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Science or Spin? Testosterone, Masculinity, or the Last Gasp of Woke
May 19, 2025
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This post examines a recent article published in the Psychology of Men & Masculinities (© 2024, American Psychological Association, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 347–356). The journal is produced by APA Division 51—the same group responsible for publications like the misandrist APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men. Historically, Division 51 has maintained a strongly feminist orientation, though there are signs that it is beginning to shift, if only slightly, away from those roots. The journal issue in question is titled "Uncharted Territory: The Future of Men and Masculinities" and appears to have been a call to imagine new directions for the field. As the journal itself states: “Accordingly, we invited manuscripts for a special issue in Psychology of Men & Masculinities to envision the future of the field.” This post focuses on just one of the articles included in that special issue. See what you think.




Science or Spin? Testosterone, Masculinity, or the Last Gasp of Woke

In their recent article, “Gonadal Hormones: The Men, the Myths, and the Legends,” Burris and Knox set out to challenge what they call “essentialist beliefs about gonadal hormones” (EBAGHs). At first glance, this seems like a worthwhile goal—questioning rigid stereotypes and promoting scientific literacy around testosterone and estrogen. The authors argue that the public overestimates the causal power of testosterone, particularly in relation to aggression, strength, sexuality, and masculinity. But the deeper you go, the more the paper begins to reveal its own biases, blind spots, and ideological framing. Though the authors claim to be correcting misinformation, they often sidestep established science in favor of cultural critique—and what they leave out speaks louder than what they include.



Questioning the “Widely Held Belief” Premise

A major issue in the article is the central claim that people broadly believe “testosterone equals men” and “estrogen equals not-men.” This idea is treated as if it's a cultural fact—but the authors offer no solid evidence to back it up. No surveys. No polling. No representative data.

To be fair, the paper makes a reasonable case that some men see increasing their testosterone levels as a way to feel more masculine, and that some may view estrogen as something that could diminish that sense of masculinity. But that’s a far cry from demonstrating that the public broadly believes testosterone defines being male while estrogen signifies not being male, or that testosterone is viewed as entirely good and estrogen as entirely bad. Since these assumptions form the foundation of the authors’ argument, the lack of direct evidence to support them represents a significant flaw.

Instead of establishing the problem with data, the article relies on indirect cues—placebo studies, media examples, and scattered anecdotes. This ends up looking like a straw man: a cartoon version of what people supposedly believe, used to set up a tidy narrative arc.



The Missing Question: Why Do Men Want to Be More Masculine?

One of the strangest omissions in the paper is its refusal to ask the most important question: Why do men want to be more masculine? The authors treat this desire as something odd or unhealthy—like it’s a social problem to be solved—without ever asking what’s driving it.

The reality is that men operate in a masculine status hierarchy, where increased masculinity often brings greater access to success, admiration, influence, and romantic attention. Men at the top of this hierarchy tend to attract the highest-value partners, gain more respect, and earn more. The drive to be more masculine isn’t irrational—it’s strategic.

What pushes men upward in that hierarchy? Testosterone. It fuels status-seeking, assertiveness, and competitiveness. The work of Christoph Eisenegger has shown that testosterone’s real effect ​goes beyond aggression, ​and into a deeper, more adaptive drive to attain and maintain status.

Earlier researchers missed this by focusing only on aggression. Eisenegger and others have helped reframe testosterone as a status-regulating hormone, not a simple violence switch. Meanwhile, socially, men are under pressure from the outside as well—culture rewards success and punishes failure. The research of Joseph Vandello on "precarious manhood" captures this reality: masculinity is seen as earned and easily lost, and men are expected to prove it repeatedly.​ Men are driven to pursue status by both their biology and their culture—a squeeze play that uniquely impacts them from both directions. Biologically, testosterone fuels the internal drive to compete, achieve, and assert dominance, particularly in the context of social hierarchies. At the same time, cultural norms and expectations reward success and status while penalizing weakness or failure. Together, these forces create constant pressure on men to prove their worth and climb the masculine hierarchy.

​When a man seeks out testosterone therapy or aims to boost his levels, it’s not because of hormone myths—it’s because he’s looking for a way to gain or protect status. EBAGHs? He’s probably never heard of them. What’s on his radar is something more immediate: respect, relevance, and success.



