The past half century has seen enormous and fundamental shifts in gender roles and gender expectations. While the focus has been very much on women, what they want, and how they are handling the shift, men have also had to grapple with fundamental social, political, and economic changes that have largely been outside individuals’ control. As the activity of the women’s rights movement has matured into the postfeminist era, many men are experiencing a sense of angst or dissatisfaction with their new roles in society, in the workplace, and within the family. (p. 5)
These are the basic two levels of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (Safety and Physiological), and for much of human history, men have had a special role in protecting and providing. But no longer. Now in most of the developed world and even beyond, a woman doesn’t necessarily need a man to protect her and provide for her. Police forces and civil society ensure basic protection, and the job market is enabling women to provide for themselves. (p. 10)

Going forward, women with resources can choose to treat a male partner/spouse as an option rather than as a necessity. A woman with an education and reasonable financial resources doesn’t need a man to protect her, nor to provide for her, nor to procreate with her. (p. 11)
The female’s need for the male of the species is increasingly tied to biological function—to modern man’s procreational and sexual offerings. Today men can feel belittled as sperm factories or sex objects, since so many of the other “advantages” of being male have been marginalized. (p. 13)

…Men increasingly are being defined in relation to women, rather than vice versa. They know what women do and don’t want them to be, to say, to do, but there’s no real sense of their own agenda—or at least not of an agenda that doesn’t take into account their desire to have sex with women, marry women, coexist peacefully with women, or simply escape the attacks of women in today’s politically correct culture. (p. 16)

Granted, the average male’s brain is slightly bigger than the average female’s. The reality is that brain size isn’t as important as what you do with it. (Sound familiar?) For complex tasks, males tend to use the left hemisphere of the cerebrum. Females, on the other hand, use both sides more often. The two hemispheres of the brain are more symmetrical in females than in males, a symmetry that may improve communication between the sides of the brain and lead to enhanced verbal expressiveness. (p. 19)

Whereas teenage boys rate a woman five years older than themselves as the perfect partner, by the time men reach sixty they’re convinced their perfect mate is around fifteen years younger than themselves. All of which is a shame, really, because their prospective dates are increasingly looking in the direction of younger men. (p. 28)

Recently, Darwin’s theory of sexual selection—that discerning females choose healthy, handsome, sexually aggressive mates who are most likely to succeed, and that males compete for status deemed attractive by women—has been knocked off its Victorian pedestal. Far from being biologically programmed to want a caveman, it seems, the modern woman is increasingly opting for a gentler, more effeminate man. (p. 29)

As Peter Parker in Spider-Man 2, Tobey Maguire not only looks like a schoolboy, he positively oozes sweetness, good manners, and the ability to save old ladies from certain death. In short, Maguire’s Spider-Man is the perfect embodiment of what Americans have come to call “emo man”—nerdy, self-critical, and constantly soul searching. America, meet the New Man! (p. 32)

Once we have factored in society and culture, it becomes easier to see how our ideas about masculinity evolve along with changes in the social and cultural fabric. Man as a rugged piece of powerful corporeality, it is hardly surprising, dates from a time when brute physical labor by the mass of the population was necessary. Nineteenth-century man, says historian Anthony Rotundo, “was made to labour.” Before the 19th century, he continues, “family and community established a man’s identity, but during the nineteenth century, a man’s work, or labour, became vital to self-definition: if a man was without ‘business’ he was less than a man.” (p. 32)

If “warrior virtue” has defined traditional masculinity, how will such masculine notions be affected by the growing presence of women in the armed forces? And, indeed, how will traditional notions of masculinity and femininity be changed by the active participation of women soldiers in the stomach-turning abuse that took place at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2004? The world was repulsed by the images of Iraqi prisoners being degraded, but our revulsion was made all the more strong by the presence of women—smiling, taunting young women—in the photos. These images went against everything we had come to believe about women in the modern era. Yes, women are equal to men, we said. Yes, they can be every bit as ambitious and hard-driving and even aggressive. But, deep down, we still stuck by the notion that women at their very base are more sensitive, more nurturing, more humane. That women, even in the high-testosterone environment of the military in time of war, could be capable of such wanton abuse stunned us, sickened us—and, perhaps most of all, frightened us by providing a glimpse of what women have the capacity to become. (p. 33)
For now, certainly compared with the pre-Vietnam era, we can be certain that men who go to war are taking with them far more mixed messages as to their expected role. Even in the heat of battle, society is putting limits on masculinity and how it can be expressed. (p. 34)

