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The curse of the metrosexual Stop telling men to be more like women

Is this masculinity toxic? (Barbie/IMDB)

Is this masculinity toxic? (Barbie/IMDB)


December 1, 2023   7 mins

It’s been 20 years since anthropologists announced the discovery of a new and exciting species of human, emerging from the mists of the urban jungle. This creature was best observed in its natural habitat of New York City: drinking a Grey Goose martini at a chic watering hole, pausing by a window to smooth his perfectly coifed hair, disappearing around a corner on feet clad in stylish moc-toe boots, leaving behind nothing but an unsettling sense of sexual ambiguity and the lingering scent of Axe body spray. What was he? A man, yes, but not just a man. He was an enigma wrapped in a mystery, equal parts fascination and mockery. Behold: the metrosexual.

For those too young to have witnessed the great metrosexual panic of the late Nineties and early 2000s, it’s hard to explain just how worked up we all were by the realisation that there were men out there who conditioned their hair and moisturised their faces and wore clothes that actually fit, and yet who were somehow — and here, the mind boggled — not gay. In 2003, “metrosexual” was Word of the Year; in June, it was subject to a writeup in the New York Times Style, under the winking headline, “Metrosexuals Come Out”. By December, it was showing up in everything from celebrity profiles to book reviews to think pieces pondering whether the metrosexual was definitionally metropolitan, or whether men in the suburbs could get in on this new brand of masculinity too. Threaded through it all was a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop: the metrosexuals were into women, or so they said, but they obviously weren’t straight in the same sense as the cowboys, lumberjacks and plumbers of the world.

Like many Style-section pieces, the struggle to define the boundaries of metrosexuality was ultimately more about marketing than identity: “Along with terms like ‘PoMosexual,’ ‘just gay enough’ and ‘flaming heterosexuals,’ the word metrosexual is now gaining currency among American marketers who are fumbling for a term to describe this new type of feminized man,” wrote the New York Times. Then, as now, we weren’t quite sure how men should be; the metrosexual was an early hint that one possible answer was: more like women.

Today, metrosexuals are recognisable as an early prototype of affinity-based identities, the kind that describe how you present yourself instead of what you do (see: the straight-married women in their thirties who have never slept with a woman but self-identify as “queer“). Although some metrosexuals of the early 2000s dabbled in gender nonconformity — with painted nails and skirts and such — in a way that might now be referred to as “queerbaiting”, metrosexuality wasn’t ever really about who these men wanted to have sex with. It was about masculinity, and what that was supposed to look like, and particularly about how this new breed of man would be received by women.

As for this, feelings were mixed. For some women, perhaps the kind who perk up at the phrase “couples spa trip”, a metrosexual boyfriend represented the best of both worlds; for others, these men invited comparisons that tended to make us feel, if not unfeminine, then at least like slobs. In my early twenties, at the peak of the Metrosexual Discourse, I won a trip for two to a ranch in Texas after entering an essay contest in which entrants were asked to describe why their metrosexual boyfriends needed lessons in manliness. I gamely joked about how my boyfriend’s predilection for pink shirts and casual use of the phrase “mani-pedi” were becoming relationship dealbreakers, but looking back, what strikes me is that this was less about masculinity than a bad match. The poor guy didn’t need manliness lessons; he just needed a different girlfriend, ideally one who shared his interest in nail care.

But the is-he-or-isn’t-he jokes among women also masked a quiet sense of desperation. Most straight men had come to approach matters of grooming and culture with an aggressive indifference: an approach that flew in the face of historical norms. It wasn’t just that the metrosexual had an obvious precursor in the fashionable dandy of yore; being mannered and being marriageable had always gone hand in hand. Jane Austen’s eligible bachelors dressed for an occasion, and even the hyper-masculine James Bond was fussy about the cut of his tuxedo. But sometime in the mid-20th century, those associations began to shift, perhaps fuelled by a Sixties protest culture that recast civilised norms — things like haircuts and suits — as tools of oppression. The masculine ideal morphed from Cary Grant in North by Northwest to something far scruffier, unshaven and untucked.

And once caring about your appearance became square, it was only a matter of time before it also became (homo)sexually suspect, culminating in the Nineties nadir wherein every sitcom couple included a schlubby man paired with an impossibly hot wife. Straight men asserted their straightness via a sort of peacocking in reverse: whoever wore the worst outfit was probably the most heterosexual. Not even the sexiest man alive could make these terrible clothes look good.

