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Save the Males Part 2: Devil’s Bargain
What the Hell is Masculinity, Anyway?
Part 1 here
Prefer to listen? Check out the podcast version
There is no feminine equivalent of the word “emasculated.”
Women, nonbinary people, and trans people of all genders have trouble escaping their socially-assigned roles no matter how hard they try. Men, on the other hand, seem at risk of losing their gender at all times. They certainly seem frightened of losing it. And, as the proliferation of far-right male self-help gurus attests, many disaffected young men feel like they have already lost it. Why?
“With every passing generation, men become weaker and more confused.”
-Michael Witcoff
Part 1 of Save the Males briefly made fun of Witcoff’s very silly article before getting serious about how sad his opening sentence is. Far too many men read that sentence and think, yes. This guy understands how I feel.
Witcoff’s authoritarian prescriptions works about as well as the authoritarian prescriptions of any other far-right male self-help program, which is to say: not very well at all. Yet the problem these hacks address is real and worthy of concern. Why do men feel this sense of loss and emasculation? Why are they so goddamn unhappy all the time?
