What If We’ve Been Talking About Masculinity All Wrong?

It’s a fine winter's morning, crisp and bright. It's the type of day that requires both gloves and sunglasses. I’ve just walked out of Belfast’s Grand Central train station. Through the mist of my evaporating breath, I can see seven labourers in high-vis jackets and hard hats completing the walkway outside the new station. Some are pushing wheelbarrows of stones; others use mallets to position paving slabs. Nearby, four taxi drivers stand beside their cars. One takes a drag on a cigarette while another discusses yesterday’s football results. There’s banter and cajoling.

I continue up the street. A couple walk arm-in-arm towards me, wearing the same brand of jacket in different colours—black and pink. I smile and say hello. Passing a clothes alteration shop, I glance through the window. Six sewing machines are laid out, though only two are in use. Between their rhythmic clicks, I hear a Tina Turner song playing in the background.

It’s just another Tuesday morning in Belfast.

Quick question: How many men and women did I remember from that morning?

Take a moment to count them.

That’s right—I never mentioned anyone’s gender. But your mind probably inferred it. We all carry expectations about how men, women, and other genders behave, the jobs they do, the things they talk about, and, yes, even the colours of the jackets they wear. From a young age, we are socialised into ideas about masculinity and femininity that shape these expectations.

There’s been a lot of talk about masculinity. Too much, perhaps. The problem is that we keep talking about masculinity when we should be talking about masculinities.

The World Health Organization (2018) defines masculinities as culturally specific sets of attributes, values, and behaviours associated with being a man that influence health, help-seeking, and well-being. Considering the worrying state of boys’ and men’s well-being, masculinities matter. Masculinities also affect the experiences of girls and women. Understanding masculinities helps explain why men behave as they do, sometimes in ways that benefit themselves and others, and sometimes in ways that cause harm.

The word masculine comes from the Latin masculus, meaning "worthy of a man." It’s no surprise, then, that masculinities have often revolved around proving one’s worth.

Anthropologist David D. Gilmore argued that across cultures, manhood is based on what he called a “manhood of achievement” (Gilmore, 1990). Whether it is enduring bullet ant stings among the Sateré-Mawé of the Amazon, hunting a first antelope among the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert, or land diving on Pentecost Island of Vanuatu, becoming a man has often required passing a test. Masculinities are, in many respects, meritocracies.

Across time and culture, men have been stalked by a fear of falling short. Masculinities do more than describe what it means to be a man; they create pressure to continually prove it. Take, for example, Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem "If." It lists more than 20 standards of character before concluding: “you’ll be a Man, my son!” No pressure there.

None of this denies that femininities have also imposed unfair expectations on women. If men have tended to be criticised for failing to meet the mark, women have been criticised for overstepping it: being too ambitious, too assertive, too loud, or too sexual. Nonetheless, achievement-based masculinities can be brittle. During periods of economic or social instability, identities built on success become vulnerable. Ironically, because men have historically occupied positions of power, this vulnerability is sometimes overlooked, even when it is real.

Psychologist Joseph Vandello and colleagues captured this idea in the Precarious Manhood Hypothesis. They argued that, as formal rites of passage to manhood have faded in Western societies, men increasingly seek other ways to demonstrate manhood, including excelling in sport, accumulating wealth, building muscular physiques, sexual conquest, risk-taking, or excessive drinking. Their research studies, conducted with male and female American college students, suggested that manhood is seen as something that must continually be earned and is more easily threatened than womanhood (Vandello et al., 2008). Furthermore, male participants who felt their manhood had been undermined were more likely to respond with aggressive thoughts compared to female participants who had their womanhood questioned.

Rethinking masculinity begins with reflecting on the assumptions we inherit.

Source: Atahan Demir / Pexels

Being a man in a changing world

Famously, David D. Gilmore's ethnographic work across cultures gave rise to the idea that masculinities have historically revolved around three core responsibilities: to procreate, provide, and protect. These “three P's” reinforce the idea that manhood must be achieved. Woe betide the man who cannot have children, loses his job, or cannot protect those around him. But the world has changed since Gilmore conducted his fieldwork. Recent decades have brought important progress for girls and women. Alongside these gains—but not because of them—many boys and men have experienced growing uncertainty about their role, status, and purpose. As the feminist author Susan Faludi observed, many men have lost “a useful role in public life, a way of earning a decent and reliable living, appreciation in the home, [and] respectful treatment in the culture” (Faludi, 2011).

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The issue is not that women have advanced; it is that some men perceive, and sometimes experience, a loss of direction. But metaphorically speaking, a pencil should not fear the development of the pen; it should fear losing its own sharpness. Rather than tying our identity to a shrinking set of roles or achievements, we men can remain sharp by cultivating adaptability, competence, contribution, and purpose.

Not everyone responds to change in the same way. Some men adapt. Others resist. Still others appeal to a return to the "good old days." This longing has been described as radical nostalgia—the belief that reviving past cultural norms will solve present problems. But, as investigative journalist Jim Hougan warned, radical nostalgia often “falsifies the past” (Hougan, 1975) and becomes an escape from action rather than a guide for it. Going back is no way to move forward. Our task is not to recreate our grandfathers, but to cultivate the strengths boys and men need today.

Increasingly, social scientists suggest that masculinities should be understood less as fixed roles and more as the ability to adapt behaviour to changing contexts. When viewed this way, Gilmore’s "three P's" become guiding principles rather than rigid expectations, and a fourth P naturally emerges: prosocial.

Beyond the 'three P's': Recognising masculinity as a prosocial force

The drive to procreate can be understood more broadly as creating value: parenting, mentoring, coaching, teaching, innovating, making art, or caring for the environment. Protecting means promoting the safety, dignity, and rights of others—challenging abuse, supporting vulnerable people, and fostering psychologically safe workplaces. Providing extends beyond earning money to giving time, care, emotional presence, and practical support to partners, families, and communities.

Seen in this light, modern masculinities are fundamentally about cooperation, Homo co-operans if you like. We are called to:

• Co-create a shared future rather than merely consume the present.
• Champion the safety and dignity of others by using our strengths, physical, intellectual, social, and moral.
• Contribute meaningfully to the people, families, and communities we belong to.

This vision aligns with the growing idea of caring masculinities (Doucet, 2006), which emphasise caregiving, emotional openness, and a rejection of dominance and violence. Some fear this represents an attempt to emasculate men. They would do well to heed the advice, “Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” These words weren’t penned by a new-age guru; they were written in the first century A.D. by Saint Paul.

This is not about men becoming soft. It is about recognising that strength without compassion is brittle, and that the best masculinities are those that enable men, and everyone around them, to thrive.