One can detect a confluence of factors at play here, including the downstream effects of tech replacing finance as the nexus of male power and influence. Suddenly, the biggest boss in the room wasn’t a Wall Street VP in a three-piece suit, but a gawky geek who had never been interested in clothes nor looked especially good in them. For these guys, disentangling basic male fashion and grooming standards from male sex appeal may have functioned as a sort of revenge — not just against the preppy bullies and jocks of high school, but against the oppressive notion that appearances should matter at all. At the same time, the increased visibility of gay men in elite cultural spaces — art, fashion, food — combined with the casual homophobia of the era to create a visceral sense that culture itself was “gay”, a word that became synonymous with “uncool”.

And so the heterosexual man of the moment was identifiable not only by his Seinfeldian pairing of ill-fitting jeans and chunky white basketball shoes, but by an adolescent distaste for anything more highbrow than a Die Hard movie. These guys didn’t dance, didn’t cook, and definitely didn’t care about art or films or music. If metrosexuality was about straight men who didn’t mind seeming a little bit swishy, it was arguably an overdue response to straightness having become synonymous with having the sartorial and cultural tastes of a five-year-old. At a moment when raunch culture was on its last legs but the soft boy had not yet made his debut, metrosexuals were like a gateway drug to a new, more mature, sensitivity-trained brand of masculinity.

And once men started to care what they looked like, a massive vibe shift ensued: more stylish clothing, for instance, meant slimmer silhouettes, which meant more time at the gym, which meant that metrosexuals were targets for not just fashion and grooming but fitness and nutrition products as well. We think of them as a sociological phenomenon, but as the New York Times pointed out: they were a marketing demographic first. You can practically see the dollar signs flashing in the eyes of a marketing executive quoted in the original writeup on this emerging category of man: ”The guy who drinks Grey Goose is willing to pay extra,” he said. ”He does it in all things in his life. He doesn’t buy green beans, he buys haricots verts.”

First you make a person believe that spending $40 on shampoo isn’t vain or frivolous; then, you convince him that actually, the shampoo is a form of self-care. This is the logic that has long persuaded women to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars a year on skincare, makeup and beauty treatments; but it’s also a logic that persuades men to adopt the same neuroses women have long struggled with around fashion, aging, and physical fitness.

And persuaded they are: men are now seeking out tweakments in record numbers, and suffering from body dysmorphia at greater rates than ever before. TikTok “looksmaxxers” trade tips on proper skincare; Twitter accounts scold men for sartorial crimes like improperly matching a formal tie with a rugged sport coat. Caring about how you look has been fully recoded from a niche, suspicious twist on traditional masculinity to an obligation, as it has always been for women. The sexual suspicion surrounding men being effeminately preoccupied with their faces has disappeared. Indeed, a key tenet of looksmaxxing is that the young men who do it make themselves more attractive to women — and why not, when there’s no perceived paradox between wanting to be desired by women and wanting to behave more like them?

The past 10 years have not only encouraged men to adopt the same neuroses as women about what other people think of their skin and hair and bodies, but to constitutionally reorient themselves toward the feminine. Consider how often are men instructed that they need to be more feelings-oriented, less assertive, more empathic, less status-seeking — or how male sexuality, or even just sexual interest, is increasingly understood as inherently predatory and dangerous. Consider the 2018 American Psychological Association press release which declared that “traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful”, and all but announced the profession’s intent to wage war on manhood, one 50-minute therapy session at a time. Consider the summer blockbuster Barbie, in which the previously effeminate Ken’s newfound masculinity is presented as both a profoundly malevolent force and an absurd punchline.

Replacing old-school masculinity with metrosexuality may be the least objectionable way in which our concept of ideal manhood keeps tipping incrementally toward the feminine. Certainly, as a straight woman, I’m in no hurry to return to a time when men proved their heterosexual bona fides by competing to see who could dress (and sometimes smell) the most like literal garbage. But if boys and men are in crisis, as we are repeatedly and reliably assured they are, I’m also not persuaded that recalibrating the entire world toward a more feminine baseline is the best way to avoid that outcome.

The arc of the metrosexual holds lessons here: we have seen the backlash to a world in which being a man becomes synonymous with being a boor, but we have also seen what happens when that backlash curdles into a sense that masculinity and boorishness cannot be disentangled, and hence should both be rejected wholesale. In a culture that can’t conceive of healthy masculinity — a culture that instructs men that the best way to be is more like a woman — some men will conform. But others, finding nothing they can emulate and nothing to aspire to, will revolt — and it will be ugly.


Kat Rosenfield is an UnHerd columnist and co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast. Her latest novel is You Must Remember This.

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rick stubbs
rick stubbs
10 months ago

I saw metrosexual in the lead & vaguely remembered the NYT take on it and read on through. She cleverly made what I expected to be a dreary take on the end of men both funny and interesting even with the tragic end note. My children did not experience this urban phenomenon and I have no insight into it. But I don’t think the only choices for young men now are leaning into some inner feminine self or, failing that adaptation, falling into some unspecified ugly adaption. Another real option is to just ignore this entire narrative as a false choice driven by a market driven social media and pay no attention to any of it.

