How to be a man in the first era in history that believes in gender equality? “The 200,000-year period in which men have been top dog is truly coming to an end,” wrote Hanna Rosin in The End of Men. Now we need a masculinist agenda, not to fight feminism but to help men adapt to it. Three recent books — Richard V Reeves’ Of Boys and Men, Ijeoma Oluo’s Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America and Joris Luyendijk’s Dutch book De zeven vinkjes (“The Seven Ticks”) — trace the outlines of a new masculinism.
There are now two kinds of men: those at the top who remain dominant, and those lower down who are struggling. At the top, 426 of the Fortune 500 companies had male CEOs as of March. White males from privileged backgrounds usually get to judge whether a candidate is the right “fit” and possesses “quality”, by which we often mean white-male attributes such as “experience” and “confidence”. We consider ourselves neutral, but suspect senior women of pushing female interests.
Luyendijk describes how elite spaces like boardrooms are designed for privileged white men. Our codes prevail, and everyone else feels an intruder. For instance, men instinctively seek eye contact with each other to establish fellowship and check whether they agree. But a woman who makes eye contact with a man in certain male-dominated spaces risks being misinterpreted.
Privilege goes beyond gender. It emerges from the cocktail of gender, race and class. And as Reeves shows, unprivileged males are being overtaken by females. He notes that whereas workplaces favour men, school favours girls, whose brains mature earlier. In the US, black females now outperform white males in education. The elite pipeline, including all Ivy League colleges, is mostly female. If employers stop penalising motherhood, and social expectations shift, women could come to dominate work.
With traditional male “muscle” jobs declining, more men have become underemployed. The average man has always been less likely to reproduce than the average woman. “We have twice as many female ancestors as male ones,” writes Reeves, quoting psychologist Roy Baumeister: “There is usually a penile surplus.” Men living without women tend to have poorer health, employment and social networks, notes Reeves. “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle,” went the feminist slogan, but it turns out the bicycle needs a fish.
So what should masculinism look like? One worrying option, depicted by Oluo, is self-pitying Trumpian revenge movements against women. Amid today’s attempts to redress sexism, men could sulk when certain mediocre women get the nod over better males. But then, many of today’s powerful men were chosen over better women. If you doubt the privilege of mediocre white men, writes Oluo, look at Trump and Joe Biden.
Ideally, the new masculinism will ditch the expectation of achievement that weighs on men. Domination “defines their success”, writes Oluo, who argues that black men in the US aren’t expected to achieve in the same way because racism has put them at the bottom of society. Men often derive their identity (and even their spouse) from a good career. That makes failure terrifying. Reeves wants men to copy women in spreading their identity across different realms: you got sacked but you’re still a good grandfather.
White men from privileged backgrounds struggle to perceive discrimination because we’ve never suffered it, notes Luyendijk. But we need to understand how it benefited us. Sure, most successful men work hard. But doors opened for them, usually because the gatekeepers were men like them. It’s pointless beating yourself up for your privilege. Instead, use it to help excluded people.
Meanwhile, men lower down need help too. Reeves urges progressives to accept that gender inequity sometimes runs against males. He advocates sending boys to school a year later, so they won’t spend their educational careers competing against more mature girls. He urges men to enter traditionally “feminine” industries like nursing and teaching. And he warns progressives against stigmatising biological masculine tendencies such as risk-taking and lust, which are stronger, on average, in males, probably due to testosterone.
After 200,000 years of patriarchy, we won’t instantly devise a society in which men and women thrive together. But it’s doable.
Follow Simon on Twitter @KuperSimon and email him at simon.kuper@ft.com
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