The Netherlands and you
How you see the role of men and women at work and at home has become an integral element of contemporary political conflict.
Until recently, most of the attention has been focused on partisan evaluations of problems confronting women. A 2017 Pew Research report found, for example, that by nearly 3 to 1 (73-25 percent), Democrats believe women face “significant obstacles that make it harder for them to get ahead than men,” while Republicans believe those obstacles are largely gone (63-34).
Last week, however, the American Psychological Association entered the fray with the release of its long-planned “Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men.”
The A.P.A. guidelines argue that the socialization of males to adhere to components of “traditional masculinity such as emotional stoicism, homophobia, not showing vulnerability, self-reliance and competitiveness” leads to the disproportion of males involved in “aggression and violence as a means to resolve interpersonal conflict” as well as “substance abuse, incarceration, and early mortality.”
The premise underlying the guidelines is summarized in a descriptive essay on the A.P.A.’s website: “Traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.” According to the A.P.A., the persistent commitment of many boys and men to the norms of traditional masculinity helps explain why.
Men commit 90 percent of homicides in the United States and represent 77 percent of homicide victims. They’re the demographic group most at risk of being victimized by violent crime. They are 3.5 times more likely than women to die by suicide, and their life expectancy is 4.9 years shorter than women’s. Boys are far more likely to be diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder than girls, and they face harsher punishments in school — especially boys of color.
There is widespread support for many of the recommendations in the guidelines — encouraging increased paternal involvement with children, for example, and developing better approaches to reduce bullying — and these are not in dispute.
But the report’s critics claim that other sections derogate various masculine attributes and take as given the view that gender is “socially constructed” rather than underpinned by or reflective of biological differences between the sexes.
“Understanding the socially constructed nature of masculinity and how it affects boys and men,” according to the guidelines, “is an important cultural competency.” Psychologists should “strive to recognize that masculinities are constructed based on social, cultural, and contextual norms.”
The guidelines define “traditional masculine ideology”
as a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence.
The report notes that “in the aggregate, males experience a greater degree of social and economic power than girls and women in a patriarchal society.” This, according to the guidelines, is detrimental to men because.
Men who benefit from their social power are also confined by system-level policies and practices as well as individual-level psychological resources necessary to maintain male privilege. Thus, male privilege often comes with a cost in the form of adherence to sexist ideologies designed to maintain male power that also restrict men’s ability to function adaptively.
Republicans and Democrats have sharply polarized views on such findings.
According to an October 2017 Pew Research report, a quarter of Republicans said the country has not done enough to insure equal rights for women, while 54 percent said the country has done enough and 18 percent said the country has gone too far. Among Democrats, 69 percent said the country has not done enough, 26 percent said the country has done enough and 4 percent said the country has gone too far.
Along parallel lines, a far lower percentage of Republicans than Democrats believe that changing gender roles have made it easier for marriages to be successful (26 percent of Republicans compared with 47 percent of Democrats). Similarly, 36 percent of Republicans compared with 58 percent of Democrats believe changing gender roles have made it easier for women to lead satisfying lives. Fewer Republicans than Democrats (30 to 48 percent) believe changing gender roles have made it easier for men to lead satisfying lives.
The reaction to the A.P.A. guidelines — largely but not exclusively from the political center and right and much of it critical — was swift. Even Gillette has joined the debate with its new television commercial, “We Believe: The Best Man Can Be,” a critique of toxic masculinity:
“It’s been going on far too long,” the narrator declares. “We can’t laugh it off.”
In a Jan. 7 National Review article, “Grown Men Are the Solution, Not the Problem,” David French, one of the most outspoken critics of the A.P.A. guidelines, wrote “We are in the middle of an intense culture war focused around men.”