One-Sided Framing: Masculinity Bad, Estrogen Good?

Another problem that runs throughout the article is its imbalanced treatment of the two hormones. Testosterone is consistently tied to negative traits—aggression, narcissism, insecurity, overcompensation—while estrogen is presented as gentle, wise, and quietly life-saving.

Testosterone gets pathologized; estrogen gets celebrated.

It’s not just the tone—it’s what’s missing. There’s no mention of testosterone’s role in confidence, energy, libido, mood regulation, risk-taking, or motivation—traits that help men engage, compete, and persevere. There’s no definition of healthy masculinity and no acknowledgment of the strengths it can carry.

Meanwhile, estrogen is portrayed as a miracle compound. The article claims it supports male sexual functioning, protects against Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, boosts cardiovascular health, improves immune function, and enhances verbal fluency. Some of that may be true, but the imbalance starts to feel ideological.

And here’s a glaring omission: while they praise estrogen for contributing to male sexual function, they fail to mention that testosterone is essential for male sexual functioning. That’s not an obscure finding—it’s medical consensus.

This selective storytelling gives the impression that one hormone is dangerous and outdated, while the other is sophisticated and life-giving. That’s not science—it’s spin.



Selective Science and the Missing Half of the Story

The authors claim public misunderstanding of testosterone is a serious problem—but make no meaningful attempt to clarify what testosterone actually does. Instead, they pivot into speculation that “hypermasculine” beliefs push men toward things like red meat, alcohol, steroids, and fear of inadequacy.

Steroid abuse? Fair concern. But red meat and alcohol as signs of pathological masculinity? That’s a reach—and it says more about the authors’ worldview than it does about hormone biology.

They toss around the term “hypermasculinity” without defining it, and make no distinction between harmful behaviors and everyday masculine traits. And once again, no mention of healthy male striving, protectiveness, responsibility, or the deeper psychological needs testosterone helps fulfill.

Foundational work ​on the testosterone flood in utero from researchers like Melissa Hines is ignored. Eisenegger is cited, but not for his most important contributions. Status-seeking, fear reduction, social assertiveness, and leadership impulses—all well-studied aspects of testosterone—are simply left out.

Meanwhile, estrogen gets a glowing review, complete with a long list of benefits and ​few caveats.



What They Left Out

In the end, the most telling part of the article isn’t what it says—it’s what it doesn’t. The authors claim to want to dispel myths, but avoid giving readers a clear understanding of testosterone. They frame masculinity as fragile or excessive, but never define it or explore its constructive roles. They reduce men’s hormonal motivations to cultural confusion, without acknowledging the very real biological and social pressures men face to achieve, compete, and succeed.

If the goal is to move beyond simplifications, the authors miss the mark. Their narrative replaces one myth with another—painting testosterone as dangerous and masculinity as insecure, while quietly holding up estrogen and femininity as the default solution.

That’s not advancing the science. It’s just rebranding the bias.

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October 02, 2025
Father Custody: The Solution to Injustices Against Men?

In this conversation, I sit down with Stephen Baskerville and Rick Bradford to explore a provocative idea: could father custody be the key to addressing many of the injustices men face? Both men are leading experts in this area, and together they examine some fascinating angles. One insight is that the legal contract of marriage doesn’t just unite two people — it’s also the mechanism that legally creates fathers. Yet when that contract is dissolved through divorce, the law often strips fathers of their rights, reducing them to mere “visitors” in their children’s lives. This and much more is unpacked in our discussion.

We also point to Rick’s and Stephen’s books (linked below) and to AI tools that allow you to interact with their work directly. (also linked below)

If you’ve ever wondered why custody is such a defining issue — not just for fathers but for the future of men’s rights and well-being — this dialogue offers insights you won’t want to miss.

Men are good, as are you.

Books...

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September 25, 2025
Dr. James Nuzzo Cancelled for Challenging Feminism and DEI

Join me as I talk with Janice Fiamengo and researcher Dr. James Nuzzo about the shocking story of his academic cancellation. What begins as one man’s ordeal soon reveals how woke ideology and radical feminism are undermining science, silencing dissent, and eroding academic freedom. Thoughtful, eye-opening, and at times heartbreaking, this video exposes what really happens when universities put politics before truth.

