Foreword: This is an opinion piece on what it means to be a man, written by a man. This article is not meant to be an indictment of any group, opinion, or belief, but rather to be a window into the mind of men for those unfamiliar with the male perspective, and to help men who have never been able to vocalize their feelings on gender roles to put their experiences into words.
This essay seeks to discuss what the “male experience” is, and in order to do that, it will first need to identify some common experiences that many men share. An unexpected place where we can perhaps glean some information on the subject is from online anti-feminist hate groups.
As an example, readers may be familiar with these groups:
MGTOW (“Men Going Their Own Way”), an online right wing community started on Reddit which examines the male experience through an anti-feminist lens.
Incels (Involuntary Celibates), a cultural movement started on sites such as 4chan, 8chan, and 9gag, whose members believe that the “bottom 90%” of men are ignored and mocked by women and society at large, which forces them to live without sex.
The reason these groups are valuable as a window into men’s perception of their place in the world is because they are disconnected from the rest of society, where it can sometimes be frowned upon to discuss male gender roles. Being based online, where such social taboos start to break down, these hate groups let men air their least acceptable opinions in an environment where everyone will agree with them: an echo chamber of intensifying hate.
By delving into these communities, however, and stripping away the racism, sexism, and hate, what you discover at the core of their ideology is a deep hatred for male gender roles.
Think back to what the incel community believes: the bottom 90% of men are ignored and ridiculed by society. Then look at Tinder.
According to Tinder analytics, the top 10% of male profiles receive 60% of all swipes. That leaves 90% of all male Tinder accounts with only 40% of the traffic. Then, examine the female experience. On average, female accounts on Tinder receive more swipes than men by orders of magnitude, and these swipes are much more evenly distributed when compared to male accounts.
Here’s what I believe: these groups actually feel the effects of male gender roles more acutely than most people. The second example of a MGTOW post (reposted below) even derides men’s status as providers, which is a shockingly progressive view, but one that is immediately masked with sexism and hate.
The tragedy of this situation is that these are men who are intensely aware that they feel dissatisfied with the role society has given them because of their gender, but rather than combatting inequality by redefining what it means to be a man, they seek to fix the gender discrepancy by resisting feminism.
Okay, so now let’s explain what male gender roles actually look like. In my opinion, male gender roles are characterized by one thing: the masculine hierarchy. Our culture is rife with examples of masculine men who get the girl. Just think of James Bond. Any young boy growing up watching these movies would naturally want to wear a sharp tuxedo, own a cool gun, drive a fast car, and have an attractive girlfriend. As boys grow up, these things become extremely important in “proving that you’re a man,” and they begin to mock their peers who have not had a girlfriend, who have not had sex, who are not tall, who are not strong. Masculinity becomes a competition: if you cannot prove that you are a man, then you do not belong.
Women are a cure to this. Beyond the inherent drive for sex, women are a way to prove your manhood. Men think women are attracted to wealth, power, strength, so if you have sex with women, you must have those. This mindset especially affects men who feel emasculated: the greater the need to prove your masculinity, the greater the need for a woman, and the more likely they are to see women as a status symbol. This can explain much of the incel mindset of objectifying women: they feel emasculated, and they desire status in the form of a woman, so they see women as a goal to achieve rather than a person with their own feelings.
It’s important to understand that this is a system perpetuated mostly by men. There is such a heavy culture of “proving masculinity” that men who express some degree of femininity are often ridiculed. This makes many men feel that they need to appear hyper masculine in order to be accepted. While the same is definitely true for women, it is to a lesser degree; the image of the tomboy who defies society’s feminine expectations has been present in our media for decades; only now are feminine men becoming acceptable.
Men can often feel very cheap and disposable. It is incredibly rare that any man feels “desirable,” because society does not label us as something to be desired. Instead, men are valued for their achievements and their place on the masculine social hierarchy, which necessitates competition between men, and ends with 99% of men feeling like imposters in a hyper-masculine world. When our relationships with other men are based in competition and our relationships with women are based in sexual pursuit, we end up with nobody to truly be emotionally open with.
So that’s what male gender roles are. Being a man means being in a constant competition with everyone around you, the outcome of which determines your status in life, and the only ones who will talk about it are sexist freaks. Mazel tov.
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