America Has a Masculinity Crisis

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0:31This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.

0:49I'm Nadja Spiegelman, and I'm a culture editor for New York Times Opinion.

0:58If this is feminism... Call men stupid in every possible way that you can. So my retainer gives me the weirdest lisp. It's so funny. Listen to me try to say the word trash with my retainer in... Men.

1:16Then where does that leave men? I wanted to have a conversation about masculinity in a post-MeToo world. So today I'm talking to Ruth Whitman, author of Boy Mom, a book about raising young men, and Frederick Joseph, author of Patriarchy Blues. Frederick, Ruth, thank you so much for being here with me today to talk about masculinity. Okay, just a little table setting. Where are we now? How would you describe the state of young men in this country right now? I think that we are in an abysmal state. I think the realities are we've always had patriarchy at the intersection of capitalism and white supremacy and how those things feast on one another and lift one another.

2:00But I think right now, more times than not, the role models that these young boys and young men have are not only divisive and toxic, but insidious and heinous, disgusting, truly. I mean, the president of the United States is an alleged rapist. What does that mean? What does that mean? You know, the popular thing that boys are watching is largely MMA, right? So I think we're in a horrible place. Yeah, I mean, I would agree. I feel like young men are kind of caught between these two, like, competing, but like both harmful narratives. Like one of them is this kind of almost what you're describing, this real, like, caricatured masculinity.

2:42identity, this like, you know, these things that have always been in existence, you know, this like tough guy, you know, bulletproof man, but just like taken to this caricatured extreme. And you're seeing it almost on the left as well as on the right. But then on the other extreme, like more from the progressive left, I think you've got this like, shut up narrative, which is just like, your problems aren't real, they don't matter, you have so much privilege, you know, you have everything, you know, time for everybody else to have a voice and for you to be quiet. And I think it's just really hard to navigate.

3:12I think they feel shut down from all directions, honestly. Before we get deeper into things, I want to hear a little bit from each of you, just sort of the like highlight real net graph of how you would approach a conversation about masculinity. So Ruth, you've done a lot of reporting on the subject and you also wrote a book about raising sons. Can you give us where you're coming from when you're talking about masculinity? Yeah, I think when we talk about masculinity, we have to talk about patriarchy. And I think we see this as this system which harms everyone including men I think often people take a gender studies class in college or whatever and they learn like patriarchy harms men and then they're like well great okay put that aside and then move on forget about it and you know and I know that when um you know when we're kind of triaging these issues like is harm to men the worst abuse of patriarchy no probably harm to women and trans people and people of other genders is more urgent but I think if we can see ourselves as part of a system of patriarchy that harms all of us, and we are allies in this fight rather than like men versus women, men oppressing women, you know, then I think we can have a more productive conversation.

4:21Yeah. Frederick, you wrote a book of essays and poems called Patriarchy Blues. You also spend a lot of time talking to men in the world. Where are you coming from when you're talking about masculinity? Yeah, I think for me, I look at patriarchy in the same way that many people during the sort of 2020 moment were looking at racism and white supremacy. You can't dismantle patriarchy without an anti-patriarchy movement, right? And the thing that we were telling people was largely that there was a return on investment for dismantling white supremacy. There was a return on investment for dismantling racism.

4:55And that's my argument as well for patriarchy. I tell young men all the time, you're not in these systems allowed to be a whole human being, right? You know, the thing that you are entitled to, they teach you, is your rage. And then even that you're not really entitled to. They don't teach you how to cry. They don't teach you how to laugh. They don't want you laughing. They don't want you crying because they actually do sort of, in capitalism, want to monetize that rage of yours. That's how you get the manosphere. And I think we oftentimes teach it as like, do you want to do, sort of like charity.

5:26Like you're not, you're not, this isn't charity that you're doing for women by like dismantling patriarchy. It's not charity by dismantling misogyny. This is actually the work of self. Yeah. You know? I really relate to that. I mean, I think, as you were saying in my own thinking around white supremacy, I had to come to, like, this is just being a narcissistic millennial in the world. But what do I stand to gain from dismantling white supremacy, a system that seems to benefit me in so many ways? And for me, the answer to that is the fullness of my humanity. And I really was thinking a lot when approaching this conversation about how do we do the same thing for patriarchy?

6:04Because one of the questions I think a lot of young men have is what does positive masculinity look like? Like, I don't think that we've necessarily—I know the image that the manosphere posits of masculinity, and I think it's one that also encompasses a lot of misogynistic ideas. And I know so many men who are not misogynists and who want to be living in a gender equal world, but who are still men who still need an idea of masculinity that feels positive to them. Both have you have you sort of thought about this question and how to answer it? And how do we get to a place where there are so few answers for it?