Dr. Nuzzo's GoFundMe
https://www.gofundme.com/f/ChildStrengthResearch

Dr. Nuzzo's Donorbox
https://donorbox.org/the-nuzzo-letter

https://jameslnuzzo.substack.com/

Previous Interviews with Dr. Nuzzo on MenAreGood
grip strength https://menaregood.substack.com/p/childhood-sex-differences-in-grip

sex differences in strength https://menaregood.substack.com/p/sex-differences-in-strength-and-exercise

bias against women in exercise research? https://menaregood.substack.com/p/bias-against-women-in-exercise-research

childhood sex differences in strength ...

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September 10, 2025
Diary of a CEO's Debate on Feminism: Our Response

This video will be presented in two parts and is a joint venture between MenAreGood and Hannah Spier’s Psychobabble. Hannah’s standard approach is to make the first half free for everyone, with the second half reserved for paid subscribers. To align with her process, I’m setting aside my usual practice of making all new posts free and following the same format for this release.


Janice Fiamengo, Hannah Spier, and Tom Golden respond to a YouTube video on The Diary of a CEO channel, which features three feminists debating the question: “Has modern feminism betrayed the very women it promised to empower?”In their response, Hannah, Janice, and Tom have a lively discussion, highlighting inconsistencies, omissions, and a variety of other notable observations.

Men Are Good

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February 07, 2023
The Way Boys Play and the Biological Underpinnings

My apologies for the last empty post. My mistake. Let's hope this one works.

Tom takes a stab at using the podcast function. Let's see how it goes.

The Way Boys Play and the Biological Underpinnings
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Boys and Rough Play

This is a short excerpt from Helping Mothers be Closer to their Sons. The book was meant for single mothers who really don't know much about boy's nature. They also don't have a man in the house who can stand up for the boy and his unique nature. It tries to give them some ideas about how boys and girls are different. This excerpt is about play behaviors.

Boys and Rough Play
September 18, 2025
Jim Nuzzo Cancelled

I’m sure many of you are familiar with Jim Nuzzo’s work on exercise and strength training. A frequent guest on this channel, Jim offers valuable insights into exercise science. I often call him my favorite researcher—and he truly is!

Jim studies boys’ uniqueness and the differences between boys and girls in exercise approaches and physical traits. He has also exposed distortions in claims that past research was biased against women. In doing so, he broke two “rules” of the woke: celebrating boys’ strengths and challenging feminist disinformation. For this, he was effectively cancelled.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, Jim obtained emails revealing the hate behind his cancellation. This post details that story, and Janice and I will do a video with him next week—so there’s more to come.


https://jameslnuzzo.substack.com/p/my-academic-cancellation-story

The Best, effective and clearest video on this subject I ever seen! Every man and boy should watch and learn.
10 out of 10!!!
A Absalutly must watch!!!

Another great video from Gabby on how Radical Feminism dehumanizes Men. And she showed a pic of Paul Elam and Tom Golden with others. As people trying to humanize and help men.

Worth a watch

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How a Biased Classroom Shapes the Future of Boys
 
 

One of the least-discussed but most consequential issues in education is the quiet, consistent bias boys face in the classroom when it comes to grading. For decades we’ve been told that ​girls are soaring, and boys underachieve in school because they are careless, disruptive, or simply not as diligent as girls.​ The implication is that maybe they are just not as smart as the girls. But the research suggests something ​even more troubling: part of the gap is not about effort or ability at all — it’s about teacher bias.

Evidence from Blind Grading

The best way to test bias is to compare blind evaluations — where teachers don’t know the student’s identity — with everyday classroom grades. Several studies across different countries have done just this, and the results are consistent: teachers tend to grade boys more harshly than girls, even when their performance is the same.

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  • A large French study led by Camille Terrier compared blind test scores with teacher-assigned grades in middle schools. She found that boys consistently received lower grades from teachers than their anonymous test scores would predict. Strikingly, she estimated that about 20% of the math achievement gap that emerges during middle school could be explained by gender-biased grading. Even more telling, Terrier concluded that without this bias in favor of girls, the gender gap in choosing a science track would be 12.5% larger in favor of boys. In other words, bias wasn’t just present — it was actively reshaping the pipeline of who goes on to advanced study in math and science, with long-term consequences for boys’ educational and career paths.