Among British youth…87 percent of girls and 76 percent of boys believed there was “no reason why men can’t be nurses and women can’t be airline pilots.” On the other hand, certain behavioral traits are stubbornly immune to social change. Of the 569 11- to 16-year-olds polled by NOP about their hopes for a future career, girls were most likely to choose to become actors, designers, teachers, hairdressers, and travel industry staff, while boys opted to work in industries such as sports, music, graphic design, computing, Web design, engineering, and the police, fire, and armed services. (p. 35)

Research recently published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion…showed that women are more religious than men throughout the world. But why? Rodney Stark, the University of Washington sociologist who compiled the international research, argues that the answer is mainly biological. Men’s genetic inheritance predisposes them to risky behavior, and they are less likely to embrace the religious concept of delayed self-gratification. (p. 35)

How men are responding to their reduced role as primary breadwinner may well have to do with to what extent that role is biological as opposed to a learned response. In either case, we can be certain that men who equate the role of breadwinner with their self-worth are likely to be dissatisfied with any role that they—or others—perceive as diminished. (p. 35)

Simply put, as increasing numbers of men began to make their livings using their heads rather than their hands, and as culture and media began to respond to the newly won independence of women, our ideas about masculinity have changed accordingly. And that has affected not only how men think and behave, but also how they look. (p. 36)
Very slowly, men who were previously averse to spending time and money on their appearance began to think again. In the United States, day spas and salons aimed at men began to appear, offering an extensive selection of relaxation and grooming treatments and services, and promising to give golf a run for its money as the networking hubs of the future. In a 2003 poll of American men, 89 percent agreed that grooming is essential in the business world. Nearly half—49 percent—said there is nothing wrong with a man getting a facial or manicure. Quite a shift from the days of John Wayne and Steve McQueen. (p. 36)

The rise of fragrant man is not confined to America, by any means. Even men from the traditionally macho culture of Spain are now more interested in the health and image benefits personal care products offer. Recent surveys point out that almost 90 percent of Spanish men believe good grooming is essential to success in the business world. Health and beauty professionals are experiencing steady growth—particularly among young, urban, heterosexual men—in demand for cosmetic services, which had previously been all but confined to the gay community. (p. 36)

This is not to say that the “feminization” of men has implications only for the health and beauty industry. Far from it. Many of those men who are beginning to realize it’s okay to step outside once-rigid gender boundaries are looking around to see what else they’ve been missing. Some are even beginning to rethink their roles in that most feminine of bastions: the wedding. Traditional man was not a great wedding planner, seeing it as his sole responsibility to turn up, preferably sober, on the big day. Modern man, in contrast, isn’t just having input on menus and flowers, he’s also beginning to demand his fair share of the gift registry. (p. 37)

Phil Donahue and Alan Alda marked a real shift in the notion of who men are and what women should expect of them. While they each had legions of fans, they were also loathed and resented by many men—and women—for turning men into sensitive creatures who required special handling. (p. 38)

With all the money modern man has begun to spend on pampering and coiffing himself, and with all the talk about men “finding themselves” and “exploring their feminine sides” (or, even worse, their “inner child”), we might be forgiven for thinking that traditional masculinity has entirely given way. Not quite. (p. 38)

American election battles fought on the terrain of masculinity are nothing new. Some of his critics even dared to suggest that Thomas Jefferson was “womanish.” In 1840, President Martin Van Buren, who had been accused of wearing a corset and taking too many baths, lost to the relatively unwashed William Henry Harrison. In the 1950s, Adlai E. Stevenson found himself humiliated as “Adelaide” in two unsuccessful confrontations with war-hero Dwight D. Eisenhower. Today, the persistence of slurs against the manhood of political opponents suggests that traditional masculinity might have plenty of life left in it after all. (p. 39)

