The Problem Of “Shifting Masculinity” Is That Most Guys Lie About What They Value
Went to a “men’s conference” over the weekend for about 3–3.5 hours. Pretty cool event all-in. Format was basically: table discussion, speaker, more table discussion, speaker, more discussion, etc. I’ve been to probably 400 of these in my life, and oddly most of those have happened since I’ve lived in Texas, where I arrived in 2014. Texas masculinity vs. NYC (where I’m from) masculinity is very different, and honestly someone could and should write an entire book on geographic context around masculinity, because that’s an interesting topic that I haven’t seen covered a ton.
In general, we’ve had a hundred conversations and much hand-wringing about masculinity in recent years. The conversations take a lot of different forms, but the top-line is that somehow masculinity is changing, and I think the unstated portion is usually that we want it to be less toxic, but we also simultaneously need it for (a) child-bearing and (b) some aspect of income at a time when everyone feels broke as hell.
The biggest challenge, of course, to any shift in masculinity is that most guys don’t want it to shift, because they are comfortable with the parameters of standard masculinity all-in. Those vary…