AC Harper
AC Harper
10 months ago
Reply to  rick stubbs

But, but… indifference to the narrative “hurts” those who hold that narrative. Silence is violence (and all that silliness). Which is perhaps good enough reason to be deeply indifferent.

rick stubbs
rick stubbs
10 months ago
Reply to  AC Harper

Ha You are right. Indifference would be good but not knowing even better and probably plenty of that about. I believe preoccupation with the male identity narrative is limited to urban elites. Their silence is indeed violence but the unwashed and thus unknowing should be forgiven – in a just world but then…

Danny D
Danny D
10 months ago
Reply to  rick stubbs

I’m not a fan of Jordan Peterson. I think he’s unlikeable, arrogant, vain and not as educated or sophisticated as he thinks he is. But the ideal of masculinity that he presents to young men seems seriously solid and shows a third path between the two described in the article.

Yet, the majority of young men will not hear Jordan Peterson, but instead stand alone and exposed to the bullying by the media. As we see in incel extremists, Qanon and such, the author does have a point.

Last edited 10 months ago by Danny D
David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Danny D

Yet, the majority of young men will not hear Jordan Peterson, but instead stand alone and exposed to the bullying by the media

Oh I don’t know, there are now plenty of people out there other than JP offering (non-feminist) advice to men. Much of it is silly, some of it is good – but what is clear is that after decades of being silenced, men are starting to find their own voice.

Last edited 10 months ago by David Morley
Steve Hay
Steve Hay
10 months ago
Reply to  Danny D

It seems millions of young men and women for that matter. Find Jordan Petersons ideals about going your own way and self reliance. A creed they can sign up to. The Progressives hate him as he encourages people to think for them selves. Not much embracing of the woke singularity here.
it’s said you can measure a man or women by their enemies. In the case of Jordan Petersons enemies they are hiding in the bushes and trying to get him professionally disbarred
Go Jordan

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago
Reply to  Steve Hay

other than his main foe, Gabor Mate who also has a huge cult following.

Graham Bennett
Graham Bennett
10 months ago

‘But others, finding nothing they can emulate and nothing to aspire to, will revolt — and it will be ugly’. Yes, this ‘revolt’ is already happening; and, yes, it’s ugly. Cue Andrew Tate and his huge popularity. Aggressive, activist feminists have only themselves to blame for such phenomena, and the more they react, the worse it will get. It’s funny how humans, especially the Left, learn nothing from history (when they’re not busily trying to erase it).

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 months ago
Reply to  Graham Bennett

Andrew Tate is as vain as any dandy. His entire personality is peacocking. He always wears a suit, works out, spends money on jewellery, wears sunglasses for the same reason as Anna Wintour (crows feet omg!). If he still had his hair then Andrew Tate would have just been a normal nobody but instead he is motivated by a deep sense of insignificance and a fading virility.
The Andrew Tate crew’s descent into homosociality is a negative reaction to the fact that women simply aren’t interested in those types of men. They’re on a lower rung of the breeding desirability ladder. It’s not because they’re too masculine or because they embody traditional male values but primarily because they inherently do not and women instead turn to the other men who inherently do.
Andrew Tate etc. sell these boys the lie that a malevolent force suppresses them and holds them back. He gives them the comforting excuse that the feminist movement hates men and leaves no place for them to save them confronting the truth that they’re simply mediocre and inadequate. Much in the same way, I add, that modern feminism comforts weak and underperforming women.

Graham Bennett
Graham Bennett
10 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

I said it was ugly, didn’t I. I’m not promoting AT – I view him as a dangerous fool. But it doesn’t change the fact that he exists, is popular, and, because of this, hugely influential. He is real and out there, whether we like it or not. Your reply seems to be something of a denial of his influence, as if to say that if we just ignore his silly messaging, he will go away. He won’t, unfortunately. And he thrives on the fact that some elements of the more militant wing of ‘feminism’, including transgender ideology, do hate men (or at least those they cannot manipulate or control). The more AT is derided and dismissed in this way, the stronger he gets – part of his appeal is that he’s an extreme counter cultural figure (at least in the West). Ask yourself: how did the Trump phenomenon come into being? The more Trump is derided and ‘persecuted’ by the ‘bien pensant’, leftist middle-classes, the stronger he gets, like a magical potion. This is what I mean when I say the Left have learned nothing from history. Both Trump and Tate are the ghosts/monsters of contemporary left-wing self-righteousness and neglect. They must own them!

