A Case for Modern Masculinity

I’ve been a little hesitant to share this piece because when we talk about heteronormative gender dynamics it tends to erupt into a dumpster fire of chaos. I used to relish these online debates but in the times we live in, I crave understanding. This was written before this past weekend’s horrific, inhumane crisis in Minnesota which only further emphasizes the point. Please note, writing on gender, we are forced to talk in generalizations and I want to be clear, I’m looking at dominant trends and sharing some personal experience along with that. There will always be exceptions to the rule, I understand that. This is my first piece for subscribers as I trust you all to keep the discourse productive, curious, and connected!

As Betty Friedan once said, “There cannot be enduring women’s liberation without men’s liberation. There can only be sexual warfare.” She couldn’t have been more right and it feels like that tension is at an all time high.

Following Donald Trump’s reelection, hatred toward women intensified dramatically. Within 24 hours, men emboldened by the political moment threatened rape and roared “your body, my choice.” The media buzzed with coverage of powerful men whose crimes went unchecked for decades, Diddy and Epstein. You’d think #MeToo had never happened. These aren’t abstract political issues. They reflect a reality women navigate daily. A woman’s greatest fear isn’t spiders or public speaking; it’s waking up to a nightmare like Gisèle Pelicot, drugged and sexually assaulted by her husband for over 50 years, or Rebecca Cheptegei, burned alive by her boyfriend after winning an Olympic medal. The challenges of living as a woman in society never leave your mind. And statistics confirm this fear is a reality. Sixty-three percent of murdered women are killed by their intimate partners. Human women are the only animals that mate with their number one predator. The stakes are literally life or death.

When a DJ I know posted a poll asking her followers if they’d rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a man, ninety-two percent chose the bear. Women clearly don’t feel safe. And for good reason, this gender warfare is corroding modern relationships, and even the most traditional communities show cracks. I reflect on my own life and the incessant questioning about why I’m still single. The truth is simple, I don’t want to explain the harms of patriarchy to a partner. I witness misogyny daily on a global, cultural stage, and it breaks my heart. I carry a melancholy as an adult woman that never existed when I was a child. I deserve to come home to a safe harbor, not one that adds more labor and exhaustion to my day.

Thanks to therapy, I’ve learned how to hold myself. I want a partner who not only knows how to hold themselves but is emotionally literate enough to be there for me as a co-creator of our relationship. Every great relationship demands reciprocity. My experience isn’t unique. For most women, two things are true: they carry this melancholy by themselves, and on top of that pain, they’re expected to do most of the domestic and emotional labor in their relationships. We want more than what society currently offers. I ask for men to do more.

Women have repeatedly rethought their role in society, perhaps because we’re forced to. The power structure wasn’t built with us in mind. But this system harms men just as much as it harms women. Despite clear evidence that this system is hurting them too, men seem to be doubling down on antiquated ideas of masculinity instead of reinventing masculinity.

I stumbled across a book entitled Men: An Investigation into the Emotional Male by Phillip Hodson, a British Psychotherapist who wrote it in 1984. 1984! It was astonishing to see predictions of our current reality made 40 years ago. This disconnect has been cooking for a lot longer than I realized. In 1982, for every man who divorced his wife, three women divorced their husbands in the UK. Today, 70% of divorces are initiated by women, citing lack of growth and emotional dissatisfaction as primary drivers.

Hodson observed that women were satisfied with their husbands as breadwinners but dissatisfied with them as companions, describing them as “inept and ineffectual as confidants.“ He wrote: “I see little evidence that men are putting their energy into side-stepping the consequences or even investing in what we might call remasculation. At present, they are sitting on their thrones as the kingdom collapses, demanding that the tide of female employment be halted because they cannot cope or accept that the traditional economy is in decline…why should they support the very values of masculinity which have made them redundant?...who values brute strength in a land of automation and increased leisure?” He’s a bit cheeky but his prescience was remarkable. Since 1984, industries have shifted even more drastically toward automation and technical skill sets. So he was right, why have men doubled down on the skills and traits that rendered them redundant? Why didn’t they choose to evolve? Is it because they believed the patriarchal structure was invulnerable?

There’s a societal and evolutionary disconnect at play, which explains why so many heterosexual people struggle with dating. As women have risen in education and professional careers, they rely less and less on spouses for financial security. Marriage has evolved from a financial arrangement to a partnership where emotional intelligence and shared labor supersede traditional requirements. Women want emotional capacity in their relationships, to not have to carry the domestic, spiritual and emotional parts all by themselves. These are what psychologists call mature dependency needs, ones that traditional masculinity fails to meet.

Compound the above with modern dating culture, it’s all pretty bleak. I’ve never liked the digital dating landscape, it creates more disconnection than connection. It’s easy to get stuck in a swipe cycle. Apps are designed to manipulate our brain to believe you can always find someone better: you have a bad date, no worries, you’re one swipe away from the next best thing! People are less likely to commit to plans because the cheap dopamine hit of the match feels like enough. We’ve lost the idea that people matter. We are not disposable, we are not swipes. Dating with intention seems to be lost on the current market.

By 2030, 45% of women are projected to be single, driven by a desire for higher relationship standards and personal fulfillment. Meanwhile, men are facing a loneliness crisis. I see variables on the graph of life fusing together to hit a cultural tipping point, and yet despite me thinking there’s a pretty easy solve here, it’s not feeling so easy to solve.