In the United Kingdom, the arrival of the New Man (men in touch with their feminine sides) was followed in the 1990s by the phenomenon of the more-macho New Lad. Paul Fraser, a British writer based in the Netherlands, considers the New Man nothing more than “a fad…a mask men put on to attract more intelligent women.” “Like the New Man,” Fraser explains, “the New Lad understood woman was his equal. He understood he could cry, he could let his feelings out. But he also acknowledged that his primary interest in women was sexual. He liked tits. He liked drinking beer. He liked football. He liked cars. He liked hanging out with his mates.” Fraser insists that, deep down, men never really change. “We might start using facial scrub and moisturizer,” he says, “but men’s masculinity will still break out at some point.” (p. 39)


“Men want to feel like men,” says Gabrielle Zerafa, account director for New Zealand research agency Colmar Brunton. “There’s a strong shift back to gender stereotypes. Men are trying to reclaim their masculinity. Men are actually wanting to go back to more male roles, and have that role in the family not of protector, but hands-on doing things around the house.” At one extreme are the “hard man” ads of Lion Red billboards, which mock notions of men sharing the domestic load. “Offer to do the dishes,” says one billboard, underneath a picture of a pile of dirty takeaway cartons. (p. 40)

When he was elected back in 1997, [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair seemed a metrosexual par excellence—the archetype of a new, kindly, caring form of masculinity. Early in his premiership, he was even teased by the British press for his preference for chardonnay rather than beer, as if white wine were an unsuitable drink for a real man. But a strange thing overcame the British prime minister in the years after 9/11. Very slowly, during the war in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, this former SNAG (sensitive new-age guy) morphed into a classic RAMM (resurgent angry macho man). (p. 44)
Much of what we think of as “butch” masculinity…is hardly universal. Several cultures around the world even embrace individuals who do not identify as one gender or the other. (p. 45)

In a recent academic study, college men in the United States and Europe were presented with a computerized test; they were shown a male image on a computer screen and were asked to manipulate the levels of fat and muscularity to the point at which the image would represent what women would consider the “ideal male body.” The men typically chose a male body with twenty or thirty pounds more muscle than that of an average man. But when the same academics gave the test to college women, the female students chose a perfectly ordinary male body without all the added muscle. (p. 46)

Reinforcing the theory that machismo is rooted in society and culture rather than nature is a recent study conducted in Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, and Nicaragua. That study suggests that the idea of the Latin “machista” is alive and well. No half days at the spa for those guys! Men in Latin America and the Caribbean, the study concluded, feel unrelenting pressure to demonstrate a macho masculinity in all spheres of their lives. The identity of men, says one of the authors of the study, Chilean psychiatrist Rodrigo Aguirre, “is built on a relationship of ‘opposition’ to women, and they must prove themselves to be men in the eyes of their peers.” “Machismo,” the researchers found, “is generally equated with such traits as bravado, sexual prowess, protecting one’s honor, and a willingness to face danger…Cultural norms indicate—with variations, depending on the country—that men must ‘never say no’ to temptations on the street, which exposes male adolescents to damage from tobacco, alcohol, and drugs.” (p. 46)

On top of the influence of culture and economy, the mass media have become an increasingly powerful influence on the construction of masculinity. A recent study of Playboy, for example, concluded that the magazine was an important historical development in shaping modern ideas about sexuality. The choice of a white rabbit as the symbol of Playboy and the prototypical playboy, the researchers concluded, further helped to refine the meaning of masculinity. At least symbolically, a rabbit is a prey, rather than a predator, and has a number of attributes that might be considered stereotypically feminine. (p. 47)