Danny D
Danny D
10 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

> If he still had his hair

As a bald man I’m taking genuine offense at your peladophobia.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

You are obviously very knowledgeable on what women do and don’t find attractive. Any chance you could point us to some research.

John Riordan
John Riordan
10 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Andrew Tate, whatever you might think of him, firstly was a successful cage fighter, and then when he’d done that went on to become rich through running casinos. Neither of these things is easy to do well at all, let alone so well as to become famous, so calling him a nobody really is just very silly.

Doubtless you’ll try to claim a lofty disdain for success in both those things but the fact is, the main reason you haven’t achieved them is that you can’t.

He is, I would agree, a bad role model for young men, but that’s a different issue and no reason not to respect his achievements.

Last edited 10 months ago by John Riordan
Stevie K
Stevie K
10 months ago
Reply to  John Riordan

Not casinos, but cam girl operations, and not anywhere near as affluent as he makes out. Tate is a classic pimp. Due to the required manipulation and intimidation, that group are often clever, highly intelligent and charming sociopaths, which he is. The astonishing utter dominance of feminism since 2010 created the space for these opportunist characters to exploit the righteous frustration and anger of young men who are dismissed and devalued every day of their lives.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago
Reply to  Stevie K

Yes the utter domination of feminism in Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Gulf States and the US is a real problem isn’t it?

Dominic A
Dominic A
10 months ago
Reply to  Graham Bennett

‘you’ve only yourself to blame’….careful, that’s a ‘Nurse Ratched’ classic. Moreover, Andrew Tate, and Mr & Mrs Tate, are to blame for Andrew Tate – ‘the media made me do it’ play is….distinctly unmanly.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Graham Bennett

Aggressive, activist feminists have only themselves to blame for such phenomena

Agree with this. Young men have grown up with relentlessly anti male messages. Hardly surprising they flock to anybody with more positive things to say, however lame.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

telling people that rape is bad is not anti male David – unless you think rape is manly.

Geoff W
Geoff W
10 months ago
Reply to  Graham Bennett

Your view of Andrew Tate as a response to “active, aggressive feminists” (How dare they?) is basically “Look what you made me do!” – the classic cowardly mantra of the man who beats up his wife.

Dominic A
Dominic A
10 months ago
Reply to  Geoff W

Exactly.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago
Reply to  Geoff W

thanks, precisely

Kat L
Kat L
10 months ago

Women will almost always viscerally respond when a reasonably attractive masculine man dresses well. They will also only respect him if he isn’t willing to put up with their crap. Also it seems that the author must have limited her exposure to city men.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Kat L

Well-dressed, but not overly fussy. He shouldn’t look like it took him an hour to get ready (even if it did).

I think you may be right on the other point too. Men in general are too patient, and too willing to put up with nonsense – myself included. You really do have to be prepared to walk if all you’re getting is grief.

RM Parker
RM Parker
10 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

That final point is one I’m belatedly learning. An old-fashioned upbringing was no preparation for the social sewer we’ve ended up with.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago
Reply to  Kat L

actually when I was into sex, I liked tall thin elegant men who looked gay. Give me David Sylvian and Bowie over that wife beating gorilla Sean Connery.
Tastes differ. Poor dear kat thinks that her personal sexual preferences for some elements of traditional masculinity (only the good bits of course) are universal.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

Hi Jane – not going to guess at your age, but what you are describing may be as much social as down to your personal taste. There was a period when male physicality was decidedly out of vogue – especially with a lot of university women. Most of them have carried that forward. It was seen, rather simplistically, as a sign of lack of intelligence or sensibility.

I think there was class snobbery involved. Muscles were associated either with physical Labour, or body building types. Photographs of that time show a lot of men with remarkably weak and narrow shoulders.

Younger women like a bit more muscularity with their brain power.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

David, i have also dated short stocky men – I am talking about my ‘visceral trigger’ which is mildly gender bendering men.
No-one tells me what to buy, what to think or who to fancy or indeed whether to fancy anyone at all.
All generalisations tend to be untrue. Harry Styles is very popular with all sorts as is Timothy chalamet – both have great faces. And yes, some women will find them ‘wimpy’. I knew this feminist when I was doing teacher training who felt a bit guilty that she only fancied blokes with muscles. Preferences and ideals do not always mesh.
And Jarvis Cocker is a skinny as a rake working class man as is (although far to articulate to be patronised by Mike Leigh in a movie) so don’t find your point valid at all.

James P
James P
10 months ago

Helena Cronin wrote a book back in the 90’s called The Ant and The Peacock which described the mechanics of sexual selection. Basically, females choose what they like (will breed with) and males evolve accordingly. If the ladies choose poorly, the species suffers. Young’ns today don’t seem to be breeding much. Hmmm … And have you noticed how male poo stars don’t sound anything like Frank Sinatra? Or like … men?

