Masculinity as Prison or Escape

Article here. Excerpt:

'A healthy masculinity acknowledges three things. First, men are distinct from women. Second, men have something essential to contribute, both to females and to society at large. And third, men can make this contribution effectively only through the cultivation of character. Unfortunately, modern culture undermines all three. As a result, there has been a rise in the popularity of a reactionary or “macho” masculinity, which fills the vacuum of hollowed-out masculinity with something harmful.

Men have been deemed not only indistinct from women but inessential to them. Gloria Steinem quipped that “a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” Over the past 50 years, the marriage rate in the United States has declined significantly, which helps explain why nearly 40 percent of babies are now born out of wedlock. Nearly 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women. Roughly 80 percent of single-parent households are fatherless.'