Masculinity in the Twenty-First Century: Transformation, Perceived Threat, and Its Relationship with Human Development
Abstract
Masculinity remains a powerful social institution through which societies organise expectations concerning men’s identities, responsibilities, relationships, labour, authority, protection, fatherhood, and citizenship. Although men have made indispensable contributions to infrastructure, science, industry, defence, religion, education, transportation, governance, and economic development, these achievements cannot be attributed to masculinity alone or separated from women’s labour, institutions, technology, class relations, and collective organisation. Contemporary debates nevertheless suggest that masculinity is under threat because women have entered occupations and leadership positions historically reserved for men, men are increasingly encouraged to express vulnerability, provide care, reject violence, and share domestic responsibilities. This paper critically examines whether these developments represent the destruction of masculinity, a crisis affecting groups of men, or an adaptive transformation in the social meanings of manhood. Drawing on hegemonic masculinity, social constructionism, gender-role strain, precarious manhood, intersectionality, and caring masculinities, the analysis argues that there is no singular masculinity that can be either universally preserved or uniformly destroyed. Some men face serious disadvantages in education, health, employment, family life, and social belonging. But the problems arise from interactions among economic restructuring, class inequality, racialisation, institutional neglect, technological change, and restrictive gender expectations rather than simply from women’s advancement. The present paper concludes that human development requires neither the feminisation of men nor the masculinisation of women, but the construction of plural, ethical, protective, emotionally competent, productive, and caring masculinities compatible with gender equality and human dignity.