Paul T
Paul T
10 months ago
Reply to  James P

Yep, they sound like poo.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 months ago
Reply to  James P

Male pop stars are hypermasculine. Old Blue Eyes was more feminine than Stormzy, Drake or Central Cee. The other kind like Harry Styles who are made to appeal to teenage girls are always going to be more like teenage boys for the obvious reason…
As to your breeding thing it’s more to do with the fact that youngsters have nowhere to live, no money to start a family and no faith in the future than the fact that the modern woman doesn’t go for “real men”.
I prefer to think that perhaps our society and economic system has selected poorly. The men that excel now are the feminine ones who hold steady jobs, are happy to waste days and days at a desk in front of a screen and who don’t take too many risks.
The vestiges of our monkey-brained physical attraction still remain (women still like tall, dark and handsome) but the social capitalist wrapper around it leads to perverse outcomes.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

The other kind like Harry Styles who are made to appeal to teenage girls are always going to be more like teenage boys for the obvious reason…

Or like teenage girls! The feminine features of teenybopper idols was noted long ago. Pretty but not sexually dangerous.

Last edited 10 months ago by David Morley
Stevie K
Stevie K
10 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Agree with everything except your first sentence “Male pop stars are hypermasculine. Old Blue Eyes was more feminine than Stormzy, Drake or Central Cee” Your hyper-masculinity point is pretty culturally specific and that is something thing that part needs to be open for honest discussion.

Kat L
Kat L
10 months ago
Reply to  James P

One needs to consider the effect of the birth control pill on this. I read about studies that show when women go off the pill they become attracted to a different type of man. It’s now a thing where some young women are eschewing the pill. We sure ran toward the pill without being thoroughly informed of its effects.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Kat L

Yes, it seems to be hormonal. Woman are also drawn to more masculine men when ovulating.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago
Reply to  James P

Freudian undergarment methinks. pooh!

Waffles
Waffles
10 months ago

In the 1700s men wore frilly lace, powdered wigs, and walked around with nosegays. Then Victorian men said stuff that. This too shall pass.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago
Reply to  Waffles

Did you mean “stuff” that or SNUFF that?

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Waffles

And swords! And things were pretty violent. And prostitution was everywhere.

RM Parker
RM Parker
10 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

I was born out of time… (Joking. Kinda.)

Forrest Lindsey
Forrest Lindsey
10 months ago

Interesting read, and sad. Men have changed and while I watched, effeminate, weak, preening men, wearing goofy clothes (remember bell bottoms?) have gained in ascendency. I have a theory: the last time we saw real men – not movie star versions of men – but men who risked death and dismemberment for their country, their families, their women, was WWII. Those guys were the real thing! But a percentage of that pool was extinguished in that war and a certain part of the Baby Boom were the progeny of the 4Fs, the Draft Dodgers, the Rear Area Commandos. See where I’m leading? Then there was Korea and then Vietnam and fewer courageous guys showed up, and while they were unavailable, more children were made from the safe-at-homes. Now we have peacocks, gay and straight, and women have to settle for what’s left. Interesting theory, right? Kind of like the Fall of Rome, isn’t it?

Mike Michaels
Mike Michaels
10 months ago

See also WW1’s catastrophic effect on the UK gene pool. Well all of Europe really.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Mike Michaels

The two main skills you need as a man to be evolutionarily successful are 1. Survival. 2. Reproduction. We are the children of those men. Dying in pointless conflicts is not a good evolutionary strategy.

Forrest Lindsey
Forrest Lindsey
10 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

Nonetheless, courage and self-sacrifice are the truest qualities of masculinity and certainly a genetic component. As societies thin out their courageous men, they begin their downhill slide away from further existence.
So, “pointless conflicts” were your reason for avoiding involvement?

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago

Courage and self sacrifice are qualities that anyone can have regardless of their genitals.
Anyone who works two jobs through physical illness to keep their children fed has courage.
Any medical professional who goes into a Covid ward badly protected has courage.
The conscientious objectors of the First World War had courage – considering the treatment they often received.
If you think courage is just a matter of handling guns and being shot at, you’re immature.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

I think the word courage is rather overused nowadays – but not in your examples. Again don’t get the downvotes. If people disagree I wish they would say what their disagreement is.

Forrest Lindsey
Forrest Lindsey
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

Or, I have first-hand experience. Nothing quite as challenging as facing someone who is intently trying to kill you, day after day.
Courage does come in many varieties and the occasions you cite are excellent – and I would include childbirth as a good example of physical courage.
But actual direct combat is unique and unlike anything else on Earth.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago

Yes, I take your point.
I just object to people who insist that this is the only form of courage men should aspire to.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago

Not saying it’s a good thing, nor a bad. It’s just how evolution by natural selection works.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

Very sensible point.