6:44for me like positive masculinity as a sort of framework is not my preferred framework for thinking about this issue or like what to do for young men in the same way that if someone was trying to sell any like hypothetical daughter like positive femininity instead of feminism I think I would push back on that as well because I think it's already like setting the terms in quite a restrictive way that sort of ends up like slightly reinforcing gender stereotypes So like, I think I would rather that we sort of move towards giving boys and men like a vision of being a full person, like a full human.

7:18And rather than like gendering qualities and being like, these qualities are masculine and these qualities are feminine. And like, how do we navigate and pick and choose between those? And like, what's the sort of minimum amount of femininity that we can choose to in order to like not emasculate ourselves totally? I'd rather we're just like, OK, just be a person, you know, like these are minimum standards and minimum qualities. that we expect from every adult. And they don't need to be different ones for men than for women. I think that, and I hear that, I think for me, you kind of have to have a sense of positive masculinity only because we do live in the boxes of the society that we currently live in, right?

7:57I think that that vision would be beautiful if it wasn't for the fact that like we have femicide and all these different things, right? And I think there is so much toxic masculinity. And I hear boys all the time say, I literally do not know what it means to be a good boy or man because, A, I think on the one hand, all you see is these, you know, terrible role models who aren't role models at all. On the other hand, you have people saying what isn't good, but you have to tell people what can be good. Looking at race, right, and they're not a one for one, but you actually have to have positive sort of like ideas of what it means to be like a decent white person, right?

8:37And that was one of the things in my first book that I pushed heavily is that you can be a decent white person. And being a decent white person is not going to be the same as being a decent Persian or a decent black person or a decent Asian person because the systems and institutions prop up and lift and are owned by, ran by, and controlled by white people. So if the systems of patriarchy, while, again, like you're 100 % right, patriarchy impacts us all in various ways. But men are the issue in large part. You know, men are the issue in large part with patriarchy. So I do think that we have to show what a decent man is.

9:16One of the things that made me really want to have this conversation is that I just feel like, I mean, everyone is siloed into their own social media spaces. But for me, when I'm looking at social media, so much of what I see online and so much of what I hear women say is men are trash. Sabrina Carpenter said the key to her songwriting is just to call men stupid in as many ways as you can. I really understand where women's anger comes from. I have lived it, but I also feel so much tenderness for my brother, for other men I know. And if I were hearing the same kinds of messages in reverse that were just women are trash, I wouldn't know how to begin to approach the world.

10:04And so I wonder sort of how specifically on the left, because I think that there are different answers to this on the right, but specifically on the left, which is where I hear men are trash the most loudly. What effect is this having on boys? Do they hear it? Do they feel it? and is like and is it is it empowering for women is there another way to be approaching this I mean I think from the perspective of raising like I have three boys and I hear this all the time we live in a very progressive community and like men are trash um men suck you know is just like just in the water and it's really really hard when you're raising sons and like they're young they don't know the entire history of patriarchy and nor do you want to like explain that in every single moment and it's like the justification you know so they sort of like in a way it's supposed to be punching up isn't it like men have all the power men have all the privilege it's okay to like call them trash because and it's not the same as calling a man calling a woman trash you know which is punching down but those distinctions are getting more and more like abstract especially when you're like 12 years old and you've never heard women are trash and you've heard a lot of like men and boys are trash and I think it's a really like I don't think this is helpful I think it's really harmful.

11:19It's not equivalent to misogyny. They're not the same, but it is still, like, I think a real problem. It's really like a terrible negative. And I think it's like incredibly psychologically harmful for this generation of boys to just go around hearing that over and over and over again. I think the reality is that women are entitled to a righteous and rightful rage. And this makes sense to me, right? I think that I'm not a woman. I've never lived in, you know, sort of like the throes of the worst, you know, iterations of patriarchy, right? I don't have to deal with certain things. And so I just want to name that to begin with.

11:59What it reminds me of, though, is a lot of parents not wanting young white children to hear, sort of about the issues with whiteness. And the argument became, and I'm one of the people who made the argument, if black and brown children are old enough at any age to have to suffer racism, then I think white children should have to learn and understand their place within racism. And I guess that's the same way I feel about sort of the idea of misandry and whatnot is that my conversation with my, I have a younger brother. He's 14. We have a huge age gap, obviously. And I've been having conversations with him about who boys and men are in relation to women since he was probably about six years old, right?

12:46Because I do know he's going to hear and see on the internet, you know, men are trash, men are trash, men are trash. And I guess my answer or my response to that is I'm going to tell you why, right? And so as opposed to putting sort of like the onus on women and whatnot, I'm placing it on myself and I suppose other men as well. I don't think that the onus should ever be on the victim. I get conceptually how we got here. And so I just sort of look at it like, I'll see the videos. This is not about me. This is not about me. You're not talking about me. I'm trying my best to be a decent man. I'm going to try my best to make a generation of decent boys.

