SAM DINGMAN: With the nature of masculinity up for debate, there's been a widely reported cultural resurgence of a very particular form of male identity.
It has various manifestations, but from social media influencers to politicians, men are being subjected to a steady stream of messaging that the key to reclaiming their primacy in American life has something to do with a return to a hyper-traditionalist, patriarchal version of manhood.
Sarah Jones is a writer for New York Magazine, and she wrote about this recently. Her piece is called, “Masculinity Will Not Save Men,” and she says this is not a new phenomenon. And moreover, she told me, it's not helping anyone.
SARAH JONES: I don't think turning to what we call traditional masculinity — this notion of like male heroism and chivalry — is really the answer. I think for men, in particular, it's just another political dead end.
SAM DINGMAN: Yeah. Another critical point that you raised that doesn't get talked about very much in these ongoing conversations about the fallout from the masculinity crisis, is that it also opens this lane for hucksters to sell these highly suspicious, like, supplements and stuff to men, based on the idea that it will open a pathway for them to return to this hierarchical position that they're supposedly born to.
JONES: Yes. And I find that so interesting. Not least because there is sort of a mirror phenomenon among women – especially online and on social media — where I run into it all the time. I'll just be scrolling Instagram and someone's trying to sell me a juice cleanse and help me get in touch with the divine feminine or whatever.
But there is a kind of a corresponding notion of that for men, too. You know, kind of dubious supplements that are supposed to make you as swole and as masculine as possible.
DINGMAN: Yeah. Well, we were talking before we got on the line about both growing up in Virginia. And, one of the things I remember from being around conservative men when I was younger is that the way that it manifested was much more — and I'm speaking very generally here, of course — but it manifested a lot in a foregrounding of vice, I would call it. So, steakhouse culture was very big, martini culture, having a big belly and talking about being a womanizer, and smoking cigars and stuff. These are the sort of Rush Limbaugh version of conservative masculinity. Whereas this newer strain that you're referencing seems much more about a kind of austerity model.
JONES: It's very much about wellness, and I would argue that exists for a lot of different reasons. You can trace it back to maybe new-age spirituality — as far back as the ‘70s and ‘80s. I grew up evangelical. I would see traces of this growing up.
DINGMAN: You talk about seeing some of the origins of it in the Promise Keepers movement.
JONES: Yes. So the Promise Keepers were very big in the ‘90s, and I think through the early 2000s. And it was founded by a football coach at the University of Colorado.
[CLIP OF SPEAKER PLAYS]
JONES: There were a couple of interesting features about it. One was kind of about getting in touch with your emotions, almost in a way, and sort of bonding with other men. And they were very clear that this was a very anti-gay thing. They, and in some corners of evangelicalism, if you look at the ex-gay movement, in particular, the idea that by bonding with other men and a heterosexual and — by their definition — a sort of spiritual way, that it was almost an antidote to homosexuality.
DINGMAN: Yes. Well, it makes me think of a lot of the male-bonding camps.
JONES: Yes.
DINGMAN: You know, they all have these kind of opaque names like “the true path” or like “the brotherhood of the temple keepers” — or I don't know. [LAUGH]
JONES: Yes.
[CLIP OF COMMERCIAL PLAYS]
DINGMAN: It is often marketed as a kind of to go back to what you were saying, a new-age sort of evolved perspective on masculinity and the responsibilities that come along with it. But as we're talking, I'm realizing that foundational to those ideas is still this very old-fashioned, arguably backwards idea, that men are supposed to be at the top of the hierarchy and need to regain some connection with that.
[CLIP OF SPEAKER PLAYS]
JONES: One of the criticisms of it that I think may be borne out is: Are you really helping men by telling them to get in touch with their masculinity in this way? Is there really a way to do that, that does not just reinforce traditional gender roles? And I'm not sure. I think about the notion of kind of the male breadwinner, the man being a provider for his family. Like, I don't — to be clear, I think taking care of the people you love is a very good impulse. And we should celebrate that.
DINGMAN: Of course. Of course.
JONES: But the notion of being a provider or being a breadwinner, then I think that's where that element of control starts to sneak in. So, it's very complicated.
DINGMAN: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you're making me think as we're talking about this, that whether it's the Promise Keepers movement, kind of identifying homosexuality as the threat to masculinity, or the Trump administration identifying DEI as the threat to masculinity. All of those ignore what you're arguing is the fundamental problem, which is, I believe you refer to it as a broken political economy.
JONES: I want to be clear when I talk about a broken political economy, I say this in the piece, but I think, you know, you could burn down capitalism tomorrow, and there would still be misogyny. Misogyny is much older than capitalism. But I do think when we're talking about this search for purpose and meaning among men and among women, too, you have to consider the context.
And that's taking place within this political economy that, in my view, anyway, does encourage exploitation and is violent, and sort of encourages ruthless behavior, you know, traits that are stereotypically masculine. And not in the way where you're taking care of your loved ones. Right? Like this is something that's far more brutal. You have somebody like Trump who's at the top of the ladder, and maybe people look at him and think: “If I'm violent enough, and I push enough people out of my way, maybe I can climb the ladder, too.”
DINGMAN: And one of the other things that you point out that I think is critical here is that there is a kind of perverse honesty to the brutality that people like Trump are saying is necessary. Because that's what it's taken for them to get to the top of that ladder. But that brutality is not a substitute for building a new ladder.
JONES: No, it's not. I'm thinking of a tweet that I saw today by a right-wing man who, I think he works on Matt Gates' new show, and he was talking about tariffs. But in his view, tariffs are really good for men, because they're going to go back to manufacturing and their place in the factory, and they're not going to compete with women for jobs anymore. Which means women, of course, will go back in the kitchen and make sandwiches and fertility rates will go up and everything is going to be beautiful — at least for men. So it is very much wrapped into this like very, very bleak, market-based, very economic picture of who gets to be on top.
DINGMAN: There's like a hint of Gilded Age kind of, you know, robber-baron capitalism, nostalgia attached to this, like pining for the glory days of the assembly line.
JONES: Right. There is. And that was an era before, you know — what we think of today's organized labor, or at least. Certainly an era before civil rights, an era before feminism, you know, it was an era where power was even far more brutal than it is now. And I don't think that's a coincidence.
DINGMAN: Yeah. Yeah. It's a time when people were dying in coal mines and getting sucked into welding machines and that kind of thing.
JONES: Right. Right.
DINGMAN: Well, Sarah Jones is a senior writer for Intelligencer at New York Magazine, and we have been discussing Sarah's piece, “Masculinity Will Not Save Men.” Sarah, thank you so much.
JONES: Thank you for having me.