J Dunne
J Dunne
10 months ago
Reply to  Mike Michaels

This and the post and post you responded to make very interesting points. I am a very firm believer that behaviour is far more genetically inherited than socialised, but I have never thought of the impact of both wars on the gene pool before. It does help to explain how 20th century men rolled over for feminism and allowed themselves to be belittled and demonised.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago

Those guys were the real thing!

Perhaps, but it didn’t stop their women sleeping with GIs while they were away fighting.

Forrest Lindsey
Forrest Lindsey
10 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

True enough. As is obvious, many women will sleep with anything while the men are away: you should have seen the rate of Dear Johns our guys got within only a couple of months.
Didn’t let the grass grow under their feet!

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago

Of course soldiers never visit brothels while the women at home are waiting…..

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

Men are being asked to put their lives on the line; women are only being asked to keep their knickers on. Young men faced with the immediate possibility of death understandably will be tempted by sex, even in a brothel. There may be no chances later. Women will have plenty of chances later – with him, if he returns, with someone else if he does not. Possibly there will be romance with one of the men he was sent out to fight.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

I do find it understandable – just if you want to have a hate fest against women having affairs while their men are away, my point was valid.
War separates people from their ties, their sources of affection/sex whatever.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

You mocked me once for using the word patriarchy but it is patriarchy that insists that men go about being violent in order to prove their masculinity.
Who is asking? Women or other men or governments?
And don’t forget that medical professionals who work in considerable danger in war zones comprise both doctors and nurses – hey these days some of the doctors are female!
David you have considerable personal issues with women – they are your issues and I suggest you deal with them rather than post all this silly woman hating rubbish.
I too have sometimes been treated extremely badly by men – I have experienced intimate partner violence but I never made the same mistake again. The person concerned was a victim of child abuse, not feminism and the abuse came from a stepfather ok?
I don’t consider myself to be a misandrist – the men on here rebutting more obviously woman hating statements are a testament to the fact that some men possess enough basic human decency to not blame women for the likes of Andrew Tate. Just as there are some women hating women on here who want to victim blame other women.

J 0
J 0
10 months ago

“…the Rear Area Commandos”? Presumedly a euphemism for, say, Tail Gunners?

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago

“Interesting theory, right? ”
No. Its utter nonsense.
I suggest you step away from whatever version of Call of Duty you have been playing, take a shower and leave your mom’s basement for a few hours. Will do you the power of good.

Michael Cavanaugh
Michael Cavanaugh
10 months ago

Ain’t no use in looking back, Jody’s got your Cadillac; ain’t no use in feeling blue, Jody’s got your girlfriend too . . .

Michael Allen
Michael Allen
10 months ago

Genes have nothing to do with it. The Greatest Generation was made, not born. The call of duty made those men. All were tested, many broke. Many were still timid or foolhardy boys, and met terrifying, grisly ends. War tends to sober the passions quite briskly–the world shrinks to a fine point, to an unbearable, unending moment. There were heroes, as there always have been and always will be, but most just did their duty. Plain facts.

Forrest Lindsey
Forrest Lindsey
10 months ago
Reply to  Michael Allen

Agree that many or most of the men who signed up for WWII did so to do their duty – which interestingly, is an almost extinct concept today – and a low proportion of those who put on the uniform saw real combat. Most were running the vital logistic links, escorting merchant ships, keeping aircraft, vehicles, and weapons serviced, and even keeping the administrative paperwork moving.
But that low proportion in direct combat – ordinary men back then – flew the hellish bombing missions over Germany and Japan (50,000 casualties), assaulted Tarawa, New Guinea, Peleliu, Luzon, Saipan, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, Normandy, Sicily, and Anzio. Ordinary men manned ships to support those landings and fought U-Boats and Japanese fleets, at places like Savo, the Marianas, Samar, the North Atlantic, and the Arctic.
Most of them left home behind, got their training, accepted their assignments and got to it. Very few stayed behind to get Suzy pregnant.
They came back – those that came back – changed and entering a new world and while they were gone, the men at home had fun.
Plain facts.

C Q Kollieri
C Q Kollieri
10 months ago

Problem with this theory is that a) preeny male dandyism far, far predates WW1, hence the powdered wigs and silk ruffles of yore, and b) in the grand scheme of things, only a small percentage of the male population died in the World Wars (a little over 10% of those that served) and of those that did, a sizeable percentage had already reproduced at the time of their death. In social terms, a catastrophically devastating event (or pair thereof). In genetic terms, an extremely negligible one.

