What do you believe is a typical or acceptable masculine identity? Do you want to be able to practice masculinity in a healthy way? Are you confused by the different – and some extreme – perspectives on how men can and should behave?
Understanding how men can best relate to and express their masculinity – how they think of themselves as men and the ways they act that affirm these beliefs – is challenging and often confusing. In the absence of clarity, a growing number of men are struggling with their self-identity, lack personal direction, feel unsure how to form relationships, and have poor mental health.
As a solution, some men are adopting the beliefs and behaviours of patriarchal masculinity. But patriarchal masculinity is an unhealthy approach as it’s based on strict rules and rigid gender norms. These severely limit what men feel allowed to do while encouraging – if not demanding – that they act in ways that don’t always reflect their personalities and interests, which often creates challenges and problems with mental health.
If you’re a man struggling with your relationship to masculinity, especially if you have some patriarchal beliefs and/or have tried adopting patriarchal masculinity as a solution and are still struggling, you can be left wondering how to relate to masculinity in a way that is healthy and enriching.
Finding this approach, especially with all of the often-polarised discourse on the topic, can seem almost impossible. But healthy and wholesome ways of practicing masculinity do exist. Embracing them can require unlearning obstructive and potentially harmful beliefs about masculinity and male behaviour, while also resisting over-simplified narratives about masculinity that are highly popular.
This is often easiest when you understand masculinity in general, what patriarchal masculinity is and how it’s harmful, and then consider who you want to be as a man.
What is masculinity?
What does relating to and expressing masculinity mean? What challenges are men facing today that they didn’t previously? How can men practice masculinity in a healthy way?
Masculinity is defined as: “characteristics that are traditionally thought to be typical of or suitable for men”. However, what these characteristics are is subjective and influenced by cultures (violence is viewed differently in corporate culture than in sport culture), context (cooking is considered women’s work in the home but the majority of professional chefs are men), and they can shift over time (the clothes and mannerisms of Victorian male aristocrats are very feminine by today’s standards), so there are plenty of different ways that masculinity can be conceptualised and practiced.
However, the majority of cultures consider male characteristics to include: strength (physical and mental), courage, leadership, providing, protecting, ambition, drive for success and assertiveness. These are generally thought of as positive qualities that can benefit men and the people around them.
But masculinity also includes traits that have the capacity to do harm: violence, aggression, dominance, seeking power and control, and subjugating those perceived as weaker.
Yet there are a number of people and places where these traits are celebrated and considered inseparable from and necessary to masculinity. Influential people, especially online, claim that the ideal and only acceptable form of masculinity is one that is based on gender roles and domination. According to them, the struggles many men are experiencing is because of the move away from distinct gender roles, the decreasing relevance of men as providers and protectors, and that men are discouraged – or even forbidden – from acting in alignment with their inherent natures. The only paths to happiness and fulfillment for men, according to this way of thinking, is through acquiring power and control through domination of others. And the only way this can be achieved is acting withing strict limits of what is considered manly behaviour and the constant pursuit of this domination.
This model of masculinity is known as patriarchal masculinity. It is also referred to as ‘traditional masculinity’ or ‘alpha males’, sometimes with the claim that these philosophies and lifestyles are different, but they’re all based on patriarchy.
Patriarchy refers to a system of society that places men in control of those considered weaker – some men and all women – by virtue of their maleness alone. They are the only ones who can have authority or leadership roles, both in the home and outside of it; they make the decisions; and their wants and needs must be given priority. Women are inferior to men and it’s their duty to play a supporting role in men’s lives by taking responsibility for their physical, emotional and sexual wellbeing.
This harms individuals and society as a whole by severely limiting what men and women are capable of doing and the types of lives they can lead. Men must be strong emotionally detached providers while women’s lives are limited to domestic roles and they’re forced to rely on men to provide for them.
For generations, this was the norm in Western cultures. It’s only in the previous century that patriarchy’s problematic nature and the harms it causes have been recognised and efforts have been made to discourage these ways of thinking.
Because patriarchal masculinity is so harmful and traditionally prevalent, some people believe that masculinity itself is problematic and expressions of masculinity can’t be healthy so developing a male identity should always be avoided.
