Have We Made Men Useless?

I have written a shit ton on masculinity since I started writing more on here. When I had my old blog, I wrote much less on that topic. What changed? Well, I got divorced and experienced a bunch around infertility, which makes you question “who” or “what” a “man” really is. Then around 2021–2022, I was in this men’s faith-based workout group, and most of the guys in there ended up kinda being performative affluent assholes. I maybe questioned some more stuff in there. Then my dad got older, so I questioned that relationship and the notion of “legacy,” etc. So while I’m not Red Pill, I do think about masculinity and what it means and where it’s going a bunch. Here is a longer dive on it all.

Yesterday, while searching for new income sources (talk about “modern masculinity”), I took a break and the algorithm fed me this video:

Most of this video is this guy with a 109K subscriber channel talking about two times he almost commited suicide. And while it’s interesting, you probably don’t know him (I don’t either), so in the rush of your busyness, you may not care. But, he does reference the Richard Reeves stuff (he’s a well-known writer on boys and men) on the last words in male suicide notes. You can find more about all that in this article , via Carlyn Beccia right on Medium .

The most common concepts in male suicide notes are feeling “worthless” or “useless.” I personally believe this cuts across both “produced children” and “produced money” lines, because as I’m writing this, I’m thinking about a guy I know with three kids and a house that will one day sell for $2.1 million, who always tells me he feels like “just an ATM for my family and not much else.”

A lot of it comes back to this bit from a Chris Rock routine:

“Only women, children, and dogs are loved unconditionally. A man is only loved under the condition that he provides something.”

That routine is a little out-of-date, because with a rise in domestic violence and child sexual abuse content, I don’t know if women and children are loved “unconditionally.” Plus, we do have a broad fatherhood problem in America and “the west” these days.

When I think about modern masculinity, a lot of times I come back to two places:

1. We want masculinity to change, but we haven’t defined what it needs to change into.
2. Masculinity is just one peg within a giant puzzle of macroeconomic conditions, ideology, politics, etc.

Let’s take these one at a time, but I’ll start with (2) above.

I think men need either purpose or respect, but ideally both.

They tend to derive “purpose” from work (which is flawed, but I’ll gloss that over), being a family man, and maybe some hobbies.

They tend to contextualize respect around their family acknowledging what they do, sex (which we don’t say out loud but we need to), how their neighbors and colleagues view them, and maybe their body or mile time or deadlift.

What's happened in the “purpose vs. respect” discussion is that a lot of things men traditionally were called upon to do can now be easily derided as “toxic.” That’s more a left-leaning narrative, but it’s very pervasive.

Men feeling lost and like they have no role is a big driver of male suicide, and while male suicide is more common than female suicide (4x, apparently), suicides are still an edge case in society — albeit not as much an edge case as we admit.

Men feeling lost and like everyone lectures them is a big reason young men are going to the right ideologically, especially through guys like Rogan and Tucker, etc.

Now go to (1) above, about “What does a new masculinity look like?”

The problem here is that men exist in an ecosystem with women, and because “legacy” is important to people, and unabashedly consistent sex and companionship is important to people, men usually end up with women. There is a rise in single men, for sure, and obviously not everyone is heterosexual, but I’m addressing one bucket here.

So, a lot of women will say they want to evolve masculinity. If they’re married with kids, “evolve masculinity” to a woman usually means that the man does more of the domestic and emotional labor, which is fair. Men should raise that bar and not hide behind their income, which many men do.

But, and I can tell you this very clearly via infertility, there’s also a period before he’s a dad. And what do women want in that period? Typically virility, strength, and earning potential. Ideally, they want to see that he’s a good man everyday, but if they married him, hopefully they already kinda sorta thought that. When you enter the “child-producing/rearing” years, a lot of the focus is on strength and virility and whatnot. Those traits in a man can easily become what others would deem “toxic.” We even see this in the language around virility and pregnancy: women will claim that he “gave” me three kids, which almost presents progeny as a “gift” from the man. And then you expect him to grab a broom when Baby Jesus breaks a glass pitcher? Why would he? He already “gifted” you something. In this way, a lot of women unintentionally prop up traits that can become toxic later on in a relational dynamic.

We want to evolve masculinity, but a lot of what women need/want from men in a certain chapter of life doesn’t allow a real evolution.

What tends to happen with a lot of guys, and I can say this with some authority from attending lots of men’s groups and other events over the years, is that they have a similar issue as mothers do with “false emancipation:” they get to a stage in life where they have the house, they have the kids, they have the wife, they have a little fiefdom at work, and maybe they have a hobby or two. But they’re still like, “Is this it?” There are a few dozen reports saying 37 is the loneliest male age, which makes sense, because a typical 37 year-old has 1–2 kids of school age, has been promoted into middle management at some job, and has been married 7 or so years (“The Seven Year Itch”). It’s where you start to wonder, “Oh, so this is it?”

Women experience this too. It’s called “the false emancipation of motherhood,” and/or lots of other titles.

This is where we now return to men feeling useless or worthless. To bring in one final “if you had kids” element, a lot of women just ignore their husband after they hit their desired number of kids that made sense financially. I hear that from other guys often.

So of course a lot of men would feel worthless. Their behavior is derided as “toxic.” Their wife has moved on. Their kids are starting to talk back or shove their face in devices. Their work fiefdom is OK, but they’re not yet the big boss and may never be. So, they begin to feel useless.

I’ve felt this many times in many ways, partially as a result of not having kids and not extending my own “legacy” or “line,” but men with five kids can feel it too.

I have a friend in Cincinnati who knew this guy. High middle Manager. Married 12–13 years, two kids. The guy’s best friend had cancer. It disappeared, came back, disappeared, came back, and finally he passed away. The guy and the cancer guy didn’t live near each other, but were close. He comes home on the day his friend died, and he tells his wife that his close friend died. His wife looks up from the table, pauses, and says, “Harry’s hockey practice is in 30 minutes. Get him there.” Now, easy to call that wife a bitch. I probably would. The bad part of the story is that two weeks later, the guy ends up cheating on his wife with a secretary at work. Tale as old as time. And when asked about it, why or how did he justify it? Because of that moment and that comment. He felt useless and worthless — like this huge loss just happened, and no one seemed to care how he was feeling. He didn’t jump off a bridge, which is great, but blowing up a domestic relationship with two young kids isn’t good either.

I’m not defending his choice or rationalization by any means, I’m just showcasing how sometimes people can feel worthless or useless in pivotal moments.

It doesn’t happen that the digital sphere is generally “anti-man” and some women actually revel in male loneliness stats.

That stuff leads more to “Red Pill,” but can also lead to men feeling worthless.

What’s your take: How could we make men feel more worthy and useful without propping up their worst elements?