N Satori
N Satori
10 months ago

Feminists are not the sole enemies of the patriarchy. The seeds of its downfall were sown in the late 19th century by influential male intellectuals who had developed a contempt for the world of their fathers. Freud and his followers were particularly significant in this respect. They set the stage for the 20th century’s increasing hostility to masculinity.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago
Reply to  N Satori

I take it you have never heard of the First World War.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

Edith Cavell?

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago

Racist Grandpa?

N Satori
N Satori
10 months ago

Here you are again pan shame! Still with your customary heckler’s leaden humour.
I believe that in the late Victorian era a person could be confined to a mental institution for “addiction to socialism”. Perhaps this custom could be revived in a more humane form suited to 21st century sensibilities. Persons unable to stretch their minds beyond the failed dream of socialism might qualify for a mental disability allowance perhaps.
What do you think Brains…

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  N Satori

What do you think, Brains
I think punctuation is very important and that you need to work on yours, old chap!

N Satori
N Satori
10 months ago

You think punctuation is very important?! Pull the other leg!
IF you are socialist (yes, that’s a big if) you will of course hold such trivial matters as spelling and punctuation in low esteem – as decades of socialist dominated education have shown.
What say you ersatz socialist…?

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  N Satori

My angry little oik! Look at how upset you get when your shortcomings are pointed out!

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago
Reply to  N Satori

FREUD was a FRAUD.

Dominic A
Dominic A
10 months ago

Too much Charles – he’s been superseded. There is little reason to doubt his integrity. Surely you can relate…

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago
Reply to  N Satori

It is more correct to describe Freud as misanthropic. A feminist friend he definitely was not. Some of his female followers did try to undo the damage.
The older generation generals who sat behind the lines safely and incompetently during the First World war while young men were mown down pointlessly and mercilessly did indeed generate a contempt for ‘traditional’ masculinity’. Which was richly deserved.
And no-one could accuse either Siegfried Sassoon (gay but conventionally masculine) or Wilfred Owen (gay but not quite so trad) of lacking courage in that traditionally masculine sense but they exposed those values thoroughly in their work.

N Satori
N Satori
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

Paragraph one: Who said he was a feminist friend? You missed the point.
Paragraph two: the old familiar tropes about WW1. Missing the point again.
Paragraph three: so where did the question of Sassoon or Owen’s courage come into it? Missing the point about the intelligentsia’s attack on patriarchy – again.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago
Reply to  N Satori

If you think the extremely patriarchal Mr Freud had contempt for fathers specifically, you are wrong. I stand by my misanthropy point.
Plus he quite notoriously sold out women, girls and male children by fudging his findings about child sexual abuse to appease the patriarchy – and save his career of course. See Jeffrey Masson, The Assault on Truth.

Ticiba Upe
Ticiba Upe
10 months ago
Reply to  N Satori

I suspect that they had contempt for their fathers because of their mothers and how they treated their fathers….and the fathers put up with them…hope springs eternal for another shot at the honey pot…

Matt Sylvestre
Matt Sylvestre
10 months ago

Be a Man, for god sakes…

Albireo Double
Albireo Double
10 months ago

“…then, as now, we weren’t quite sure how men should be…”

As long as they remain , within civilised norms, then men should be exactly as they wish to be. If the way they wish to be offends others, then others can go and have therapy to deal with that.

Last edited 10 months ago by Albireo Double
Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
10 months ago

The recent rash of female political leaders has, at least, had the welcome effect of demonstrating that their (assumed) innate kindness, goodness, pacifism and empathy does not automatically make them effective.
May, Merkel, Fernandez de Kirchner, Gillard, Ardern … We thank you for your sacrifice.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago

Arden’s Covid death toll being so much lower than ours doesn’t count with you?

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago

The obvious point to make is that empathy and nurturance an emotional sensitivity are not actually feminine and that stoicism, aggression, dominance and so on are not actually masculine. These are all possibilities and qualities that both sexes or genders possess and are differently valued according to cultural norms.
I have met women who have all the empathy of hyenas on crack and not a few men with a great deal of it. The difference is that women are pilloried for having so called masculine qualities and nurturing men are still regarded with suspicion.

The Self care industry is Capitalism in action – people in general want to get laid: appearance matters to both sexes. Ergo – self care. People in general lie about how much looks matter to them – women lie more than men because it is less acceptable for them to care more about their partner’s body than soul.
True that there are some physiological differences that lead to a difference in sexual responses. Male and female bodies are real: masculine and feminine are essentially linguistic inventions.
Rosenfield misses the other side of this phoney balancing act – women have been encouraged to do ‘masculinity’ in order to be successful in societies that don’t recognise empathy and teamwork as strengths. To some this comes quite naturally and is liberating because they were like that anyway.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

Not sure why you’re getting downvotes. Sounds pretty sensible to me. I think the female empathy thing has been oversold – and certainly on emotional intelligence generally there is no difference between the genders. Women seem a bit selective with their empathy to me, and it’s a bit conditional. But good post.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

Everybody’s empathy is conditional to some extent. Few can manage to extend it to the likes of say, Ian Brady or the very rich good-looking and successful.
Selective empathy syndrome is a huge problem for the progressive left actually.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

and David, it is notable that you didn’t notice that another major point of my post was socialisation – that nurturing men are devalued. Often by other men. Because they aren’t ‘manly’.