In the absence of healthy and widely-accepted ways of practicing masculinity, some men are unsure of their position in society, struggling to form a personal identity, and searching for answers. This makes men vulnerable to being swayed to accept patriarchal masculinity as the solution to their problems.
But patriarchal masculinity is far more likely to cause problems for men, despite its alleged ability to present solutions. Limiting your life to what is acceptable under the rules of patriarchal masculinity is rarely enjoyable or fulfilling. Unhealthy beliefs about masculinity can even prevent you from discovering much more satisfying and wholesome ways of connecting to and expressing your masculinity.
If you want to have a rewarding and healthy connection to masculinity, you must first identify unhealthy, often patriarchal, beliefs that may be holding you back and replace these with positive alternatives.
Why patriarchal masculinity is unhealthy
What makes patriarchal masculinity so unhealthy? Why do some people celebrate and promote what others consider destructive forms of masculinity? How can men recognise unhealthy messaging about what is necessary to ‘be a man’ and find alternatives?
In order to understand how to develop a healthy approach to masculinity, it’s useful to understand why patriarchal masculinity is so harmful.
Living in alignment with patriarchal masculinity requires a great deal from men. The most common and impactful include:
- Never acknowledge any emotion except anger
- Never respond to emotions with anything other than anger, violence or aggression
- Mock whatever is considered weak, especially femininity and homosexuality
- Be a provider and protector
- Not engage in things that are considered women’s work, especially housework and many aspects of childcare
- Deny strong positive emotions, including excitement, passion and joy
- Only engage in hobbies and activities that are considered manly, such as sport and hunting
The rules can all be summarised into the singular requirement: always project strength and never show any weakness.
Men are told that if they follow these rules, they’ll be rewarded with a prestigious career, an adoring beautiful partner, and respect from the people around them.
This is a demanding way to live, and the costs are high. Men must deny many of their natural drives, interests, emotions, and aspects of their personalities, which requires being inauthentic and living a highly performance-based life. Behaving inauthentically is exhausting and degrading because you’re made to believe that who you naturally are is unacceptable and the only way to be successful or happy is by adopting a false persona.
Relationships must remain at surface-level because being open and sharing your inner world with others isn’t acceptable within the confines of patriarchal masculinity. This leaves men feeling isolated because they’re unable to form close relationships, which are necessary to being happy and help insulate people from emotional hardships.
These practices begin in boyhood and the demands never stop. Men are forced to reject many of life’s greatest pleasures – revelling in experiences and making strong connections – because they don’t align with the archetypical patriarchal male.
And despite their many sacrifices, men very rarely get the rewards they believed they would earn by obeying the rules of patriarchal masculinity. Few people respond well to others degrading and trying to dominate them, and many jobs require skills that are discouraged by patriarchal masculinity, such as respecting others, diplomacy, and building connections, leaving most men without the relationships or prestigious career they thought they would achieve by ‘being real men’.
When boys and men don’t get the rewards they believe they’ve earned, they often become angry – because anger is the only emotion they’re familiar with – and feel they’ve been wronged.
These are painful emotional states to experience, especially for a prolonged period of time. They can lead to further mental health challenges and self-destructive behaviours, such as lashing out at the people you think are keeping you from getting what you’ve earned or blaming yourself for not doing what was necessary to get what would have made you happy.
But few people realise that patriarchal masculinity is to blame for their struggles as doing so is challenging – it requires admitting that you spent years, if not much of your life, believing a lie and acting in ways to get rewards that were almost certainly to never materialise. Changing requires admitting that what you believed was wrong and the only way to be happier is to give up the ideas you didn’t realise were holding you back.
There are a few men who do achieve what they wanted by adopting patriarchal masculinity, but the vast majority are left feeling emotionally empty, lonely, and ripped off. This is because patriarchy and patriarchal masculinity isn’t the solution to the challenges men are facing – it was and is largely the cause.
Yet the opposite of patriarchal masculinity isn’t turning your back on masculinity as a whole as this would mean denying many aspects of your personality as well. Feeling unable to express yourself naturally, whether it’s to adhere to patriarchal masculinity or denying masculinity altogether, isn’t healthy and doesn’t encourage authenticity.
Most men have the greatest potential to be happy and mentally healthy when they’re able to give up the harmful messages of patriarchal masculinity and connect with a positive form of masculinity.
