In this age of resurgent masculinity, toxic masculinity and a seeming return to more traditional gender roles, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev’s social psychologist Dr. Orly Bareket maintains that such a retreat actually harms the men who are at the forefront of the charge.
Bareket, head of the Social Relations Lab, co-authored a perspective in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) entitled “Lost Opportunities: How gendered arrangements harm men” with Prof. Susan Fiske of Princeton University.
While the negative consequences of traditional gender roles for women are clearer and more well researched, there has been little research on how these roles limit men, even though they seemingly have much to gain.
Specifically, these gendered arrangements harm men’s relationships, careers and health, Bareket and Fiske contend.
For example, men are pressured to conform to “real men” standards, prioritizing status and dominance and emotional control. However, such roles vastly increase the stress put on men and have demonstrated negative mental and physical health outcomes.
Men often shun communal roles, they write, perceiving them as too “feminine.” However, such roles often enrich life and contribute to a better quality of life. Yet men are “voluntarily” absenting themselves from these central roles.
Hostile and benevolent sexism ruin men’s personal and professional relationships with women either through lack of trust or failure to value and partner with women, they argue.