13:20To go back just a step to like if on the left what men are hearing is men are trash. And this isn't this is actually I think related to what we were just saying. But if on the left what men are hearing is men are trash. Doesn't it make sense then that the right is their safe space? And it makes me wonder, I mean, like, clearly, like, there is an increasing gender divide about how people's politics fall left or right. Men are moving more to the right. Women are moving more to the left. And it's only exacerbating these problems. And I think part of what I'm really interested in is, like, how does the left bring men back into the fold?

13:59I mean when I was reporting for my book I talked to incels in these like incel communities and they absolutely felt like that I mean they really felt like there is nothing for me outside of this there is like I'm lonely and I'm lost and like one guy that I went quite deep with in particular he was really like I would like to leave this community I would like to seek help I would like to like find a therapist or like talk to another person but I'm just so scared of hearing like you're problems don't matter. You're a white man. Everything's great for you. So like, you know, screw you basically from a therapist that I'm not even going to look.

14:37And I think part of that was like self-justification, but I think there was something really real in that. And I think that he had been hearing those messages and it's like, yes, it's not the same, but it's also very real. And I think it is pushing young men towards the right for sure. Yeah. I mean, it's the right wing is a very, they're an intelligent collective of people, right? Like, and I think that they understand human nature better than the left. There isn't really a pipeline on the left to lead you to the left. And you don't ultimately have, because of that and other things, you don't have an Andrew Tate of the left.

15:12You don't have, you know, someone similar to a Dana White on the left, Conor McGregor, all these different people. And so I don't think that the left has created a strategy at all for, we have lost a generation of boys, generations of boys and men. How do we get them back? What do we give them to believe in? And who do we give them to believe in? Because I think that's also really important. My friends who have very young kids have told me that, and this is so different from how it was when I was growing up, but they've told me that when they're reading books to their sons, a lot of the narrative of these books are, there was a very brave, courageous girl and a dumb, dumb boy.

15:53And that these are progressive books. And I understand where they're coming from. When I was growing up, I would only write stories with male characters because a male character was a blank slate, whereas a girl had so much to overcome just to begin to enter the story. But things have swung really far the other way. There are now a lot of books that sort of promote feminism at the expense of young boys. and I'm curious if you found that. Yeah, I mean, I think like, I don't know if you know the movie franchise Inside Out. Have you seen it? Oh, Inside Out. Yeah. So that was a really good example.

16:29I was watching them with my son and it's like this really complex story of this like young girl's interiority and her emotional life and it's this great portrayal of like a young girl's emotions and then you go inside her mom's head and they have this like complex interaction, you know, and she's tracking her mom's emotions and her mom's tracking her emotions and it's incredibly sophisticated. I don't know if it was every time or if it just felt like every time that a male character appeared on screen in that movie, they were an emotional idiot. It's like you go inside the dad's head and he's like, oh, and all the emotion avatars have just got their feet up on the desk and they're checked out and watching the game and that's the joke.

17:10And I'm watching this with my, at the time, six-year-old son and thinking, what are we telling him here? Like, everyone has a rich emotional life apart from you, and you're an idiot. And I was like, that would never pass. Like, if that was a mainstream, like, Disney, Pixar movie, whatever, that had, like, a sexist stereotype about a girl, then we would not stand for it culturally, you know? I think that some of the issue, right, goes back, or rather goes to this idea of a pendulum swing. Because when you're saying that, I'm like, you know what's so interesting? Because as a Disney buff, we did have Snow White, right?

17:42And we did have, you know, Sleeping Beauty and, you know, sort of like even like not only misogyny, but the rape culture of something like Sleeping Beauty even. And so I think now what has happened is instead of us having a conversation in our society about like how we create something equitable, I think a lot of people are interested in, okay, I'm going to swing the pendulum the complete opposite way. Right? It's like you hurt me, I'm going to hurt you. And that you can see I think directly in sort of like how, you know, the father or the boys are represented. You're like, well, yeah, I can represent you this way because look what she did with Sleeping Beauty.

18:16Yeah. I mean, speaking of the pendulum swing and thinking about how did we get here, one of the things I really want to talk about is the legacy of Me Too, which I think was, for me personally, an incredibly important movement. I was working at the Paris Review when Me Too happened. The editor-in-chief left at that moment. The culture of the workplace where I was working changed drastically. I have felt like an enormous benefit from that movement in terms of my ability to be taken seriously at work and to move through professional spaces. And I also think that there are a lot of things that we're feeling now in the culture that are the long tail of Me Too.

