A Note to Young Men

There’s a lot of talk these days about toxic masculinity and the problems men cause, both to themselves and to others, when they behave in classically manly ways.

Well, everyone has an opinion, and people are going to talk. But I’m going to share some things with you, man to man, and I hope you’ll remember them the next time a professor or a late night comic or a shaving company tries to tell you how you can “be better” than the sorry creature they apparently think you are.

First, women like manly men. They always have, and they always will. It’s the way we’re wired, no matter what the geniuses in the Gender Studies department try to tell you.

People like to pretend that women want sensitive guys who are in touch with their feelings, but the truth is that they like guys who are guys, guys who don’t whine, guys who spend more time working out or fixing something than they do getting in touch with their emotions. It isn’t just conservative, old-fashioned girls who think this way: most women, whether conservative or liberal, young or old, rich or poor, like a man who is in touch with his masculine side, not his feminine side.

Think about it. Think of the heroes of our popular culture, the movie stars past and present. Are they wimps? Do they fuss? Are they tentative and cautious, concerned about whose feelings they’re going to hurt when they save the girl (or the world)?

Nah, they’re guys. They do the heavy lifting, they take a beating without crying about it, and they don’t worry that people are going to think them insufficiently sensitive or empathic. They’ve been that way forever, back to the earliest recorded accounts. We all know what manliness is.

Secondly, men like manly men.

Men are willing to put up with quite a bit of … expressed concern … from women, because that’s part of the cost of enjoying the company of women. Women care — and care deeply — about things men barely notice, and women are likely to talk about it. Sometimes they’ll talk quite a lot about it.

That’s okay: women are the way they are, and we love them for it. Just shut up and let them talk; that’s often all they want.

But that kind of thing doesn’t look good on a guy. Women don’t think so, and neither do other men. If you want to be respected by other men, you should keep some stuff — a lot of stuff — to yourself. Men don’t need to spend a lot of time “unburdening” themselves, talking just to share their emotions and concerns. Guys will put up with that from women for obvious reasons, but there isn’t much benefit to hearing it from another guy. And, frankly, it’s embarrassing. So, if you really have to talk about it, cut to the chase: keep it short and to the point, and don’t whine.

Real man means something, and it doesn’t mean like a woman, or feminized, or vulnerable. It means what it’s always meant, and what it still means, even if a bunch of unmanly people want to reinvent it — reinvent you — as something weak and soft and compliant.

There’s nothing wrong with being a man.