The Mas­cu­line Mys­tique and Imag­i­na­tion by Ewen Stewart

…in 1963, Betty Friedan’s The Fem­i­nine Mys­tique argued that the dis­sat­is­fac­tion women felt with their lives wasn’t due to a “mod­ern lifestyle” dri­ving them away from an ideal fem­i­nine iden­tity, but rather their inabil­ity to even imag­ine liv­ing full, inde­pen­dent lives. Friedan called upon women to rec­og­nize this pos­si­bil­ity: a life free of gen­dered expectations.

Today, Stephanie Coontz sug­gests the media blitz over the “cri­sis of boys” (lower grades, reduced col­lege grad­u­a­tion rates, and slip­ping eco­nomic prospects for men) stems from a sim­i­lar prob­lem with gen­der roles:

In fact, most of the prob­lems men are expe­ri­enc­ing today stem from the flip side of the 20^th-​century fem­i­nine mys­tique — a per­va­sive mas­cu­line mys­tique that pres­sures boys and men to con­form to a gen­der stereo­type and pre­vents them from explor­ing the full range of their indi­vid­ual capabilities.

The mas­cu­line mys­tique promises men suc­cess, power and admi­ra­tion from oth­ers if they embrace their sup­pos­edly nat­ural com­pet­i­tive dri­ves and reject all forms of depen­dence. Just as the fem­i­nine mys­tique made women ashamed when they har­boured feel­ings or desires that were sup­pos­edly “mas­cu­line”, the mas­cu­line mys­tique makes men ashamed to admit to any feel­ings or desires that are thought to be “feminine”.