Here's the thing that blew my mind during my conversation on Growth, Grace, and Gratitude: the masculine performance we think is about impressing women is actually almost entirely about proving ourselves to other men. We dug into what masculinity actually means today, and I think we hit some real stuff that challenges everything we assume about why men behave the way they do.
The conversation started with me sharing my own journey. Growing up with a wonderful but busy father, I spent a lot of time around my mom and two older sisters. That gave me an early view into how harmful gender messages can be, especially watching my sisters get hurt by these expectations. I've carried that awareness into my work with boys and men, particularly in K-12 settings where I've spent almost 10 years now. One thing that keeps striking me is how much of the masculine performance is actually for other men. There's this constant, fragile dance of "Do the other men still see me as a man?" That pressure to perform for each other, more than for women, creates so much unnecessary suffering.
We got into some real tension when another guest started talking about "weak men" and the need to return to more traditional masculine strength, physical, mental, and spiritual. I pushed back on that. To me, a lot of that perspective feels restrictive. The idea that there's one right way to be masculine, one right way for women to be feminine, that's exactly the kind of rigid thinking that causes problems. I'm much more drawn to the yin-yang concept, recognizing that masculine and feminine energies live in all of us, constantly flowing. The goal isn't to force people into boxes. It's to let each relationship, each person, find what actually works for them without the weight of social performance.
We also talked about parenting and media literacy, which is huge for me. I wrote a book partly because I realized you can't shield boys from harmful content anymore. They're going to see misogyny, they're going to encounter dangerous ideas about masculinity online. So instead of trying to block it all, I focus on giving them analytical tools to identify it, interrogate it, and reject it. The other piece is emotional intelligence. So many issues men face come down to not being able to sit with their own feelings, especially discomfort. When you mess up and someone calls you out, you have to be able to feel that without lashing out. That's the path to real accountability.
If this resonates and you want to explore this work more deeply, check out what we're doing at Evolutionary Men. We create spaces where men can actually do this work together.