Masculinity without patriarchy
What are healthy ways of relating to and expressing masculinity? How can rejecting patriarchy improve men’s lives? What beliefs are often necessary to change or unlearn?
Because patriarchal beliefs about what is expected of men and inherent to their nature are so deeply imbedded in Western society, many people – both men and women – are unaware of behaviours and expectations that are driven by patriarchy.
These are much easier to unlearn and replace with healthy alternatives when you know what they are, why they’re harmful, and how you can benefit from giving them up in exchange for alternatives that contribute to a connection to a positive form of masculinity.
The most common and meaningful of these include:
a) You have a healthy sense of self
A sense of self is how you think of yourself. It’s shaped by your interests, beliefs and values, experiences, what you’re taught, what you discover for yourself, your environment, and more. When someone has a strong sense of self, they’re likely to be confident, comfortable making decisions, and aware of their ambitions for the future.
Without a sense of self, you’re likely to be unsure of who you are, what you want, and what is important to you. This is a difficult way to live because you don’t have principals and a vision to direct you through life.
A sense of self is in part derived through your status: your position in society based on how others think of you. Patriarchal masculinity claims that men must achieve this status through domination of those considered weaker than themselves.
Believing that you have to dominate or be dominated is exhausting because you must always be on the lookout for threats to your position and behave in ways that are likely unnatural to maintain your status.
But status isn’t only achieved through domination. A much healthier and fulfilling way to acquire status is through prestige.
Prestige is derived through your skills and accomplishments and how you use these to improve your life and help those around you. Instead of behaving in ways that are unnatural, you can take advantage of what you’re naturally good at to acquire prestige and status: if you’re handy, you can gain prestige through repairing things; someone calm can be respected for their ability to maintain composure even when challenged. You can also get prestige from capabilities that would be forbidden under patriarchal masculinity, such as being a good listener or an accomplished knitter.
b) You don’t have to earn your value
Because patriarchy claims that men must dominate others while being providers for their families, their value is reduced to what they can do to and for others. If they lose the ability to dominate or provide, they become worthless.
When you recognise the parts of yourself – your traits, personality, skills, etc. – that give you value, you don’t have to perform to feel useful. You aren’t assuming that others only value because of what you can do for them, like provide, be unwaveringly strong and decisive, or never make mistakes; instead, you can feel valued for who you are, separate from your accomplishments.
This is a more peaceful and fulfilling way to live because you don’t have to feel that you must always prove yourself. You can and should aim to be the best version of yourself, which requires self-improvement – such as by identifying weaknesses and the parts of yourself you’re not proud of and aiming to address them – but you can feel confident that you’re capable of earning love and connection as you are.
c) You can have better relationships
Meaningful relationships with deep mutual connections aren’t allowed or possible under the rules of patriarchal masculinity because of the requirement to dominate and inability to share, be open or vulnerable. You can’t be friends with someone you’re trying to dominate as what could be relationships become power struggles instead. And because men can’t truly connect through sharing – they’re largely limited to doing things together and keeping conversations at surface-level –relationships can’t progress.
Meaningful connections to others are essential to being mentally healthy and help protect people from many of life’s challenges. But because men feel forbidden from forming these relationships, they’re at a greater risk of being lonely and more deeply impacted by hardships.
d) You can connect to your emotions
People who can’t identify and don’t understand their emotions are much more likely to struggle with their mental health and forming relationships. But because self-reflection and being emotionally aware are inconsistent with the rules of patriarchal masculinity, many men have very little awareness of their emotions, other than anger.
When you can recognise which emotion(s) you’re feeling, you can: find solutions when something is upsetting you because you understand how it’s effecting you, recognise and fully experience positive emotions, and strengthen relationships by empathising with others.
e) You’re free to adopt a healthy approach to masculinity
To be mentally healthy, it’s necessary to give up many of the beliefs and guiding principals of patriarchal masculinity. But unless you replace them with something else, you’re potentially left lacking an important part of your identity. Therefore, giving up patriarchal masculinity and being mentally healthy requires adopting a different approach to masculinity.
Although a personal identity can be entirely separate from your gender, plenty of people do base their identity, at least in part, on being male or female. So incorporating masculinity into your personal identity can be rewarding and enriching, as well as informing some of your decisions and behaviours.