  • Similar evidence from Israel, the U.S., and Northern Europe confirms the same pattern: when the work is graded blindly, the boy–girl gap shrinks or disappears. When names are attached, boys lose ground.

Which Teachers Are More Biased?

You might think male teachers would favor boys and female teachers would favor girls. But the evidence paints a more nuanced picture.

  • Female teachers tend to show stronger pro-girl bias, especially in language and reading. This bias often reflects the stereotype that girls are more diligent and boys are more disruptive, so girls “deserve” higher marks.

  • Male teachers, on average, are less biased. Some hold traditional stereotypes about boys being better at math or science, but the grading effects are weaker and less consistent.

  • A Dutch experimental study showed that the biggest driver wasn’t male vs female teachers — it was the strength of the teacher’s gendered beliefs. Teachers with strong stereotypes (regardless of sex) were the ones who showed the most bias.

Still, because most teachers in primary and secondary schools are women — and because women have been found to be more likely to display grading bias and act on gendered stereotypes — the aggregate effect in the system tends to tilt ​strongly against boys.

Behavior vs. Knowledge

Another factor often at play is behavior. Boys are, on average, more restless and less compliant in the classroom. Research shows teachers sometimes fold these behavioral impressions into grades — rewarding neatness, punctuality, and compliance. This might seem harmless, but it means grades measure more than knowledge or skill: they also reflect how much a student fits the teacher’s ideal. And since boys more often fall outside those expectations, they get marked down.


a group of children sitting at desks in a classroom
Photo by Mario Heller on Unsplash

The Mismatch Between Grades and Tests

It is telling that in almost every developed country, girls now outperform boys in teacher-assigned grades, while boys do just as well — and in some cases better — on blind, standardized tests. This pattern has been documented across Europe, North America, and beyond. In the U.S., for example, boys consistently score higher than girls on the SAT math section, yet girls often finish high school with higher GPAs. In France, Terrier’s research showed that gender bias in grading alone could account for as much as one-fifth of the math achievement gap that emerges in middle school. The contradiction is hard to miss: when evaluation is objective and anonymous, boys hold their ground; when evaluation depends on teacher judgment, boys slip behind. That mismatch should raise alarms because it means the system isn’t only measuring knowledge or ability — it is embedding adult perceptions and stereotypes directly into the record that determines children’s futures.

This bias doesn’t just stop at the classroom door. Grades are the passport to opportunity: they determine who gets into advanced classes, who qualifies for scholarships, and who gains admission to selective universities. A boy who consistently earns lower grades than his test scores warrant is effectively being nudged onto a different trajectory than his female peers. Over time, this means fewer boys in honors programs, fewer in elite universities, and ultimately fewer in high-status professions. The irony is stark — boys demonstrate equal or greater competence on standardized measures, yet are slowly tracked downward by a system that confuses compliance with ability. When entire cohorts of boys are quietly edged out of opportunity in this way, it becomes more than a private injustice. It’s a cultural blind spot with consequences for the workforce, higher education, and even the pool of future leaders.

A Needed Conversation

We’ve had endless debates about girls and STEM. But the evidence is just as clear that boys are being penalized in grading systems that reward compliance and reinforce teacher stereotypes. Acknowledging this is not about putting boys over girls, but about ensuring fairness. A boy who turns in the same quality of work as a girl should receive the same grade.

Anonymous grading, clearer rubrics, and awareness of implicit bias could all help. But the first step is cultural honesty: admitting that boys are often graded down not because they lack ability, but because they don’t conform to ​the teacher’s expectations.

​Boys Are Good and deserve fair treatment.


References

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October 06, 2025
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Women’s Historical Gift of Love: the Evolution of Empathy

Introduction to Women’s Historical Gift of Love: the Evolution of Empathy

Many of us here know the pain of being hurt by women — through betrayal, false accusation, alienation, or cruelty. For those who have lived that, it can be hard to read praise of the feminine without flinching. That’s natural.

Yet healing often begins when we can hold two truths at once: some women have done harm, and women as a whole have also given civilization gifts. In this essay David Shackleton looks at women’s impact on empathy. Shackleton explores how, across generations, mothers quietly expanded humanity’s moral depth while men advanced knowledge and invention. Both streams were essential to our progress, and both were not mutually exclusive.


