“Be a man!” ... “Boys don’t cry!” ... “Man up!” We’ve all heard phrases like this at some point, usually intended to “motivate” boys and men to adhere to traditional masculine expectations. This is all part of gender socialization, or the ongoing process of learning and internalizing what is deemed acceptable and “normal” in society based on gender. We often receive these messages from a young age. Picture a child’s birthday party where a little boy is gifted toy cars and block sets, while a little girl is more likely to receive dolls and play kitchens. From the beginning, these traditional roles of men as breadwinners, innovators, and protectors, and women as caretakers and nurturers are being communicated, both overtly and covertly.
While we are seeing more of a shift away from these rigid gender divides today, we are still contending with a long history of gendered socialization that for many of us, started at birth. And what do we have to thank for that?...Thousands of years of patriarchy! Let’s explore what patriarchy is and how this system is harmful to everyone, including men and their mental health. Expectations under patriarchy are narrow and constricting, as well as isolating. We all deserve to access our full humanity and this current system is doing all of us a real disservice!
What is Patriarchy?
Patriarchy is a societal system in which men hold primary power and influence, including political, financial, cultural, and decision-making power. There is no one specific moment in history where patriarchal societies became the norm across the board, but this transition seemed to occur thousands of years ago when nomadic hunter-gatherer groups began to settle into agricultural societies. While much has changed in the past 5,000+ years, patriarchal structuring of society has remained. This gender inequality is exemplified in the U.S. today by the disproportionate number of men in positions of political and organizational leadership, persisting expectations of women to be primary caretakers, and ongoing legal debates over reproductive rights.
Systems of gender inequality often intersect with other power hierarchies, such as race and class. In the U.S. (as in many other places in the world today), the person with the most relative power and privilege in society is the straight, cis-gender, white, upper-class, male. Typically, the closer one’s proximity to this “standard”, the more power they wield within society. Not all men benefit from patriarchy equally, often due to these other converging factors.
Patriarchy as a System
Unfortunately, terms sometimes get thrown around and their meanings become misconstrued. For example, someone who identifies as a “feminist” may be dismissed as “man-hating” but a feminist is simply someone who believes in the political, social and economic equality of the sexes. Feminists are anti-patriarchy, not anti-men. This is why the distinction of patriarchy as a system is vital. We all live under this system, and some benefit from it more than others.
Toxic masculinity refers to the manifestation of this patriarchal system on the individual level; it is the embrace of these rigid traditional gender norms that can come from that gendered socialization. This can manifest in individuals as overt sexism or misogyny and in the sexualizing and dehumanizing of women. It can also include homophobic and transphobic sentiments, expressions of aggression or violence, and a refusal to come off as “weak”, vulnerable, or in need of help. For obvious (and less obvious) reasons, the individual embrace and systemic manifestations of patriarchy can be harmful for everyone living within that system.
Unrelenting Expectations
Under patriarchy, women (and other non-male identifying people) are evidently disadvantaged due to their lack of access to power and privilege. But this system has negative mental health consequences for men too. The gender roles assigned under patriarchy are extremely rigid, specific, and demanding. This traditional divide tasks men with being “providers” and “protectors.” The image of the 1950s Mad Men-style family living in suburbia may best exemplify this; the man was often the sole breadwinner, the head of the household, and the main decisionmaker, while the wife served as the homemaker and caretaker to the children. While this set-up may have been feasible in the 1950s economy, supporting a family on a single income is not realistic today for the majority of families. Yet the idea of men needing to provide for their families persists, and that pressure can be taxing, leading to feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.
The system of patriarchy also requires one to “prove” his masculinity. Simply being a man existing in the world is not enough, men are expected to perform masculinity through their actions and demeanor. A man is “supposed to be” stoic, independent, dominant, etc. The signifiers of “being manly” can vary across time and culture, but regardless of what the specific script is, men are expected to mold to those expectations. This self-awareness and performance may mean acting inauthentically and in ways that are potentially harmful to oneself and others. For men who may not adhere to some of these traditionally masculine expectations, such as those in the GBTQ+ population, this divergence from the script may result in scrutiny, prejudice, and potentially violent backlash.
Mental Health Impacts
We now return back to where we started… “man up!” meaning “be tough,” “stop being emotional,” and “definitely don’t ever cry!” The range of behavior deemed acceptably masculine, specifically in terms of emotional expression, gets completely collapsed. With the possible exception of anger, men are denied full expression of their emotions, especially those seen as “weak” or “feminine” such as fear, sadness, or empathy. This expectation for emotional suppression can impact men’s ability to forge meaningful connections with romantic partners, family, and friends, and can result in feelings of loneliness and isolation.
All of these elements can contribute to poorer health outcomes for men, such as higher rates of substance use, suicide, and violence. According to CDC data, white men accounted for 68.13% of deaths by suicide in 2023, and close to double the number of men (as compared to women) have died from drug overdoses in the past decade. To be clear, the patriarchy is not the cause of these tragic statistics, but these outcomes signify that our current societal structure is not working for men either. The norms of patriarchy make men less likely to engage in help-seeking behaviors than women, so mental health conditions and general emotional concerns are more likely to be untreated and unaddressed.
We know patriarchy is a harmful system…so now what? We can start by deconstructing these ingrained gender expectations for future generations by allowing boys access to their full humanity. We can bring awareness to what we have internalized and may be perpetuating unintentionally, especially for those who are parents. We can also normalize men accessing their full range of emotions, in their relationships and perhaps in therapy. Men deserve better than what this system has burdened them with and it is in the best interest of all of us to examine and challenge a system that breeds disconnection and discontentment!
Sources:
https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/
https://aibm.org/research/male-loneliness-and-isolation-what-the-data-shows/
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/topics/drug-overdose-deaths.htm
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11225381/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10332384/