Every week, it seems there's another headline about a man who has hurt, humiliated, or harassed someone, refused to apologize, or doubled down on harmful rhetoric. Underneath those headlines are the same unresolved patterns.
In my efforts to boil down the major issues with masculinity to their simplest forms, I've come up with the Five Tension Points of Masculinity. These are the main pressure points, fault lines, domains of growth — whatever you want to call them — that I believe boys and men need to work on in order to develop healthier and more productive expressions of their masculinity.
This is a work-in-progress. But as I encounter social media posts, news articles, the manosphere, and world events involving problematic leadership, violence against women, and various expressions of misogyny, I keep coming back to these five umbrellas under which the majority of problems with masculinity seem to reside.
1. Entitlement
Many men feel entitled to a woman's space, time, reaction, response, affection, energy, attention, and body. When they don't receive what they think they are owed, they may feel like an injustice has taken place — and will often respond with verbal, emotional, financial, or physical violence. I tie this entitlement to a general transactional approach many men have with women: if I'm nice to you, I'm entitled to your attention; if I pay for your dinner, I'm entitled to your body. This also connects to how power is used primarily as domination rather than service.
Examples of entitlement in the culture:
- A 35-year-old man was arrested after he allegedly chased three women with a machete and assaulted them after they refused his demands for sex.
- Stating on camera — and then later doubling down on — the suggestion that when you're famous, you can just grab women by their genitals, whenever you want.
- The idea that women are supposed/expected to submit to a man in a marriage; or to put it another way: that the man is owed this submission.
- The rise of entitled misogynistic language like "your body, my choice," which especially surged around the most recent presidential election.
2. Accountability
Many men never learn how to fully hold themselves accountable for their actions — there's even a common expression that encourages this: "boys will be boys." True accountability calls for the capacity to be considerate of other people's feelings, the introspection and empathy to reflect on the impact of your actions, the humility to admit when you are wrong, and the maturity to apologize and commit to changed behavior moving forward.
When accountability is framed as weakness — when the refusal to apologize is celebrated as masculine strength — everyone around that man pays the price.
Examples:
- The head of the FBI resorting to name-calling after a fact-check, instead of owning up to anything.
- A president's repeated refusal to be held accountable by systems created to provide accountability.
- The Secretary of War committing to the removal of anonymous complaints and other systems built to help hold people in power (typically men) accountable.
- Celebrating the refusal to apologize as the epitome of masculinity.
3. Emotional Intelligence
Many men are not encouraged to develop the emotional vocabulary and depth to accurately identify, name, sit with, or fully honor their feelings. This lack of development leads to situations where grief, disappointment, sadness, and loneliness get expressed as anger, aggression, and violence — often directed at women.
It also devalues empathy as a capacity worth developing. When vulnerability, empathy, and compassion are seen as weakness, everyone loses.
The Equimundo State of American Men 2025 report documents this in detail. One study found that one in three Australian men reported committing intimate partner abuse — and emotional health was directly tied to lower rates of abuse. The connection is clear: men who can feel, name, and sit with their emotions are less likely to harm the people around them.
4. Critical Thinking and Media Literacy
I genuinely believe that equipping boys and men with strong critical-thinking and media literacy skills is one of our most powerful tools against the manosphere and the harmful messaging that targets them.
Boys and men need to learn how to break down and analyze what they're being told — who benefits from this message, who it harms, what it's designed to make you feel and do — and then decide for themselves whether it's worth taking in or categorically rejecting.
The failure to develop these skills shows up every time a man parrots the words and behaviors of a figure he admires without examining whether those ideas hold up. Instead of thinking for himself, he absorbs the messaging wholesale and continues a harmful cycle.
5. A Coherent Value System
None of the above will matter much if the boy or man lacks a coherent value system — one he has actually thought through and committed to living by every day.
Values keep us accountable to something bigger than ourselves. When we commit to kindness, responsibility, integrity, justice, and generosity, we are making a conscious choice about the kind of person we want to be in every situation — not just when it's convenient or when someone is watching. If we commit to being kind, we make that choice with every man, woman, and child we encounter. Not because we expect something in return, but because it's the right way to be.
Where This Goes
This is a beginning — a framework, not a finished theory. Over time, I'd like to expand on each of these tension points in depth. For now, I hope laying them out provides a starting point for reflection.
Do these five feel comprehensive? What am I missing? What have you seen in your own experience with boys and men?
These five tension points form the backbone of the Redefining Masculinity curriculum — a 6-week school program for middle and high school students that gives boys the language and framework to interrogate the messages they've absorbed about manhood. See the full curriculum.