Feminists have long tried to obscure this moral achievement because it doesn’t fit their preferred path for women — getting a job. They celebrate women who break ceilings but ignore those who built the foundations of love and empathy that made civilization humane. The following is an excerpt from David Shackleton’s forthcoming book, Matrisensus: The Masculine Collapse and Feminine Shadow. See what you think. How have we ruined this balance and to what effect? Tom Golden


Women’s Historical Gift of Love: the Evolution of Empathy

 


Civilization has been built by two parallel and complementary streams of human achievement. On one side, while most men did not add to the collection of human knowledge, a few exceptional men pushed forward the frontiers of knowledge: explorers charting unknown lands, scientists discovering natural laws, philosophers clarifying moral principles. On the other side, while most women made no difference in their parenting from the way they had been treated in their own childhoods, a few exceptional women advanced the frontier of love – especially empathy – in the private realm of the family, transmitting new ways of caring for children that slowly reshaped society. Both gifts were indispensable.

The historian of childhood Lloyd deMause argued that the deepest motor of history is not politics or economics, but the way parents treat their children. Most parents, he observed, simply repeat what they themselves experienced. Yet in every generation, a few mothers break the cycle, heroically choosing to treat their children with greater tenderness and empathy than they had received. Since mothers in subsequent generations then repeat these new patterns, these quiet decisions accumulate across generations, slowly elevating culture.

To give shape to this process, deMause described six successive childrearing modes, each producing characteristic personality structures and cultural patterns:

Childrearing Mode – Description – Psychological Outcome

  • Infanticidal: Routine killing or abandonment of unwanted infants → Schizoid, fragmented personalities

  • Abandoning: Physical survival ensured, but emotional neglect and use of wet nurses or servants → Masochistic, dependent personalities

  • Ambivalent: Parents swing between affection and cruelty, discipline by fear → Borderline, unstable personalities

  • Intrusive: Parents invade the child’s inner life, controlling thoughts and feelings → Depressive, guilt-ridden personalities

  • Socializing: Parents train children to conform to external norms and roles → Neurotic, rule-bound personalities

  • Helping: Parents empathize with children’s needs and support growth toward autonomy → Individuated, creative personalities

 

(If you find yourself doubting the historical advance of empathy or that childrearing was so brutal in the past, consider that it is less than 500 years since we burned people alive at the stake in public executions. How much less empathy must people have had at that time in order to watch and approve of such horrific spectacles?)

deMause explained:
“Psychogenesis is not a very robust process in caretakers. Most of the time, parents simply re-inflict upon their children what had been done to them in their own childhood. The production of developmental variations can occur only in the silent, mostly unrecorded decisions by parents to go beyond the traumas they themselves endured. It happens each time a mother decides not to use her child as an erotic object, not to tie it up so long in swaddling bands, not to hit it when it cries. It happens each time a mother encourages her child’s explorations and independence, each time she overcomes her own despair and neediness and gives her child a bit more of the love and empathy she herself didn’t get. These private moments are rarely recorded for historians, and social scientists have completely overlooked their role in the production of cultural variation, yet they are nonetheless the ultimate sources of the evolution of the psyche and culture.”

And again, in conclusion:
“Because childrearing evolution determines the evolution of the psyche and society, the causal arrows of all other social theories are reversed by the psychogenic theory. Rather than personal and family life being seen as dragged along in the wake of social, cultural, technological and economic change, society is instead viewed as the outcome of evolutionary changes that first occur in the psyche. Because the structure of the psyche changes from generation to generation within the narrow funnel of childhood, childrearing practices are not just one item in a list of cultural traits—they are the very condition for the transmission and further development of all other cultural elements, placing limits on what can be achieved in all other social areas. … Childhood must therefore always first evolve before major social, cultural and economic innovation can occur.”

To summarize, deMause outlined a new, psychogenic theory of history: that cultural evolution is driven overwhelmingly by the nature of childraising, and that this is dominated by mothers, with those few mothers who courageously advance their own psychic maturity so that they are able to love their children better than they themselves were loved as a child being the engine of advancing social empathy and thus of general cultural progress. Far from being powerless and oppressed figures in history, this theory places women at the centre of cultural evolution, the prime cause. Women provided the substrate, the progressively advancing psychological and cultural backdrop, and men innovated the physical techniques and technologies that delivered greater health, longer lives, better living standards, and increased freedom. It was truly an equal partnership.

