socialist for almost ten years now. They seem to work together hand-in-hand, but what do I know.
Thank you for this thought provoking, well researched, and well written article. Cheers!
7
@Mark I would like to think that if there were a 'god' he or she would want each of us to be true to ourselves, rather than to allow ourselves to be arbitrarily defined as 'pink' or 'blue'.
@Mark
You can add evolution to your Christian/Socialist worldview.
All you need to know about how tough men are, is how they act when they are hurt and dependent on others. All of a sudden that tough guy is needy. He is weak, dependent, and possibly emotional. Is he now less of a man? If the woman now takes over the bread-winning duties, does she now change and become more aggressive and competitive? Does society look at her differently for assuming a masculine role? No.
5
@Construction Joe: Thanks for your comment, which is very true. My husband, a manly man who is well-educated, worked in IT for a university, played soccer, sails, works out (etc) & is physically and emotionally strong, a Democrat (who loathes tRump) and is never mean or aggressive. He IS a big baby when he gets a toothache and he tears up at sad movies. He is a great guy and I am very lucky.
3
1) Female values, as seen in this article, center on: competent raising of children, non-violence, cooperation, care, and similar life-affirming principles.
Although a lot of social conditioning hones and adjusts the working of these concerns, they are, I think, biologically seated.
Women and men have looked different, have smelled different, and have had different chemistries for all the years of human existence.
The current wisdom is that this doesn't matter. Physical differences are of slight relevance. Almost everything comes from social conditioning, cf. The Patriarchy.
This is vacuous post-modern (post structural, critical theory, hermeneutics) pretension.
2) On the other hand, the most important male values are courage, loyalty, duty, and intelligence.
They will endure, long after the War on Boys, now The Anti-Male War, has been forgotten. Thank God they're coded in our DNA.
Stop trying to turn us into girls. It won't work.
20
@alyosha
And so, Alyosha, are you saying that women may not aspire to showing "courage, loyalty, duty, and intelligence," and men may not aspire to demonstrating "competent raising of children, non-violence, cooperation, care, and similar life-affirming principles"? These are universal, not gender-based principles. Criticism of traditional ideas of masculinity arises in large part because proponents of these ideas use biology to excuse male behavior that is, shall we say, less attractive than the attributes you cite. So if you're a guy and you want to take care of your children and cooperate with others, that somehow turns you into a girl? Please.
18
Wow! Tell Jayme Closs that men have the corner on courage, Tell the mothers of Syria who sent away their boys (to their own detriment) so their child would survive and not be forced at gun point into becoming cannon fodder for ISIS, about loyalty and duty. Tell Marie Curie how dumb she is. The idea that men have the corner on these traits is just another example of the mindset of toxic masculinity. The world is changing, the traits that are needed to maintain society are changing, adapt or perish.
9
@alyosha: There is an never has been any sort of "war on boys".
10
Some good analysis by Mr. Edsall, although he carefully avoids offering any opinions himself.
Democrats are hugely out of touch with the problems affecting working and middle class men, as they seem fixated on the upper, professional classes. As Tucker Carlson noted recently, “Democrats still act like it’s 1961, and the biggest social problem we have is not enough women in investment banking.”
Most men don’t want to be investment bankers, or corporate big shots, or tech entrepreneurs. All they want is a decent job, a family, and a society that respects them. Democrats offer them none of these things.
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@Greg
"All they want is a decent job, a family, and a society that respects them."
So how is that going under Republican rule for the past forty years?
78
@Greg
"All they want is a decent job, a family, and a society that respects them. Democrats offer them none of these things."
And Republicans do? That's news to me. The few Republicans with whom I am acquainted are appallingly out touch with the working class in general, as are most Republican officeholders, with Donald Trump, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell being the most prominent recent examples. Oh, and add Tucker Carlson to the list of the clueless as well. Fox News is not a valid source of information about anything, including gender issues.
Here in the Midwest, the opioid crisis has rendered a lot of men useless in the trades because they can't pass a simple drug test, and at the same time these guys and their contemporaries blame everybody (women, minorities, LGBT people, "libruls" - you name it) but themselves for their plight. I'm tired of hearing about it and how I'm supposed to try to "understand" them while my non-drug using carpenter husband falls asleep on the couch at 7:30pm after working a 12-hour day.
77
Do you actually know any Democrats personally?
8
Harvey Mansfield wrote a book called "Manliness" which, he says, is to preserve for future generations an the knowledge of what it once meant to be a man, because the entire concept of manliness is on its way to being forgotten.
"Traditional manliness" was not about rape culture or repressing feelings. That is toxic manliness. Men, like women, have always needed to understand and control their feelings, and learn how to be constructive instead of destructive. Literature is full of instructive stories on this subject, which was always the the central part of ideal masculine character. Do psychologists seriously think they have discovered something new -- that men and women have many lessons to learn as they grow up?
