masculinity

Why Meat and Masculinity are a New Culture War Front

by Jan Dutkiewicz and Gabriel N. Rosenberg

The recent embrace of conspiracy theories around food consumption—liberals want to make us eat insects!—show how a sense of imperiled masculinity is being used to stop necessary conversations about making the food system safe, sustainable, and humane. 

Does Sen. Fetterman's Depression Disclosure Signal Change in Mental Health Acceptance?

by Jonathan Sadowsky

51 years ago the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Senator Thomas Eagleton, was dropped from the ticket when it was revealed he had received treatment for depression. A historian of mental health says it's too simple to declare progress without acknowledging ongoing stigma. 

Mass Shootings Reflect the Narcissism of Young Men

by Tom Nichols

The injured grandiosity of "failed to launch" young men is pushing them to seek outsize revenge, often using the readily available guns. 

Masculinity and Trauma in War and Football

by Sarah Handley-Cousins

Sports have been cast as a (relatively) peaceful way of inculcating a set of masculine virtues otherwise associated with war. But the experience of injury and grief will continue to confound the rules of manhood—and football fans and citizens should pay attention. 

Is Messi the Avatar of a Post-Macho Argentina?

by Brenda Elsey

Lionel Messi's tenure at the top of the soccer world has coincided with an upsurge of feminism in Argentina and its sports culture, changes Messi has quietly supported. 

Pickup Trucks: Less Needed for Work, More Needed to Signal Masculinity?

Historian Mark Metzler Sawin explains why pickup trucks are the top-selling vehicles in America, even as the country is more urbanized and less engaged with farm and manual labor than ever before. 

How Toxic is Masculinity, and Whose Job Is it to Fix It?

Historian Ivan Jablonka's history of the idea of patriarchy suggests that feminists should recognize the current wave of male grievance as an opportunity to renegotiate the entire social compact of gender that has been built up over centuries of male power. 

The Right Celebrated Bernhard Goetz as the Kyle Rittenhouse of the 80s

by Pia Beumer

In the context of economic turmoil, urban crisis, and racial division, a broad swath of the American public made Goetz a heroic symbol of restored white masculinity after he shot four Black teens who asked him for money on the New York subway.

Tucker Carlson Heralds Yet Another "Crisis of Masculinity"

by Mona Charen

Tucker Carlson's recent examination of testicular tanning as a boost to manliness shows the need for societies to support pathways to male expression that don't lead to violence or painful sunburns. 

The Sandy Hook Settlement Could Transform the Marketing of Guns

by Tracy L. Barnett

The settlement between Remington and the families of victims does not accept fault, but it does establish the dangerous connection between the marketing of guns as totems of masculinity and the damage done by young men who acquire them with ease. 

Braveheart: President Donald J. Trump

by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

Following the threads of religion and nationalism that form the unlikely comparison between Trump and Mel Gibson's (heavily mythologized) Scottish movie hero. 

Josh Hawley, Theodore Roosevelt, and the Republican Obsession with Manliness

Journalist Liza Featherstone argues that Senator Josh Hawley, who wrote a book on Theodore Roosevelt, is missing the irony of harkening back to TR as an exemplar of manliness: Roosevelt was plagued by the same obsessions with masculinity that the Republicans today are stoking.

Historian Kristin Kobes-Du Mez: Hawley Latest to Politicize So-Called Threats to Masculinity

"It's never entirely clear how he defines masculinity, even though he's quite certain that masculinity is under attack, and the left is trying to do away with real men."

Don't Feel Guilty for Loving Football (Just Be Honest About It)

by Stephen T. Casper

"Football is not going away, so don’t feel guilty above loving the game. But do stop quibbling about whether football is dangerous—and be radically honest about how dangerous it is."

Why Hollywood Can't Change a Diaper

by Janet Golden

While Hollywood portrayals of motherhood have adapted to incorporate single and working mothers, popular culture images of fatherhood have remained stubbornly stuck in the past. Would supports for child care and parental leave in the budget reconciliation bill help bring movie dads up to date? 

Masculinity, Pacifism and Politics: Abolitionist Parker Pillsbury

"Pillsbury and other Garrisonians despised the romanticization of male violence, perhaps partly because they were on the receiving end of so much of it. They derided white southern men as drunkards with a tendency to use harsh violence against both enslaved people and white women."

Daddy Issues

by Bethany Moreton

White American Christians have embraced aggressive patriarchy as access to social and economic power has become more concentrated in fewer hands. 

When Men Started to Obsess Over Six-Packs

by Conor Heffernan

Today's culture of Instagrammed abdominal muscles traces back to the time when nineteenth-century physical culture movements converged with the archaeological discovery of ancient Greek statuary (bodybuilders then used the new technology of photography in ways we'd recognize). 

Performance Anxiety: How Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines Shaped Soldiers’ (Mis)Understandings of the Vietnam War (Review)

by Nicholas Utzig

A consideration of Gregory Daddis's book "Pulp Vietnam: War and Gender in Cold War Men’s Adventure Magazines."

On Evangelical Masculinities (Review)

Journalist Daniel José Camacho reviews Kristin Kobes Du Mez's book "Jesus and John Wayne" and considers the way that masculinities are expressed in non-white evangelical communities.