A few examples illustrate women’s contribution:

The Breastfeeding Revolution: In eighteenth-century England and France, mothers began to nurse their own children instead of sending them to wet nurses. This seemingly small change radically increased infant survival, deepened maternal bonds, and helped prepare a generation with greater capacity for empathy. Rousseau’s Émile (1762) gave voice to this cultural shift, insisting that “the mother’s milk is the milk of virtue.” Within a century, England and France were leading the world in science, democracy, and industrialization.

Abolitionism: While men like Wilberforce led parliamentary campaigns, the conscience of the abolition movement was profoundly maternal. Writers such as Elizabeth Heyrick, who called for immediate abolition in 1824, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) moved millions, exemplified how women’s empathy translated into moral revolution. Abraham Lincoln’s (perhaps apocryphal) remark on meeting Stowe — “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war” — captures this dynamic.

The Rise of Universal Human Rights: The very notion that all people possess inherent dignity and equal rights, regardless of class, race, or sex, emerged alongside the expansion of empathy across generations. While men codified these rights in declarations and constitutions, women’s work of nurturing developed the human capacity to imagine others as equally valuable. The family was the first school of equality: the mother who held her child in love transmitted, in seed form, the conviction that every human being deserved care and respect. As historian Lynn Hunt argues in Inventing Human Rights (2007), the eighteenth century saw the growth of “empathetic imagination” through novels, letters, and family life, and this undergirded the spread of rights discourse. Without this interior revolution of feeling, the abstract principle of rights would have rung hollow. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789) and later the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) were thus the public crystallization of a private moral revolution that mothers advanced in the nursery.

Child Labor Reforms: In nineteenth-century Britain and America, mothers and women’s societies were prominent advocates for laws restricting child labor, pressing legislators with the moral claim that children were not merely economic assets but human beings with rights and dignity.

Nursing and Care: Florence Nightingale’s transformation of nursing in the Crimean War and afterward reframed medicine as compassionate service, professionalizing an ethic of care. Her Notes on Nursing (1859) became foundational for modern healthcare.

Education and Literacy: Across the West, women were the primary transmitters of literacy and moral instruction in the home. In the nineteenth century, they became the backbone of the teaching profession, extending their empathic role into the public sphere.

Each of these steps paralleled breakthroughs in men’s domain: Newton’s Principia (1687) reshaping science, Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) transforming biology, explorers charting the globe, inventors powering industry, philosophers clarifying the principles of liberty and democracy. Men advanced the frontier of truth; women advanced the frontier of love.

The prevailing feminist narrative has been that women were excluded from history’s great achievements and silenced by male domination. But deMause’s research reveals a deeper truth: women were not absent from progress; they were its other half. Their contributions were less visible only because they took place in private rather than public realms.

That this polarized narrative of victim and oppressor was completely mistaken is now clear:

  • Men’s gift of truth expanded humanity’s knowledge and control over the world.

  • Women’s gift of love expanded humanity’s moral and emotional capacity.

This is perfect archetypal balance. Women’s gift was as important as men’s. Both were necessary, both indispensable. Civilization depends equally on both.

Seen in this light, the family hearth was as revolutionary as the laboratory. The quiet choices of mothers: to hold rather than strike, to nurse rather than abandon, to soothe rather than shame, carried forward across generations until they reshaped entire cultures. Just as Galileo pointed his telescope toward the heavens, so did mothers across centuries point their empathy into the hearts of their children, and the world changed.

History must honor both gifts: truth and love, discovery and empathy, masculine and feminine. To overlook either is to tell only half of the human story. We have been doing that for too long. It is time that we stopped.


References

  1. Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations, Karnac Books, New York, 2002, p.110

  2. Lloyd deMause, The History of Childhood, Harper & Row, New York, 1974, p.12

  3. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile, or On Education (1762), Book I. Modern edition: trans. Allan Bloom, Emile: or On Education, Basic Books, New York, 1979, p.44

  4. Attributed remark by Abraham Lincoln to Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1862, during her White House visit. Source uncertain; first recorded by Annie Fields in Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Houghton, Mifflin, Boston, 1897), p.133.