18:56And we're almost 10 years out. And I think it's worth talking about. Because I think that this is also the moment when women began to feel, and absolutely guilty of this, very empowered to speak very loudly about the things that men had done that had harmed them to a degree that perhaps now has just been sort of flattened down to just like all men are trash. And I'm curious, Ruth, in your reporting, I know you've written quite specifically about this, like how you think about the long tale of Me Too. Yeah, it's a really complicated thing because like you, I was like thrilled at the Me Too movement and it absolutely named something that was so real in my experience.

19:38And there's just like normalization of harassment and abuse and all the rest of it and I think I understand it was just this like groundswell of rage but like navigating that as a feminist while raising boys and thinking you know all we're hearing like there's this micro generation of boys that were kind of going through puberty around the time of the Me Too movement you know 2016, 2017 who are now like of voting age, of college age and they have spent their entire adolescence like in the shadow of this conversation, which has been framed very much as like men are predators, men are harmful, men are trash, which much of which is true and like so important to talk about.

20:17But I feel like there was this real piece missing in that conversation that has left a lot of boys feeling like shut down, rageful, disenfranchised, and like unable to really like find how they're going to make their way in the world, you know? It's interesting. I think that listening to the two of you reminds me how important it is to understand our different spheres that we're in, right? My sphere is very progressive, but also very Black-centered, very, you know, Brown-centered. I've been lucky enough to be very, very much welcomed by deeply intersectional feminists, womanists. And so I think a lot of times the conversations that were being had in a more sort of like mainstream sense, which were largely led by white women.

21:07And then there was a reckoning around that because of Tarana Burke and, you know, Tarana Burke having, you know, been the person who largely started a lot of this work in many senses of the word. I had been a part of those conversations, right? I went to, you know, I was lucky enough. I went to Hunter College undergrad where Audre Lorde went. So these were not, I went to a very, like, I think Hunter College is 70 % woman. So I'm just lucky to have been in these spaces where I'm not the dominating person, right? But I do think it's important to name, like, those conversations in the mainstream sense aren't the only conversations that are happening, right?

21:45There was very much, in my experience, welcoming and thoughts around not only, like, how some men have been harmed, but how trans people have been harmed, how queer people have been harmed. and things like that. I mean, I think that the conversations that I was hearing happen around Me Too, for me, were revelatory in the sense that I was realizing how universal the experience was of sexual harassment, of rape, of feeling held back at work based on the power dynamics around gender. And I mean, I think that was the moment for me in my life when I realized I didn't know any women who hadn't experienced this, which is what Me Too, the word, is about.

22:24But that consciousness raising of like, this is not an individual isolated thing. This is happening so prevalently was enormously useful. And then at the same time, it left and it caused, I mean, as I was saying, I worked at a workplace where my boss left around this moment and the culture of the workplace changed. But it left so many of my colleagues who were men, white men, who I really respected and who really, to me, it was obvious, respected women, confused about how to act. Like I had one colleague who was like, I always take the interns out for drinks. Every year I take the interns out for drinks.

23:00But I can't take the interns out for drinks this year because it'll look like I'm trying to get interns drunk and I can't get interns drunk. And he was also like, am I allowed to compliment your clothes? Because I like your clothes. But I don't want to get in trouble. And I could just see that he was really trying to figure it out. And I had real empathy for that because we were defining new rules and the new rules left very little room for nuance. They were very strict rules. But this was something that I feel like anyone who has experienced any form of societal oppression understands that someone can compliment your clothes and you can know that they mean that they like your clothes and they can compliment your clothes in a way that makes you feel small.

23:45And it actually doesn't matter what words they say. It matters the intention behind how they say it. And I think across different forms of oppressed identities, this general thing can be understood. But how do you explain it to cis straight white men who have never experienced this? I mean, I would say definitely for teenage boys, I think there's this like real fear among teenage boys at the moment. And I think it's contributing to this like sex recession, dating recession, whatever you want to call it, where teenage boys do not, you know, are feeling very fearful of approaching girls. And in some ways, that's good and right.

24:20And absolutely, you know, it's a correction to a very real problem. But I think it also does come back on boys of color as well, especially on black boys. I found like in the university context, I did some reporting on these like Title IX proceedings in colleges and, you know, boys who've been accused of sexual violence. And often these are really, really complicated situations. And I think that black boys are disproportionately accused of sexual violence by white women on college campuses. And often these accusations are found to be, if not unfounded, then very complex. There's a lot of racist maneuvering going on in that.

25:03It's not just like the stereotype of like the white man who, or like boo-hoo, white man can't like harass anyone he wants to anymore. But it's, all this stuff is so layered and so complicated. But I really don't envy a teenage boy trying to date in this environment, you know. It's interesting. I agree with so much of that. And I think that there is definitely institutional racism that ties to much of this. But what I would say is in terms of sort of like the white men at that time, especially, I just, as a cishet man, I just feel like it's a, I'm not saying you, but I just, I'm not interested in infantilizing these people, right?