Masculinity
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Masculinity at the End of History August 21, 2025
The statistics are many and grim and fairly well known at this point: American boys and men are falling behind across a range of educational and economic indicators when compared to their female peers.1 They face higher rates of overdose, suicide, an...
Real Heroism Isn’t What You Think August 19, 2025
During my first tour in Afghanistan, I encountered what American culture interprets to be the pinnacle of masculine power and heroism. Every day, whether at the DFAC (military slang for dining facility) or at the gym, I would greet big, perfectly fit...
Liberalism’s Cure for the Man Crisis Makes Men Worse August 14, 2025
We called them the Pantheon.They were the men we turned to when things weren’t going well. When, for example, we didn’t sell a story we had written to a magazine, or our band didn’t get a gig. Or when we got hurt playing football or a girl broke one ...
Succès de Scandale August 13, 2025
When in November of 1849 Charlotte Brontë sent the gift of her second novel to the writer Harriet Martineau, she enclosed a note, writing that “Currer Bell offers a copy of Shirley to Miss Martineau’s acceptance, in acknowledgement of the pleasure an...
Hollywood’s Inability To Create Masculine Stars July 10, 2025
Two of the biggest movies this summer are Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning and F1, starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, respectively. The two movies have something interesting in common — both are star vehicles for men in their sixties. Brad Pit...
The Man Crisis and ‘Iron John’ at 35 June 26, 2025
This year marks the 35th anniversary of the publication of poet Robert Bly’s massive bestseller and ’90s cultural phenomenon, Iron John: A Book About Men. Although it’s not mentioned much these days, Iron John deserves a re-evaluation in the face of ...
The Real Reason Men Should Read Fiction June 25, 2025
There’s always something going on with men. They can’t make friends; they’re very lonely; they’re “losing” to women; they listen to Andrew Tate. And, we are told, they do not read. Over the past few years, multiple articles have observed the so-calle...
Gonzo Bros June 23, 2025
For those too young to have experienced it firsthand, the wide streak of unapologetic masculinity that runs through American letters in the last half of the 20th century must seem like something left over from the Bronze Age. In those far-off days, E...
The Manosphere Meets Its Match June 16, 2025
It’s fair to say that the manosphere — the constellation of weight-lifters, men’s-rights gurus, and anti-feminist YouTubers — occupies a central space in the culture. Masculinity influencers command audiences in the tens of millions, shaping how boys...
The Revenge of the Young Male Novelist June 10, 2025
Tales of Cruising London: Sex on the Heath and Other Places, by James Hatcher. All Google searches led to Tales of Cruising London: Sex on the Heath and Other Places, by James Hatcher. It was the only book I could find, but it was not the book I want...
Why Are Men Shaving off Their Eyelashes? June 04, 2025
A small but curious sign of the deepening gender divide in our politically fraught times: Male beauty standards are getting really weird.In the latest salvo, young boys on TikTok are shaving off their eyelashes, ostensibly because long eyelashes are ...
The Rage of the Literary Man May 27, 2025
What is it about this tweet that enraged so many literary men on Twitter? Is it that I dared to mention three masters of the American short story? Do they hate bars with working-class clientele? Or is it that the angry literary men prefer Dylan’s ear...
Do We Really Need a ‘Male Writers Only’ Book Publisher? May 22, 2025
When a new publisher dedicated to finding “overlooked” male writers was announced last month, the news should have gone off like a hand grenade in the discourse. The “where are all the male novelists?” debate has been raging for years. Back in 2020, ...
The Pursuit of Male Friendship is Horrifying May 22, 2025
Over the weekend, I saw the movie Friendship in theaters. I’m a big fan of Tim Robinson, not not a fan of Paul Rudd, and moreover would love to see more comedies being released. I went in with almost zero background on what the film was about. Obviou...
When Did Meat Become Right-Wing? May 13, 2025
In America, there are two famous vampires named Brian Johnson. Well, sort of. The first, who admittedly spells it “Bryan”, is the preternaturally ageless tech entrepreneur who charts his erections and uses infusions of his teenage son’s blood plasma ...
The Female Gaze May 05, 2025
This week in silly internet discourse, the singer Olly Murs got fit, and posted Before and After shots. Then the psychologist William Costello posted the shots, and polled men and women on which looked better. More men chose the After shot, but vastl...
‘American Psycho’ Still Fails to Feminize May 05, 2025
It’s been 25 years since the world first met Patrick Bateman, the inimitable villain of American Psycho. Intended as a feminist critique of masculinity and yuppie-era excess, director Mary Harron crafted a meticulous portrait of a wealthy Wall Street...