37
@Jonathan It's interesting that while agreeing with them, you still attack the psychologists. No, it's not new, but it has been verified with the best we have by systematic research. That it's not just group thing anecdotes is important, not redundant.
The point missed, though, is that the very men and thei impact they have on the lives of others, family, colleagues, and it's safe to say on the electorate since it is men who are having a harder time adjusting who gave us trump and the gop, is these men are the least likely to read any literature at all let alone the examples you mention that present excellent examples of the best of masculinity. They prefer to not read at all.
They are voting for less access to and worse health care, stripping education of liberal arts and replacing it with job training, economic policy that endangers, and that most things can be settled by a gun.
There is a great need for the prescription that may be obvious to some. Stop attacking the messengers of a message you agree with and instead get behind the message.
14
@noonespecial - you make a good argument here -
the fact that in this patriarchal society men in
large degree voted for Trump; display a lack of
intellectual acumen; refuse to accept the changes in society and insist on being in control in family matters, etc. This all speaks to another time and place - a retro thinking coupled all too often with a gun loving cult ,family abuse and an inability to express emotion. I wonder about the male Trump voter in those respects and where they fit the bill.
The women Trumpers might be authority lovers who come from families where the men ruled with a heavy hand. I don't know how to explain them otherwise. Lots to think about here. The GOP men
well, just watching the committee that dealt with the supreme court deliberations of late you see the degree of retro thinking. The importance of a liberal arts education must continue to pre-date
economic job studies as a balance to broaden the mind and invite contemplation. The latter is crucial to build creative, well rounded minds.
9
As is more often the case than not, truth is found near the center of conflicting viewpoints, and compromise is always the wisest course. Only the most biased or least educated would ever deny biological differences between men and women, particularly when it comes to aggression (which is definitely tied to innate sexual drives). But that does not mean that we should not attempt to modify behavior that is socially unacceptable. We are no longer animals. Reason must prevail.
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This piece inadvertently demonstrates the fundamental premise of our republic. Compromise between left and right is required in order to have government operate. The perspective of each sees a little something the other is blind to. The synthesis of the two provides the wisest course. But we've fallen victim to the pitfalls Washington outlined at the outset.
7
In the most ancient Chinese sources, a junzi was a he-man, in the sense of a warrior returning from battle with blood on his sword. The term junzi is most literally translated as "a princely person." A prince's duty at that time was military defense and victory over belligerent enemies, protecting the cult-group to which he belonged. But as China's culture changed the term morphed into meaning "a gentleman," used by the Confucian tradition to mean a benevolent and honorable person. The junzi was later used to describe the good scholar-official who ruled through proper ritual and moral example. Such cultural changes had a profound impact on the way young boys were brought up and idealized and the way men were expected to behave. Whatever human animal instincts existed were not eliminated by this cultural change, but were limited and directed into socially acceptable behaviors.
This talk of manhood by psychologists and politicians needs to take such historical cultural change into account, and also should distinguish boys from men (whose transition point is also culturally influenced). A 72 year old brought up as a he-man in a culture accepting of bullying and dog-eat-dog behavior is hard to change and needs serious social responses to be controlled even if not reformable. A bullying 5 year old brought up in a more egalitarian and altruistic culture is a different story, with better prospects for being redirected, educated and socialized into culturally appropriate behavior.
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@JustThinkin "A 72 year old brought up as a he-man in a culture accepting of bullying and dog-eat-dog behavior is hard to change"
I have seen many old men who were once "he-men" become gentler and kinder as they have aged. Yes, there are cantakerous, violent, nasty and bullying old men, but frailty and illness and the losses natural to living into one's eighth and ninth decades can do what water erosion does to sharp stones: smooth them down.
2
One has to wonder where would the world be if from day 1 there was total equality for both sexes? I think the possibilities would be endless and for the better. For everyone.
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@Margo
Since we’ve been evolving as bipeds for somewhere around 8 million years, and as life forms for more than 300 million years before that, it’s possible that complete equality from day one would have resulted in a suboptimal outcome.
Meaning, in the past there were likely very good biological reasons for inequality between not only genders, but species as well.
None of the above should be seen as an argument against equality of opportunity regardless of gender or race, obviously. But it doesn’t hurt to recognize that we’ve barely scratched the surface in our complete understanding of why we have inequality in certain outcomes among individuals, genders and cultures.
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@Margo
The late Ursula Le Guin wrote a classic called "The Left Hand of Darkness" in which the characters were androgynous through most of their monthly cycle. During their fertile period, they became either male or female with no predisposition to manifest one way or the other. The culture had no gender discrimination.
Highly recommended as a fascinating exploration of your question.
5
@Margo
And if pigs could fly....
Evolution is driven by females conceiving and bringing children to reproductive age with men competing to the be the one who provides the sperm for that successful reproduction. Different biological demands create different outcomes. Equality is impossible. There is no such thing in the real world.
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