…The media not only reflect but also help to create popular ideas about what it is to be masculine. Once upon a time, leading men in American movies came with an imposing physique and a square jaw: John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Lee Marvin, and William Holden, among them. As soon as they passed their sell-by dates, they were replaced by a new batch of masculine role models, including Marlon Brando, Steve McQueen, Clint Eastwood, and Robert De Niro. The male hero became a little murkier in the 1970s, with the birth of such Hollywood antiheroes as Dirty Harry. How times have changed. Nowadays, for every Russell Crowe there is a baby-faced, effeminate Tobey Maguire, Orlando Bloom, Keanu Reeves, or Ben Affleck. Our role models have changed, it seems, and so has modern man. (p. 47)
“In 1950, a real man was the breadwinner,” says British writer Paul Fraser, age 33. “He didn’t cry. He didn’t complain. He got on with things. He had a toolkit and could fix anything that was broken. He was loved and feared by his children. They wouldn’t talk back to him. He was loved and feared by his wife. She wouldn’t talk back either. He was master of his domain. He left the childrearing and the housekeeping up to the wife.” Fraser’s notion of what constitutes a “real man” in 2005 leaves no doubts that perceptions have changed radically in the interceding years. “In 2005,” he says, “a real man has a six-pack stomach. A real man has at least one shirt that needs cufflinks. He keeps his calm in a business meeting. He is successful. He is single, with a succession of long-term model girlfriends. He is George Clooney. He is a media invention.” (p. 48)

Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young, authors of Spreading Misandry: The Teaching of Contempt for Men in Popular Culture, say advertising merely holds up a mirror. “We do see a statistical picture that tells us men are in trouble,” Young says. “Their suicide rates are higher, their alcoholism rates are higher, they die earlier than women, and boys are dropping out of high school at much higher rates than girls are. The more negative imaging you get, the more it reinforces this. Boys can say, ‘If this is the way society is going to look at us, we’ll just act that way.’” (p. 48)

Society’s changing notions of who men should be, combined with media images that deride who they currently are, leave many men bewildered as to whether they can do anything right. It’s reached the point at which embattled masculinity might even be a powder keg waiting to explode. (p. 48)

In spring 2004, fashion designers Nicole Farhi and Gucci decided to revive “cowboy chic” with shop-window displays featuring cacti and Stetsons. Caught between the old and the new, and threatened by emasculation, a growing number of men at the beginning of the twenty-first century are turning to such things as body-building, chest-thumping, and Stetson-wearing in an attempt to recapture the essence of their masculinity. But that kind of masculinity was a product of a particular historical period—a period, we would argue, whose time has now passed. (p. 49)

Perhaps, in the end, masculinity has not changed as fast as we think, and there exists a worrying disjuncture between media representations of modern man and the real thing. Perhaps, too, what we are witnessing at the beginning of the twenty-first century is not the fabled “crisis of masculinity” but its slow redefinition into something more appropriate. (p. 50)

Recently, some theorists of gender have begun to argue that masculinity does not simply consist of a set of static roles and ascribed identities; it is also an active performance on the part of the man, a performance that allows for innovation and change over time. But if masculinity is a performance rooted in society and culture, then perhaps it is time that men spent more time working on their act. (p. 50)

…The media stereotype of the contemporary male looks a lot less like John Wayne and a lot more like Orlando Bloom, whose beauty and desirability seem to transcend his maleness. (No one would ever have accused John Wayne, Steve McQueen, and their ilk of being “pretty,” but that’s a term often associated with Bloom and other young, desirable actors.) (p. 51)

Masculinity is clearly in transition, with new expressions of maleness emerging as men struggle to reclaim their place—any place, be it cowboy macho man or power lifter or Zen master. (p. 51)

Whereas [Mark] Simpson looks at metrosexuality as “male vanity’s finally coming out of the closet,” we see metrosexual behaviors and attitudes as being less about vanity and pretense and more about having the strength to be true to oneself. Metrosexuals, in our view, are sufficiently confident in their masculinity to be willing to embrace their feminine sides—and to do so in a public fashion. Rather than adhere to the strictures of their fathers’ generation, they are willing to move beyond the boundaries of rigid gender roles and pursue their interests and fancies regardless of societal pressures against them. (Which is not to say they don’t enjoy catching sight of themselves as they pass by store windows…) (p. 56)

…Jim Frank’s theory on modern man: “I think men are ‘evolving’ as people, parents, and partners,” he says. “Becoming more aware of what’s happening, involving themselves in the home life by choice rather than force, genuinely taking interest in their children’s development, sharing the good and the bad. I’ve referred to it, stereotypically, as men being in touch with their feminine sides because, unfortunately, we have no other way of describing it—and everyone gets it when you say that. It’s definitely the right direction as long as women don’t feel they have to assume the worst traits of men in return. I even see some men talking for the sake of making a connection, and not simply to convey information; to say nothing of men who ‘shop’ rather than just ‘buy.’” (p. 56)