This alternative to patriarchal masculinity can come in the form of ‘positive masculinity’.
Unlike patriarchal masculinity, positive masculinity doesn’t have strict rules and clearly defined gender roles because it’s based on encouraging authenticity, integrity, and empathy, which are essential to being satisfied with yourself and building healthy relationships.
People are typically happiest when they understand what they like about themselves, what types of behaviours make them feel proud and fulfilled, they know what their values are and how to honour them, and they have a vision for the future.
Instead of filtering your behaviour and decisions through what is and isn’t acceptable according to patriarchal masculinity, you instead consider if it’s aligned with your beliefs and values, ethical, and helps grow you as a person.
To adopt a new identity free of patriarchal masculinity, you can consider the traits you want to embody and how these can be best expressed. These can, and most likely will, include traits that are typically considered masculine, but they can be expressed in healthy ways – protecting others can be done in the context of helping them to be safe rather than preventing their independence, risk-taking can become courage to try new things.
This is often easiest when you give yourself a sense of direction by considering the type of person you would like to be, short and long-term.
To better understand who you want to be, if you don’t know already, you can ask yourself questions such as:
What are my goals for the future?
How do I want others to think of me?
What do I enjoy doing and how can I utilise this in different areas of my life?
What weaknesses should I address?
Whose opinions do I value the most and how can I make them proud?
Use the answers to these questions to form a detailed image of yourself in the future and consider what is necessary to becoming this person. What current beliefs and behaviours would you have to give up? What would you need to do each day to change and grow? What habits would you need to form and when could you start practicing these?
The clearer your image of your future self is, the more realistic and therefore motivating changing can become.
Use this image, as well as possibly blending it with people you respect and admire, as guidance in your decisions, beliefs, behaviours, and growth.
This can be the most enjoyable part of changing because you’re identifying what would make you feel like a better person and taking the steps to make this a reality. Change requires struggles, but it should also be fun at times because the goal is to make your life better.
However, changing inevitably contains difficulties as well. One of the most obstructive is often other people’s reactions.
Despite how damaging patriarchal masculinity is, there are nevertheless plenty of people and institutions that enforce patriarchy, intentionally or without realising. This includes messages about ‘manning up’, men being publicly shamed for not behaving in alignment with patriarchal masculinity such as by being emotional in public or deferring to their partners’ wishes, and being perceived as showing weakness for apologising or admitting they were wrong.
Further complicating giving up patriarchal masculinity is the lack of non-patriarchal men celebrated publicly. Role models are important for those seeking to change so this makes changing more difficult.
You may have to search for role models, as well as being one for yourself and possibly to others. This is rarely easy, but it can be incredibly satisfying.
This is why some people prefer to work with a professional, especially if they have a number of patriarchal beliefs to unlearn. Professionals can help you identify patterns of behaviour you might not have been aware of, suggest techniques to make changing easier, and act as an accountability partner to keep you on track.
Making any type of significant change almost always comes with a number of challenges, and this is even more likely when you’re attempting to move away from beliefs and expectations that are found in many powerful places in society. But just because a way of thinking is popular doesn’t mean that it’s right – which is the case for patriarchal masculinity.
Despite it’s historical and re-emerging prevalence, patriarchal masculinity is a deeply unsatisfying model of behaviour for guiding your actions and decisions. It puts so much off limits while placing high demands on what you must do and believe while preventing you from building deep and meaningful relationships.
Although some people claim that patriarchal masculinity is the solution to the challenges that a growing number of men are experiencing – most stemming from feeling over-looked, irrelevant, and unsure of themselves or who they are – for the vast majority of people it makes their lives even more difficult and unfulfilling. Instead of freeing you to ‘be a real man’, it traps you to only do what is acceptable according to patriarchal masculinity.
But masculinity isn’t inherently problematic even though patriarchal masculinity is harmful. There are healthy and enriching ways to practice masculinity and approaches to being a man you can adopt that have the potential to improve your self-confidence and how you interact and connect with others.
Giving up patriarchal masculinity is challenging, but when you realise the demands it makes without providing any of the benefits it offers, you can feel more prepared to instead embrace a version of masculinity free of patriarchy.
