Precarious Manhood and the Manbox

All right, and welcome back. On this episode, I want to explore two concepts that are really important for anyone that cares about the continued growth and health of both men and masculinity.

And they are the ideas of precarious manhood and the man box. But before we dive deeper into those terms, I first want to again highlight that when I use the term masculinity, I'm talking about an energetic pattern and one that all human beings have access to independently of whether or not they have male sex organs or even identify as a man. Masculinity is a pretty loaded term these days, but I tend to still use it to refer to the energetics, though you could also point to it as agency, emptiness, alpha, perspective, yang, structure, form, go.

There are, in fact, many ways to refer to it. What we're going to be exploring today is less about those energetics of masculinity and instead more about the set of cultural expectations of what men are supposed to be and the challenges that those expectations create. I want to talk about them because knowing the scripts that run us is the first step to liberating them. First off, let's explore the idea of precarious manhood as defined by Vendello in Bosson.

To research scientists, it is the socio cultural belief that manhood is a fragile, achieved social status that must be earned and constantly defended. In fact, can be lost or taken away. And it's based upon three core tenets I'd like to dig into right now. First off is the idea that manhood is elusive and hard won. Or said another way, it's neither automatic nor permanent.

For this one, the researchers conducted polls about the degree to which the transition from either boyhood to manhood or girlhood to womanhood was mostly attributed to physical factors or social factors supporting the idea that manhood is something that must be earned. People responded that the transitions from boyhood to manhood were more strongly attributed to social factors than physical ones, whereas for girls, the transition was more easy, equally distributed.

In short, this boils down to oftentimes for males, physical changes don't automatically make us a man, and instead, there are certain social challenges we have to overcome in order to achieve that status. Consider the imagery of a grown man that's failed to Launch, as they often say these days, still living at home, playing video games all day, etc. According to Precarious Manhood, he hasn't yet achieved the status of being a man, even though he may be physically mature.

Many indigenous cultures have traditionally included various types of rites of passage to mark this social transformation from boy to man. As those rites have been wiped out in modern Western cultures, implicit rules have emerged in their place. Losing one's virginity, living alone, having a job, drinking hard, and not showing weak emotions are just a few that come to mind. We'll talk more about those soon. But to summarize this first tenet again, manhood is not something that is conferred automatically by age and is something that must be proven and earned through various social expressions.

The second tenet is that manhood is tenuous and easily lost. In the same research study, respondents were asked their thoughts about the idea of lost manhood or lost womanhood, and once again the feedback pointed more towards social causes for men like losing a job or abandoning a family, than to physical reasons like growing old. The opposite was reported for the idea of lost womanhood as it was attributed more to physicality than social reasons.

So in Tenet 1, we have the idea that manhood is something that's tough to earn, and now with Tenet 2, the idea that once we've earned can be easily lost in the eyes of our community, whether for actions we're responsible for, or sometimes even actions that are out of our control. It's easy to imagine this in the social hierarchy of teenage boys, right? Where a boy might be considered tough and manly by his peers until they find out he's never had sex.

Other boys then in that same group in the same situation may very well start to lie about their own status as sexual conquerors for fear of losing the status of being a man. The same general behavior can keep showing up throughout adulthood as well, whether it's going to therapy, using drugs like Ozempic to lose weight, or Viagra to get an erection. There are countless ways for men of all ages these days to suddenly be seen as less of a man because of the context they're being experienced socially.

Now let's explore the third and final tenet of precarious manhood, which is that because manhood must be earned and can easily be lost, men have to constantly affirm their masculinity through demonstrative actions that are visibly public. Essentially, this kind of creates a non stop performance, an exhibition of manhood through accomplishments and notable behaviors. This validation of manhood necessitates recurring public demonstrations of actions that embody our societal notions of masculinity.

Things like outbursts of aggression, audacious risk taking, bragging, or other actions that project that dominance and masculinity. These actions become particularly important for men when they feel their manhood is under threat. As demonstrated by research that shows when men feel their manhood is at threat, they tend to resort to behavioral patterns that involve physical aggression or high stakes risk taking.

They man up. They use these action based behaviors as a defensive mechanism to affirm or regain their masculinity. And if they don't step up to the challenge, their status of being a man will be revoked. Right? Don't be a pussy. So many men hear that growing up. Okay, so now that we understand precarious manhood, I want to connect it to the man box. The man box is actually a societal construct set of expectations and norms dictating what a real man should resemble.

The term was coined by a man named Tony Porter, and here's his definition of it. The man box is a set of beliefs and expectations that boys and men are socialized into throughout their lives. Tells them how they should act, think and feel in order to be considered a real man. It's a restrictive and harmful construct that limits men's emotional expression and perpetuates gender inequality. These days in the US where I live, it often includes things like toughness, dominance, independence, sexual conquest, invulnerability, in a stark avoidance of anything perceived as feminine.

It's this checklist that acts as the criteria for all the tenets of precarious manhood we are talking about. Or put another way, anytime our masculinity, our manhood, is under threat. The man box provides the checklist, the script for how men can reassert it, and outlines what we can and can't do. Adhering to these rigid expectations can have significant mental health consequences for us men, one of which is the rampant suppression of emotion.

We men are often socialized to believe that showing vulnerability or seeking help is a sign of weakness, which can drive that emotional suppression even more and create difficulties for us to express and process our emotions. This can result in increased levels of stress, anxiety, autoimmune disorders and depression as men struggle to cope with their emotions in a healthy way. The aftershock of this is compounded in some pretty shocking ways for us men and fuels some really harsh realities.

Like men are more likely to die by suicide, we make up the majority of workplace fatalities, we're less likely to seek out mental health we're more likely to be homeless, and we're more often incarcerated than women. The pressures of the man box and precarious manhood directly contribute to to all of these things because of the expectations they put on us men and the behavior it guides us towards.

Precarious manhood, drives us men into the man box, and then the man box is what validates and reinforces the outdated and restrictive standards of what it means to be a man. So you might be thinking, yeah, I already know it's hard to be a man. So what do we do about this? Well, that's a huge question the grander men's work movement right now is trying to answer. And we're starting to see a lot more possibility open up around what men are allowed and not allowed to do and be in the world.

In fact, it's a big part of my mission. That's right here in the title of this podcast in my organization, which is the evolutionary part that's all about the orientation of growth, movement, and change. It's fluid, it's dynamic. As a culture, it's becoming clear that the old definitions of manhood are no longer sufficient and in fact, cause great harm to men. And we're all in real time, having to figure out what's a better way to move forward.

I personally think it's okay to have some overarching guidelines for what head healthy manhood can be and think that the increasing attention we're currently seeing as a culture right now about the rebirth of rites of passages both work for young men, boys, and adults, is of crucial importance. There can be real power in having guidance and ritual to help us mark the transition from boyhood to manhood, which, yeah, I think really is about more than just a physiological change.

The absence of conscious and intentional rituals is absolutely part of what's made such a huge vacuum that all these unconscious processes have stepped into for some men. I've also found that men connecting in the container of a men's group starts to pop the bubble of the man box and give men an experience of how much more they are allowed to feel and be in the world. I'm also working on a training that aims to provide kind of a more robust and resilient framework for men that allows us to connect to the three core gifts of the energetic masculine without all the dogma, fragility, and extreme limitations of precarious manhood in the man box.

So stay tuned for that. All right. And so as we close out here, I. I wonder, how does the man box in precarious manhood show up in your life? What's the script that's been running you? Drop me a note at jasonvolutionary? Men, I'd love to hear from you. Until next time. If you're interested in working with me around dating relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to evolutionary Men Apply.