Metrosexuality didn’t form in a vacuum. It very much has to do with the social evolution of the last century and, in particular, the evolving relationship between men and women. Some people talk of the interplay of the sexes as a zero-sum battle: If women take one step forward, it pushes men one step back. That might make sense if we were talking about competitor corporations or troops on the front line, but we’re not: We’re talking about actual or potential partners with numerous shared objectives, including love, fun, fulfillment, sex, family, and happiness. (p. 58)


With certain exceptions, heterosexual men and women still need each other—at least to some degree. But women are playing by a whole new set of rules. What they want for themselves has changed, what they can do for themselves has changed, and what they want from men has changed. As women have gained more power, including the power to stay single, they no longer have to put up with the standard-issue male. And that gives men who want to land a woman more incentive to rethink themselves and shape up. (p. 59)

When red-blooded “real men” had the lion’s share of power in business, media, politics, religion, and entertainment, they also got to define what was “manly” and what wasn’t; they set the standards to which ordinary men aspired. Any gay men in positions of power and influence stayed resolutely in their closets, and there were too few women in positions of power to make a difference. The details of standard-issue manliness varied from country to country, but within countries it was pretty clear: Men were men, women were women, and both knew what was expected. (p. 59)

As it has throughout history, being a “real man” today means knowing and doing what it takes to get what you want, when you want it. That may include an attractive partner (male or female), it may include power and wealth, it may include health and physical prowess. Whatever. After all, we’re living in an era of infinite choice. (p. 60)

“My guess is that a ‘real man’ in 1950 had some, if not a lot more, of the machismo that still exists in many of the Latin-American cultures today,” says Julius van Heek, age 40, a homosexual designer living in Chicago. “They were pumped full with predetermined expectations from previous generations and religious teachings. They were expected to provide for family and, I’m guessing, had an innate yearning for this, as well, post World War II. In 2004, a ‘real man’ should be the definition of flexible, understanding, and an equal contributor to the family dynamic. He ought to give his partner equal consideration and be more emotionally expressive.” (p. 60)

One of the consistent themes we’ve heard as we’ve talked about the changing definition of the Real Man is that in today’s culture, he is expected to be flawed, or at least to show some kind of vulnerability. Women are no longer quite so interested in the perfectly chiseled, ultraconfident man who sees the world—and his role in it—in black and white. They may well be drawn to an outwardly macho, muscular type, but they want him to come with such softer qualities as a sense of humor, a passion for culture, or an ability to chitchat. (p. 61)

What’s so interesting about Maxim is the extent of its doublespeak. Even while hawking its own brand of hair colorant, its publishers have gone out of their way to denigrate the rise of metrosexuality. As part of an ad campaign geared toward print advertisers, Maxim has produced a brochure called “Are You Dying Inside?” in which it warns of a serious disorder called “mantropy,” a spiritual degeneration among men that’s marked by frequent manicures and seaweed wraps and even excessive smoothie consumption. The magazine is meant to serve as a refuge for those men who thus far have avoided the mantropy trap. (pp. 66-67)

Men have always bonded with other men. There’s nothing new about two or three guys getting together for a few beers, a pickup game of basketball, or a trip to the local sports arena. What metrosexuality—or at least men’s increased openness to traditionally feminine behaviors—has brought to the table is a willingness to move beyond sports talk and jokes with the guys and actually have discussions about things like childrearing, marital relationships, and, dare we say it, feelings. (p. 68)

A men’s magazine called Stuff recently reported increased sightings of straight men dancing together when they go out to clubs in Manhattan. This is not something you’ll be likely to see around a jukebox near you anytime soon, but it is indicative of men’s easing up on the strictures of behavior that were once so tightly drawn. Flirting with even the appearance of homosexuality still raises eyebrows in most places today, but it’s now less likely to raise a person’s ire, much less fists. (p. 69)
[Emo boys] are men who have learned some very positive lessons from their feminine sides—at the expense of their backbones. Bonnie, a poster on urbandictionary.com, defines emo boys this way: “Boys who listen to pretentious ‘you’ve probably never heard of them’ bands, dress with more care and style than most girls, and read in-depth books, while sipping on low-fat lattes before they take their Vespa home. Their hair, a special point of interest, is usually styled to look unkempt, jet black, wooshed over to the side. They are generally tall and thin. They appreciate the arts. They KNOW just how much cooler than the rest of us they are.” (p. 74)

