Since the presidential campaign shake-up in July, the national conversation about manhood has been abuzz with talk of a “new” masculinity, embodied by good, decent men like Tim Walz and Doug Emhoff. What’s actually new, though, is what’s coming into focus: the consequences of 50 years of men’s hard work to redefine manhood.
A growing number of men across all races and ethnicities have followed women in working to prevent domestic and sexual violence, protect reproductive rights and redefine and transform traditional ideas about manhood, fatherhood and brotherhood. Men are rejecting a fixed definition of masculinity and replacing it with an emotionally rich expression of masculinities.