Masculinity

Masculinity is not inherently toxic, but a misogynistic culture creates expectations for men and boys to be violent and sexist, leading to issues of sexual violence and gun violence. This tag includes stories of masculinity in all its forms, including masculinity as healthy or fluid.

Men, Your Moment to End Gender-Based Violence Is Now

One in three women globally experiences extreme violence, often inflicted by male partners. Recent tragedies underscore how pervasive this violence is. Ugandan Olympian Rebecca Cheptegei was brutally set aflame by her partner. Days earlier, the world was shocked by the brutal rape and murder of a young trainee doctor in India. The recent case in France of Dominique Pelicot who drugged, tortured and gang-raped his wife Gisele for over four decades, is horrifying.

Men, your moment is now. The world needs you to rise to the challenge of ending this violence.

‘That’s My Dad!’: Helping Men Find Purpose in an Angry World

Young men in the U.S. are in an existential crisis, and from even the most casual browsing of their online spaces, their anger and loneliness are obvious. For these male biological challenges, we need empathy and understanding. For the social constructions of masculinity, the way we raise boys and socialize men, we need a bold, new social project. As grandiose as it may sound, men are seeking purpose. 

(This essay is part of a Women & Democracy multimedia package focused on Gen Z and student voters. The future envisioned by young leaders is bright—it’s built on reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, sustainability, freedom from violence and economic opportunity. Explore essays, a brand-new podcast, videos and more from some of your most loved [or soon to be!] influencers and writers, brought to you by Ms., DoSomething, the nonprofit that helps make volunteerism “cool,” and The Anthem Awards, the social impact arm of The Webbys.)

Survivors Know Donald Trump’s Type

As someone who has worked in the field of intimate partner violence for 30 years, Donald Trump has felt familiar to me—and not in a good way.

When you are good, you are in a wonderful romance: (“Women love me.”)

When you step out of line, you are crazy and no one will believe anything you say. (“Kamala Harris is mentally disabled.”)

If you leave, you’ll be sorry. (“If I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath.)

Misogynist Manifesto: Project 2025 Says Yes to ‘Biblically Based Marriages’ and No to Reproductive Rights

Part one of a three-part series about the 900-plus-page right-wing “misogynistic manifesto”:

Project 2025 promotes traditional heterosexual marriage, stigmatizing single parenthood and same-sex spouses, and cutting programs to support single mothers and their children.

(This article originally appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)

The ‘New’ Masculinity Is Actually 50 Years Old

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.

Promise Keepers Revival? The Ms. Q&A With Jackson Katz on the Trump-Era Resurgence of the Largest Organized Men’s Movement

In the 1990s, Promise Keepers were an evangelical group of Christian men who pledged to keep their promises to their wives and children in exchange for female submission and service. Relatively apolitical at the time, Promise Keepers even pledged to work toward “racial reconciliation.”

Filling football stadiums, evangelical men and boys felt safe to cry and hug, while reaffirming each other’s masculinity and entitlement to male dominance. By the end of the 1990s, Promise Keepers had faded from the headlines, but now thirty years later they are staging a revival. 

Ms. sat down with Jackson Katz to get his take on the Promise Keepers revival. “Elements on the Trumpist right understand very well that right-wing, white evangelical men are an incredibly important constituency within the larger MAGA coalition. … The ‘crisis in masculinity’ has now become a crisis in democracy.”

Tim Walz’s DNC Speech Was a Masculinity-Themed Populist Pep Talk

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz introduced himself to the country with a rousing acceptance speech at the DNC. He used blunt, evocative language as one might expect from a man who’s been a high school teacher, Army master sergeant, football coach and politician.

Once he had established himself as a powerful, confident man and assertive leader, Walz was ready to pivot to Kamala Harris’ qualities of leadership and why he supports her, helping her to rebuild her identity as a tough prosecutor. Perhaps more than anything, this is the role that Walz plays on the Democratic ticket. His very presence and persona says to men—including some fairly traditional white men in the Midwestern battleground states—that Kamala Harris is someone they, too, can and should support. 

Gun Violence—A Black Feminist Issue: An Excerpt From Roxane Gay’s New Essay, ‘Stand Your Ground’

Bold and personal, Roxane Gay unpacks gun culture and gun ownership in America from a Black feminist perspective in her latest work, “Sand Your Ground.”

“It is appalling that women and people with uteruses have lost such a fundamental right to bodily autonomy. And it is not lost on me that women in many states have more rights as gun owners than they do as women. The power to take a life is more constitutionally and culturally valuable than a woman’s right to live freely. I do not know how to reconcile this reality with my feminism.”

Right-Wing Criticism of Tim Walz’s Military Record Is Really an Attack on His Manhood

When right wing activists and media personalities (falsely) accuse Tim Walz of deliberately misrepresenting his military record, they’re not just attacking his honor and integrity, and therefore his character. The actual—although unspoken—target of the attacks on Walz’s career in the Army National Guard is his masculinity.

The reason is straightforward: Military service confers a certain kind of masculine street cred on men who wear the uniform. As a result, when a male candidate has a record of service—especially if he’s a Democrat—right-wing operatives make it a point to plant seeds of doubt about whether they were truly worthy of that respect. It’s a battle tactic in the political war. The ultimate goal is to punch holes in the “real man” credentials of someone like Walz, and thereby undermine his popularity with men.

The Paradox of JD Vance’s Misogyny

The collective female rage in response to JD Vance using the “childless cat lady” archetype as an insult is driven by shared hurt at the mockery that reduces us to our reproductive capacity in a political context where women are already devalued. It demeans our dreams and aspirations outside motherhood. It seems small, but those three words carry so much emotional weight for us.

The fight is exhausting and there will come a time when I stop. But I pray that other women fight. All of us—intentionally childfree, mothers, delayed in motherhood, deprived of motherhood, stepmothers, more—certainly have a stake in the future: a hope that we may be cherished, not for the services our bodies offer men and society at large, but merely for our humanity and the women we are.