At the risk of throwing gas onto the fires of social debate, the authors of this book have identified yet another outcropping of man: the übersexual. This is a man whose defining qualities are passion and style. He is passionate about his interests, passionate in his relationships, passionate about feeding his senses through color, taste, scent, and feel. And passionate about doing and being what comes naturally, what feels right, rather than what others believe he should do or be. (p. 76)

In some ways, the übersexual is man’s best response to the women’s movement—at least thus far. It is different from the other categories of men we’ve described because the men within it have defined themselves, their goals, and their needs, with very little reference to women. Rather than a response to feminism, they are making choices based on what opportunities are available to them today without all the analysis and second-guessing that can prove so paralyzing. They think positively of women and typically have good relationships with them, but they are not going out of their way to seek their acceptance or approval (though they almost always get it). In many ways, they mark a return to the positive characteristics of the Real Man of yesteryear (strong, resolute, fair) without having acquired too much of the self-doubt and insecurity that plagues so many of today’s men. Even if they’ve never heard the term, they are by their very essence believers in their own M-ness. (p. 77)

The new balance of power calls for lighter versions of masculinity that take more account of what used to be “female” values. (p. 79)

Traditionally, women were seen as fantasizing about [marriage]—while men were said to dread it. Regardless, marriage was the fundamental societal unit: the breadwinner and the homemaker, the provider and the nurturer. Men who bucked the system were romanticized (provided they were assumed to be heterosexual): they became the mysterious strangers, the dangerous Casanovas. Women who did not marry, past a certain age, merely became spinsters. People to be pitied and perhaps even scorned. (p. 81)

What is interesting about this division is the implicit implication: that marriage somehow slows a man down, whereas in the same mystic way it completes a woman, who is taught to feel partial or unwhole until she has performed her vows. Indeed, that sense of both limitation and completion can be traced directly back to the cultural history of marriage. (p. 82)

Beyond the advantages marriage inherently afforded men, the cultural models before the turn of this century (and, really, we’re only talking 40-odd years ago) declared that father definitely knew best. In his “castle,” he was head of household, chief decision maker, and unquestioned authority. Not to mention being a focus of fear for all those children who were told again and again, “Just wait till your father gets home!” No doubt about it, the husband was cast in marriage’s leading role, regardless of his fit for the part. And society—including the media—relentlessly reinforced that notion. (p. 83)

In the 1950s and first half of the 1960s, individuality was discouraged for both genders. Men born in those decades and in the 1970s became pioneers as they began to search for a maleness that is personalized and comfortable. (p. 101)

There are all sorts of dates and events one could identify as fundamental turning points in the history of men and women—or, in some cases, men versus women. Certainly, in the latter half of the 20th century, such things as the founding of the National Organization for Women, attempted passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, and the entry of women into the armed forces and other traditionally male careers stand out. More recently in the United States, we would point to the Clinton administration as a time when people truly were confronted with the notion that women might actually have a chance to assume real power. (p. 104)

…Men and women don’t necessarily go into the work world with the same goals and priorities. That statement can’t be applied to all men and all women, of course, but there seems to be sufficient evidence to suggest that women continue to be more likely to look at career as just one facet of their life achievements rather than as the be-all and end-all. And that perspective may well be filtering down into their behaviors and attitudes on the job. (p. 107)

All over the developed world, the sorts of jobs that called for male muscle and daring are disappearing fast and are being replaced by the type of work women can do at least as well as men. Office jobs, service jobs, jobs that involve working with people and information rather than with things and machinery are gaining in prestige and power—and in paycheck. Maybe this explains why the percentage of males in the workforce has shrunk as more and more women have come on board. (p. 108)

