To Galloway, neither the left nor the right — which can seem compelling to rudderless young men — are providing a genuine alternative. “The far right conflate masculinity with cruelty,” he says, referencing Tate and Vladimir Putin. “The far left thinks that men should, quite frankly, act more like women. Neither of those is productive.”
Men, especially young men, today are stuck in a no man’s land where they know that the toxicity of the past is not what’s socially acceptable, but no one’s giving them a model of what they can be. They are collateral damage of the culture wars.
Andrew Tate (just writing that name feels dirty) and his clique are exploiting this to cultivate hate and toxicity, but the traditional feminist approach that “Men should get in touch with their feminine side” will leave them isolated socially from their peers and emotionally.
The middle road will not be feminine and won’t be the traditional masculine role that’s still very present in culture, but will be a place where men can confidently own their vulnerability.
The conclusion sums it up very well: men are out of the old men box, but there’s no model for them for the men of the new world, which leave them helpless yet more conscious than ever about their body and the questions of masculinity.
It will include aspects of it though. It has been defining masculinity in opposition to femininity for all these years which has allowed a toxic aspect to develop within male dominated groups over time.
Hug your bros. Feel your feels. I’m a big burly man and I bear hug my friends because hugging is awesome. I also tell them how I feel and talk about how they feel. That’s the whole point of having relationships.
I’m old at this point (39) so I’m not going to pretend to really know the thoughts of young dudes. However, I still feel “strong and stoic” is still the societal and possibly more important dating scene preference.
I think society and women still do outwardly show a preference for a strong and a “tough it out” man. Even if it’s not fully true I still think it’s true enough for young men to see it and think that is what will get them a partner.
It’s for sure better than it was 20 years ago and FOR SURE better than 40 years ago. Just saying that I still think were pretty far from the finish line.
Are they crying too much? Being too vulnerable? Too angry?
I mean, make someone hide their emotions for decades and they are probably going to let out a couple decades worth when they are told they can. But it seems like men are told "let out your emotions" and then when they do "not like that!"
No. It means that many men use the women they have relationships with as their only emotional support, and often expect them to be therapists as well as partners.
Your partner cannot be your only emotional support or the only person you share all your struggles with, with the expectation of their constant and undivided full support and guidance.
It doesn't matter if you're male or female, it's not behaviour compatible with good relationships.
There’s a difference between expressing emotion in general and expecting a random friend to be able to deal with your emotions and help you. Obviously you should help your friends with their emotions, and they should help you with yours, but sometimes, especially if you have a persistent problem, expecting a friend to go over similar emotions frequently (which usually means the friend gets upset too, if they care about you) can be an unfair imposition.
I haven’t met any of the “a lot of guys” who don’t get this, but I don’t really doubt they exist, since both working through emotions and respectfully negotiating boundaries can be difficult.
My friend and I were talking about this the other day. I’m an old millennial. He’s a middle millennial, but his brothers are gen Z, and we all get together on the weekends and play games.
Anyway, My friend asked if it made me uncomfortable when he hugged me or shook my hand. I said no but was super curious why he’d even ask that. Heh said that he just found out that his brothers didn’t like even getting hugs from their dad.
My friend visibly distraught was like “I feel like an ass hole. I’ve been hugging my brothers all these years. I give ‘em a little slap on the back sometimes. Walk up put my hand on their shoulders. All this time they hated it, but didn’t have the heart to tell me.”
For me a xinnial, and even for my friend that was just the kind of shit you had to deal with when it came to old people. Boomers, silent, and greatest generation (generation X is fake news) were very handsy people. To them the way you touch eachother speaks volumes about you without a single word. They would say “oh he has a limp handshake he must not be manly”. Bro! You grabbed my hand too quick it’s not my fault!!!
Ummmm anyway, looking back on it. I feel like gen Z has the right idea. I like the idea of a world where people don’t try to tell my personality by touching me. It’s just weird.
I often end up feeling guilty that I made other people feel uncomfortable when I open up and cry or even get choked up, so I just end up choosing to cry to myself alone.
Not healthy of me, and definately some internalized toxicity about being tough and whatnot. It’s really tough to break that conditioning though.
If it counts for anything, I and many other women I've known, have felt and now do the same thing.
Sharing emotions is not something socially easy or often acceptable for women either, and emotional women have as many (if not more tbh) negative stereotypes associated with them.
I think there is a trend for sure, sorry to hear that. I am trying really hard to be more supportive of folks expressing themselves more openly, especially other men, but it is really tough.
I’m also not great at comforting people, but that might be learned and conditioned more than any “inherent” ability or aspect of myself. Overall, I am working on being as kind and empathetic as I cam to people, we for sure need more of that in our world.
The “what happened?” part of the title implies that there has been a shift in how comfortable men are with hugging. But the study doesn’t show that there has been. Per the article:
We may here be seeing an age effect, rather than a generational effect: younger adults are generally much more likely to cry and therefore worry more about whether they should or should not.
This is my suspicion. I’ve become more comfortable expressing emotions and being myself as I get older. Is that the trend and the explanation for younger men not being as comfortable demonstrating their emotions? The study doesn’t tell us.
As if alienation from our fellow humans is somehow a young male specific problem. The Internet and social media and smart phones are huge drivers to our alienation from one another.
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