The Left Must Reforge Masculinity

MelissaMiranti · 2026-05-09T04:39:10+00:00

This whole article leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It rarely seems to be seeking any kind of help for men for their own sake. It focuses on what we must do to win, for the future, for politics, for women and children, but never what we have to do to help men for themselves. It has no heart for men. They don't have value for themselves, because this is yet another article riddled with the artifacts of feminism's myopic lens.

It barely touches on all of the contradictory messages society rarely tells men, but it talks a lot about men being to blame for MAGA, Trump, mass shootings, and numerous subgroups lumped together into the "manosphere." It talks about the struggle for women's rights, but leaves aside the numerous legal rights that men lack and women have, instead suggesting that women still somehow have fewer rights than men. It asserts patriarchy as a precondition, and even that that supposed condition exists today in a meaningful way. In doing so, and in establishing exclusive blame for men for all those negatives that it lists, it makes sure to tell any feminist audience that this writer is One Of The Good Ones. Don't run when you see that this article might say something about possibly helping men, it's for the right reasons, and we're still going to blame them for everything. Don't worry, nothing really has to change, we're just going to pry those fools away, and then Trump will still have massive support amongst white women and no real problems will be fixed.

Key-board_Gremlin · 2026-05-09T10:08:12+00:00

Leftists, or Liberals, cannot state a quote-positive-unquote version of masculinity as long as they also champion gender abolition without massive amounts of cognitive dissonance. It's simply not possible. And you see this paradox confronted on their forums regularly when the topic of toxic masculinity comes up.

Usually they try to reinvent chivalry, but without the social incentives that underpin it until the discussion becomes a quagmire without any conclusion and solution. They want a knight, a gentleman, but refuse to dangle a price (princess, power, land, wealth, honor, etc.) in front of him to act accordingly.

It's why the usual practice of leftists has been to define masculine behavior by negatives: "Men shouldn't do this or that!" It's all stick and no carrot.

The closest they get to a form of positivism is an appeal to morality; that it is a man's duty to protect the weak (women and children). All very old fashioned, if you pay attention, but with a veneer of progressive language on top of it to make it seem revolutionary. This is ideologically necessary because it gives the impression that they are dismantling gendered roles instead of enforcing and/or imposing them.

Of course, like sketching via negative space, you are still defining an image. In a roundabout way many feminists have done a backwards full rotation on gender norms: reinvented the metaphorical wheel after destroying it. A common theme with Progressives that could be applied to a lot of other issues.

We can call this specific case 'Apophatic Dudeology'.

As a cultural directive it is therefore punitive and so harder to get men to adopt. More conservative parts of society have an easier time selling their vision of masculinity precisely because they're not afraid to make positive claims on what a man should be and do. Affirmative models are more compelling and if nothing else easier to follow for the average man (the latter a huge advantage in mass propagation).

Summa summarum: If a framework’s main activity is deconstruction, it naturally struggles to generate stable models. In the end, I don't think the Movement^TM can critique masculinity as a concept while still offering men a positive identity as a man. At best you can be a good person.

king_rootin_tootin · 2026-05-09T06:21:10+00:00

This sort of thing is pointless unless we acknowledge the rampant misandry unleashed by modern, bourgeois feminism. When most leftists are perfectly fine with messaging like "not all men, but always a man" and "misogyny kills, misandry only annoys," it will never win back young men.

Also, what the hell is this "new masculinity" crap? That sounds like the Stalinist "new man" bs. The old masculinity of the left worked just fine, with men like Huey P Newton, Big Bil Haywood, Zach De le Rocha, Malcolm X, etc.

Heck, Marshal Tito was a hundred thousand times more of a "Chad" than any right-wing politicians in the US government today.

The left just needs to shake off the intersectional garbage first, and get back to its roots. Then things will fall into place.

Langland88 · 2026-05-09T08:51:29+00:00

Yea I couldn't finish reading this article/essay. There was way too much extra nonsense but on top of that, it offered no actual solutions for the left to offer help for men or to even offer a better version of masculinity that's opposite of the right wing version.

Honestly, what I feel needs to happen is the left just needs to stop demonizing men as a whole and quit making them be seen as the enemy. Even though the left has constantly insisted and said they don't see men as the enemy, they never seem to really give much attention to their problems or even offer a place in the coalition that's worthwhile and meaningful.

