Want to Empower Women? Pluralize Masculinity

The gender binary is toxic for all of?us.

In healthy masculinity work, we talk about how we have a vast range of masculinities. Plural. That every man brings a distinctive interpretation of masculinity based on the vast range of intersectional influences and contexts that inform how we construct our identities.

Retrogressive Man Box culture wants us all to march in lock step, to conform to a narrow binary definition of masculinity, but masculinity is in no way monolithic. Just look at the endless variations of manhood globally and we know that’s absurd.

The gender binary which defines both masculinity and femininity as brittle, narrow, conformity enforcing absolutes is toxic to everyone. It is the primary tool used by white and male supremacists to subjugate women and weaponize male isolation and anxiety.

So, shatter the Man Box. Express and empower a wide range of masculinities, millions in fact, all held as equally valid, so that boys and men can find where on the spectrum of masculinities is a good fit for them and move up and down that spectrum as their view of self emerges or changes.

The result will be men who are fully present and authentic, who will better connect with and care for all whose lives we impact.