Even in industries such as advertising, public relations, and publishing—supposedly bastions of creative, “enlightened” minds and certainly workforces heavily populated by women—we’re still seeing very few female CEOs. Some of that can be chalked up to differences in socialization or temperament (again, depending on whether you emphasize Nature or Nurture); women, it is commonly held, are less assertive in salary negotiations and less likely to look aggressively after their own needs. (p. 110)

Regardless of what official policies may state, we all know that men face tougher battles when trying to veer from career norms. And part of that simply has to do with societal expectations that say it’s the mother who’s supposed to be the classroom parent, the mother who’s supposed to supply cut-up oranges for the soccer match, the mother who’s supposed to lug the offspring to the doctor, dentist, and orthodontist, and the mother who’s supposed to bring the meal home and get it on the table. Men may well be playing a greater role in childrearing, but they’re not expected to allow it to interfere with their “real” jobs—i.e., the ones that pay in cold, hard cash rather than sticky kisses and hugs. (p. 111)

As men have begun to express greater interest in childrearing, organizations have emerged to better equip fathers to properly parent their children. Boot Camp For New Dads was begun around a dozen years ago in California and has since spread to more than 100 communities across the United States. It teaches fathers-to-be everything from diaper changing and bathing techniques to how to handle overbearing mothers-in-law. (p. 112)

We’ve already established that marriage is good for a man. It gets him up in the morning, gives him an organizing principle, and keeps him alive longer. But, as we also have established, women on the same diet seem to get nowhere near the same dose of vitamins. And as modern times have ushered in a famously roulette-like divorce rate—put it all on the black or the red, then give it a spin—the lessening of marriage as a cultural institution is likely to take its toll. (p. 118)

There are all sorts of theories as to why Viagra was such a huge success. It may be due in part to the Hefner effect—men who are already sexually active looking to turbocharge their performance. Some of it may be due to the pill’s chemical sex-toy effect, promising hours upon hours of pleasure. Some of it may even be due to the downright unnatural demands of the burgeoning adult film industry. But a lot of it comes down to the men who are desperate to perform at all. Whether you blame it on stress, on beer, on the increasingly stringent demands of women who suddenly feel it’s their right to get some pleasure out of this thing, too, or on the virtual lobotomy of television, many men around the world clearly feel the need these days for pharmaceutical assistance to get and/or sustain a satisfactory erection. (p. 120)

Suddenly, masculinity is not made by men, but is determined by women. Women define it, women chastise it, women defend it. Men can only lay claim to old parts of their masculinity through irony, by falling right in with the joke. And men are finding new roles appearing for themselves—at the margin of the successes of women. (p. 121)

Do media images of men really matter? Absolutely. In fact, there is a good case to be made that the influences of biology and the media on gender roles are inversely proportional: The more men and women break loose from the biological destiny of their XX and XY chromosomes, the more they come under the sway of the media. The genes that shape their biology evolve an infinitesimal amount just once every generation, whereas the memes that shape their psychology are in a constant ferment of evolution. We become what we consume, media-wise. And a lot of what men are consuming today is disparaging at best. (p. 124)

If Hollywood presents a model to the world of how a man should be a man, what are the rules in place now?...Consider today’s hot male movie properties: Tom Cruise, Keanu Reeves, Hugh Grant, Brad Pitt, John Cusack, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, Jude Law, Orlando Bloom…Not one of them would pass muster among the rugged leading men of the old school. It seems clear that Hollywood is increasingly tilting toward a “lite” version of masculinity—one that emphasizes sensibility and sensuality over power and bravado. (p. 124)

In order to be seen as more human and more real, men have been forced to openly and publicly embrace their emotional sides. Along with that, they’ve found greater scrutiny of their outsides. The ideal leading man has shifted from the outsized shoulders of Arnold Schwarzenegger to the sculpted abs of Brad Pitt. And in the process, the very way men have learned how to be men has changed. (p. 125)

It’s important to recognize that it’s not just straight men who dictate what the action hero should look like anymore. Today, women and gay men have leavened the mix and championed their own visions of masculinity—and their own visions of femininity, too. The granite-jawed types of simpler times don’t appear to interest today’s audiences as much as do their more sensitive, less bulky counterparts. (p. 126)