Sarah Harte: Men playing the victim when women succeed harms all of us

And yet Zuckerberg’s pearls of wisdom returned watching footage of Mohammed Toumba and Military Generals entering a football stadium in Niger, all decked out in fatigues, chanting and toting guns looking both dangerous and absurd. As Ivan Jablonka wrote in A History of Masculinity, “Men have been at the forefront of every battle, except for the battle for equality of the sexes.”

It was also reported that Greta Gerwig is now the only woman in an exclusive club of 29 people who have the sole directing credit on a billion-dollar move. Nonetheless, the Barbie movie has ruffled some male feathers. Fox News said that the film amounted to ‘toxic femininity’ which gave me a good laugh.

David Quinn, chief executive of the Iona Institute, said on Newstalk Breakfast that the movie was sexist having a “right go at men.” Presenter Ciara Kelly said he sounded “a bit triggered”, asking him if men were “so fragile” that they couldn’t “have a bit of fun poked at them?”

On Wednesday, Fergus Finlay in this newspaper, wondered how David Quinn missed that Barbie was a brilliant satire. I agree but, as I previously wrote, I wouldn’t bring a boy to it, and some mothers I have spoken to say the same. So, Quinn arguably has a point.

But I don’t for a second believe that Barbie has a man-hating agenda. 

And why shouldn’t women have a gynocentric film when women must watch movies with the opposite perspective all the time where women are reduced to sirens, mothers, love interests, and sidekicks? 

However, the messaging seems off for younger men and boys. As Fergus Finlay put it, the men are all “handsome and dim” which isn’t great for male agency and value.

Lately, I’ve noticed, and I say this as a feminist, the term ‘toxic masculinity’ has simply come to replace ‘masculinity’ in a pat and unhelpful way.

Given how new and fragile the relative gains women have made it feels like heresy to say that you may be concerned about boys. Because as a woman it’s hard not to suspect that tackling any ‘crisis in masculinity’ would necessarily involve undermining female progress but addressing women’s ongoing patriarchal reduction must involve considering men. It’s basic logic.

According to a recent American Scientific article, the so-called crisis in masculinity has been around for about 300 years. Another writer opines that any sociological change provokes ‘elite men’ into imagining a crisis of masculinity which sounds plausible.

Nevertheless, data shows that there’s a far higher chance of young men ending up in prison. Approximately four times more young men commit suicide than young women. Young men are less likely to complete their third-level courses with young females outperforming young males academically. And in a post-industrial age where academic credentials and soft skills have greater currency, this has impacted men. The male as protector/breadwinner is increasingly an obsolete ideal which is liberating for many but arguably has left a vacuum.

Toxic Tate

And voids get filled. Last week, when Andrew Tate — the extreme misogynist kickboxer turned social influencer — was released from house arrest in Romania (he can’t leave the country) you were reminded that countless negative actors in the manosphere (an internet ecosystem of misogynists) are ready to claim boys for their destructive armies.

Over the last year, teachers in Ireland and the UK have rung alarm bells about Tate, and teachers on the frontline should be listened to. Tate is on trial for alleged trafficking and rape. He represents a ludicrous revolting caricature of a certain type of violent masculinity. He believes that women are the property of men and hocks a kind of “aggrieved entitlement” for which there are many takers.

Tate has approximately 5.7 million followers and is at the extreme edge of the men’s rights movement. There are also incel communities (short for involuntary celibates). These sexually frustrated men are bitter because they can’t attract a romantic partner, blaming women rather than their own deluded entitlement for being repellent to women.

A more acceptable face of the movement comes in the form of Jordan Peterson. Some of his ideas on the face of it appear reasonable like talking about what it means to be a responsible man, and are framed in academic, clever psychology giving his discourse a greater sense of legitimacy. Scratch the surface and you find a distinctly regressive, anti-feminist edge to his offering. Phrases like the “natural order of the world” abound.

What all these loosely interlinked communities have in common appears to be an underlying belief in male victimhood with a corollary view that not only has gender equality been achieved but it’s tipped the other way in favour of women. The stats, as we know, don’t back up this assertion.

But there is a massive online backlash to gender equality involving a jaw-dropping misogyny — something educators and women’s rights activists have also warned us about. This leaves us with a complex problem. If classic models of masculinity are past their sell-by date, leaving some young men to seek solace from problematic male influencers, we must figure out how to reclaim them because unmoored boys are society’s problem.

I’m not sure we even deeply interrogate what it means to be a young man now in the way we do with young women. Articulating what a positive vision of modern masculinity entails is tricky. Any attempt to decide what ‘men’ and ‘women’ are in terms of simple biology will fail — but simply suggesting that young men should be more like young women won’t work either.

Gender fluidity has also added uncertainty. It’s refreshing that we’re finally honest that gender isn’t binary but ironing out all gender may not work for certain boys.

Maybe the answer partially lies with more male teachers and male mentors in communities for boys. We certainly need a counter-narrative to the one that men are victimised by women’s gains and ought to be restored to their proper place. It’s a corrosive idea for everyone. And any vision of modern masculinity must celebrate aspects of the male experience and attend to the social formation of boys, including ‘character’.

Young people need things to hang their hats on to, they need instruction and need to be lauded. And that includes young men.