Boys and men are having a crisis- a masculinity crisis. And it is painfully heteronormative.
Social media is rife with conversations about gender, and the Manosphere is a subsect of this broader trend. It is a combination of online men’s support communities that emerged as a response to feminism and female empowerment.
The Manosphere’s rise coincided with key societal changes – women’s increased professional achievements, Generation Z’s declining social interaction, and a reported drop in sexual activity.
In light of these changes, the Manosphere appears to serve as a hub for people seeking to understand and define their societal roles through the lens of gender. But with misguided rage and dissatisfaction, it often results in misogynistic attitudes and toxic masculinity.
Three primary themes dominate within the Manosphere: the concept of ‘doing gender’, the evolving gender contract, and the process of divestment.
‘Doing gender’ proposes that cis-men and cis-women corroborate their gender through behavior. The gender contract represents an unwritten agreement of roles and expectations for cis-heterosexual individuals.
In the Manosphere, the gender contract is being criticized due to little profits for men. Members fault women for their hypergamous dating practices, their career-oriented ambitions, and their feminist political orientation.
The Manosphere complains that cis-men cannot find cis-women that fulfill traditionally feminine roles or standards, like sexual purity and domestic qualities.
For them, a return to traditional gender roles is the proposed resolve. They blame feminism for the upset of social order and argue that rigid gender roles will balance the dynamic between cishet people.
This perspective not only excludes queer and non-binary romances, but it also disillusions cis-het people into thinking that past gender roles were perfect without pitfalls.
Convinced that cis-women’s advancement is the cause of gender discord, cis-men and cis-women of the Manosphere are divesting from the contemporary dating landscape and reverting to toxic modes for doing gender in compliance with the old contract.
The concept of the ‘alpha male’ is detrimental for the same reasons that stereotypical roles can be harmful to cis-women. It confines cis-men within a rigid framework that insists they must always be unemotional, stoic, and decisive.
The undue pressure that the Manosphere imposes is a misguided solution for improving dating dynamics in the cishet social landscape. It is crucial to understand that cis-men do not need to weigh themselves down with such expectations.
Language in the Manosphere directs men and women to commodify their existences for love. The capitalistic overtones of the dating market leads people to evaluate each other superficially, making love an afterthought and desirability a forethought.
Doing away with gender roles requires the renegotiation of gender roles on a mass social scale. The Manosphere is a step in the wrong direction for these conversations.
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