They do a lot of complaining about how the right and the GOP has controlled the messaging on how the left views men and masculinity as something bad. Maybe this is true but that's also the fault of the left for essentially making most men feel abandoned and unwelcomed. Now here we are in 2026 with Trump as President and the left as well as the Democrats are still playing dumb about how they lost the support of male voters in 2024.

Defiant_Football6498 · 2026-05-09T19:23:37+00:00

"Right-wing is exploiting men"

Goes on to treat men as a voting bloc commodity, not as individuals

Nice.

SirWhateversAlot · 2026-05-09T16:26:25+00:00

Despite this, our conception of masculinity remains an oppositional side on the same patriarchal coin as a faux, hollow morality disguised as progress. The center-left hegemonic view posits that Man is defined not by what he ought to do, but by what he ought not to do. Man is privileged; he should not feel oppressed. Man is institutional; he should not be considered a victim of the system. Man is violent; he should not act on it. Man is predatory; he should not prey or be preyed upon. Man is fortunate; he should not be poor. If Man is sad, he does not express his feelings enough. If Man struggles to romance, he does not give enough effort.

What we find being reinforced is just another pillar of orthodox (or “toxic”) masculinity: Man does not complain. An ideal which encourages its own self-suppression is not an ideal at all, but rather an antithesis that does not make for appealing political communications. We cannot repackage a traditional gender role with ‘woke’ wrapping – it is not difficult to understand that the directness of a reactionary message feels more sympathetic to the identity of the average man than one that is duplicitous and backhanded.

This is a decent reflection, but the article as a whole is entirely inadequate in addressing the magnitude of the problem.

No real solution is actually proposed other than, ironically, what the author already described here as "traditional gender role with ‘woke’ wrapping."

The article is essentially a failed self-interrogation. The problem remains undiagnosed in its totality. The solution is an inchoate grab-bag of vague positivity. Children playing with tinker toys demonstrate a better grasp of their chosen subject matter.

Poly_and_RA · 2026-05-09T21:08:26+00:00

This won't help. They need to actually start caring about men for our own sake.

Saying that they need to change their approach to men so that men will vote with them to gain benefits for women make it sound as if they still can't bring themselves to actually consider us valuable as PEOPLE -- but instead have merely managed to conclude that our *votes* have some nonzero value if they want to enact policies that benefit women.

Specific_Detective41 · 2026-05-09T05:58:04+00:00

I generally dislike the talk around masculinity because it achieves nothing. Sure bring up how the right pretends to care about mens issues and how liberals have abandoned men.

The solution isn't repackaged masculinity or gender roles for men under a communist framework. That's bullshit frankly speaking. I also have very little respect for communists and it's a type of ideology that will exploit men more than it will help them.

Not one thing was mentioned about how boys and men are left behind in the educational system, homelessness, men more likely to die by suicide, men having worse health outcomes compared to women, the fact that rape isnt legally recognised if a boy or man is raped by a woman, paying child support yet the father is alienated from his child or children. Misandry in the media. How misandry affects trans people. All of these are systemic.

But no let's manipulate men into joining communist groups in the USA 🤡

ExternalGreen6826 · 2026-05-09T13:54:53+00:00

I’d rather have young men and boys make their own meaning then the self appointed pretentious clerics of “”the left””

True liberation is self creation, not borrowing and recycling ones from bell hooks, she’s like what you call something that gets rusty and inefficient

Like the dusty old tones of Illmatic or the decline of LeBron James, nothing stays serene forever

Everything has an end, all goods things must die and at some point you have to “hang it up”

In basketball terms we call it “WASHED.”

AbysmalDescent · 2026-05-10T20:58:53+00:00

Both the left and the right are exploiting different definitions of masculinity. Both are wrong and, if the left really wanted to be consistent, it would stop trying to define masculinity altogether and stop enabling women in shaming men by right wing standards of traditional masculinity.

OGBoglord · 2026-05-09T05:12:50+00:00

God there are so many false premises in this article.

As if we needed yet another think piece on how men's negative outcomes are ultimately a byproduct of patriarchal masculinity and that, in order to save them from the of clutches of misogynists, a new positive masculinity needs to be created. "You men would be so much happier if you'd stop hating women and blaming them for all your problems! See guys, we really do care about you and want to help!"

This why its so difficult to have productive conversations about men's issues with feminists; you always end up cycling through the same dialogue trees ad nauseum.

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Blauwpetje · 2026-05-11T15:09:04+00:00

Someone who in all seriousness quotes Mao can’t be taken seriously by me.

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