  5. Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History, W. W. Norton, New York, 2007

  6. Florence Nightingale, Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not, Harrison, London, 1859

  7. Isaac Newton, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, London, 1687

  8. Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, John Murray, London, 1859

 
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September 29, 2025
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Masculinity: Assessing the Damage and Reclaiming Your Strengths
 

This is the final stretch in the gynocentrism series. In the earlier posts we looked at a definition of gynocentrism from chatgpt, noted that most of us have at least a little gynocentrism , saw how it operates beneath the surface of our culture, and how it offers women both protection and access to resources. We’ve also seen how feminism took that ancient system and weaponized it, and why men often fail to resist.

Now it’s time to turn the focus inward. This essay is about what you can do — not on a political stage, not in the culture at large, but in your own life and relationships. Before we talk about strategies, we need to start with something more personal: assessing the damage.


How Masculinity Has Been Undermined​?

Over the last 50 years, the constant drumbeat of “toxic masculinity” has worn on men. It has told us that our natural strengths are not strengths at all, but flaws. Instead of celebrating courage, persistence, and logic, the culture tells men that these traits are threatening, outdated, or even abusive.

This has an impact. For many men, the constant assault has created a hesitation to speak plainly, to stand firm, or to trust their own instincts. It has discouraged men from telling the truth when it might offend, or from using reason when confronted with a storm of emotion. And it has silenced countless men in their relationships — men who fear that raising their voice will only make them look like the problem.


Why Logic Has Been Pushed Aside​?

One of the deepest wounds of this shift is the cultural denigration of logic. Logic has always been one of men’s great tools. It doesn’t mean men can’t feel or express emotion, but it does mean they often approach problems through reasoning, structure, and clarity.

Today, those strengths are dismissed. Instead, feelings are elevated above all else. We’ve built a culture where “offense” is treated as the greatest harm and “safety” the highest virtue. That may serve some interests, but it leaves men’s natural ways of approaching life and conflict diminished and distrusted.

And when logic is sidelined, relationships become lopsided. Without balance between reason and emotion, one side gains power while the other is pushed into the doghouse.


Younger Men Carry More of the Weight​?

It’s worth noting that not every generation has felt this equally. Older men — say, those over 60 — may have avoided the worst of the cultural training. They grew up in a time when being masculine wasn’t automatically suspect.

Younger men, though, especially those under 30, have been raised in a world where masculinity itself is under constant suspicion. For them, the damage runs deeper. They’ve been told from childhood that to be a man is to be potentially dangerous, oppressive, or shameful. The result? A generation of young men often hesitant to assert themselves, unsure of their own worth, and deeply confused about what it even means to be a man.


The Yin-Yang Distorted

A useful way to picture this imbalance is through the yin-yang symbol. Traditionally, it represents the balance of opposites: light and dark, masculine and feminine, logic and feeling. Each side is necessary, and each contains a seed of the other.

 

But in today’s cultural climate, the symbol is distorted. Instead of white and black in harmony, we are left with shades of gray and black — too much of one side, not enough of the other. Instead of honoring difference, we are addicted to sameness, to the feminine way, to an exaggerated focus on feeling. Masculinity isn’t balanced with femininity; it is suffocated by it.

 

Reclaiming Your Strengths

This is why men need to take stock of their own strengths — not as a luxury, but as a necessity. Ask yourself:

  • Am I able to stand my ground and speak the truth, even when it’s unpopular?

  • Do I navigate the world based on my own values, not someone else’s?

  • Can I hear feedback, weigh it fairly, and adjust my views without flinching?

  • Do I recognize the positive in my independence, self-reliance, and strength?

These are not flaws. These are gifts. They are the building blocks of masculine integrity.

Reclaiming them doesn’t mean ignoring emotion. It means recognizing your value, owning your abilities, and refusing to let a hostile culture tell you that your strengths are weaknesses.


Moving Forward

In this first step, the work is about clarity — seeing where the damage has been done, and beginning to recognize the strength you already have. In the next piece, we’ll get into the practical side: what it looks like to take those strengths into a relationship, how to set rules fairly, how to remain calm, how to frame your truth, and how to resist gynocentrism in the everyday dynamics of love and partnership.

Because the truth is this: relationships are risky, yes, but men who know their worth as men and practice these skills are far better equipped to navigate them.

​Men Are Good

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