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

Far, far less than used to be the case. It may depend a bit on where you live, but honestly I haven’t seen any of this men can’t be nurturing stuff for years. There may be men who aren’t good at it, or are generally selfish. But I don’t see men being knocked for being unmanly over it.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago
Reply to  David Morley

Mr lIndsay’s post about wimply, ummanly non military types?

Michael Cavanaugh
Michael Cavanaugh
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

what — could it be, the Devil wears Prada?

Michael Cavanaugh
Michael Cavanaugh
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

Hear, hear. (Whatever happened to Margaret Mead? Not to mention Gary Cooper.) Does no one any longer read Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies? Today, it seems to many people (full sheepskin, half-education) as if the stork just brought them, sexuality already fully formed.

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago

gary cooper – terrific looks. Not so hot on the acting. Yup, yep – like his cortex had botox before it was invented.

Stephen Kristan
Stephen Kristan
10 months ago

I can’t even fathom the mind that could concoct such an essay, with its myriad microdivisions of all the superficialities of appearance and comportment that it details. As a 72+ y.o. garden variety heterosexual male, something in me looks up into the universe and wordlessly wonders/beckons, “why can’t we just BE!”

Last edited 10 months ago by Stephen Kristan
McExpat M
McExpat M
10 months ago

This is exactly why Yellowstone was so engaging. Real men. I never once looked at those guys and thought they didn’t shower or needed $40 shampoo.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  McExpat M

Probably something to do with the heavy makeup they were wearing, the dedicated hairdressers on set, the costumes they were wearing and the perfect lighting that took hours to set up.
Otherwise completely authentic…

Daniel Lee
Daniel Lee
10 months ago

Alexa, what’s a succinct explanation of why everyone is miserable right now?
“‘(T)his new type of feminized man,’ wrote the New York Times.”

William Shaw
William Shaw
10 months ago

Seriously?
Does anyone recognise any of this or pay attention to it?

David Morley
David Morley
10 months ago

Actually all this is explained by the Ansoff Matrix – standard stuff on an MBA.

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/management/ansoff-matrix/

Once you have saturated a market with your product or service you have to find: new products for the same market; new markets for the same product; or diversify. Hence beauty products for men, makeup for children, sweets for adults, male fashion, clothing firms branching out into fragrance etc.

Last edited 10 months ago by David Morley
Michael Cavanaugh
Michael Cavanaugh
10 months ago

“Consider the 2018 American Psychological Association press release which declared that “traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful”, and all but announced the profession’s intent to wage war on manhood, one 50-minute therapy session at a time.” But it is so much older than that, than recent psychotherapy. Ann Douglas’ 1978 The Feminization of American Culture [considered, not narrowly but transatlantically, as Victorian culture] documents the very same mindset from the 19th c. A certain sort of domestic feminism set out to let the hand that rocks the cradle rule the world, by sanitizing boys of what we would now call “toxic masculinity.”

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago

Yes because rape and partner battery are so manly….and how very scared you are of your mum. The hand that rocks the cradle indeed.

Thomas Donald
Thomas Donald
10 months ago

The term “metrosexual” was actually first coined by an advertising agency… academia had nothing to do with it. It was Euro RSCG in NYC in the late 90s.
It was part of their new biz pitch process, to demonstrate how they understood modern consumers.
But it was essentially made up mostly from thin air, by one of their Account Planners at the time.

Clare Knight
Clare Knight
10 months ago

I think the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce coupling is the one to watch. Kelce is very different from the type of men she’s dated previously. He’s an Alpha male who may also use face cream and care about his looks. He encompasses the qualities she didn’t know were missing – a man to lean on and protect her, who is still sensitive and playful. He’s the man for young men to emulate, not Andrew Tate. However, this kind of man is born not made.

Last edited 10 months ago by Clare Knight
Michelle Johnston
Michelle Johnston
10 months ago

This is just another example of commoditising a very old ritual, changing fashion. Bond has been mentioned. It was the burgeoning hippie culture and unstringing of formality that was one of the reasons behind George Lazenby not carrying on. Choosing a replacement that was older than Connery in Moore who stuck in his groove in some ways proved Georges’s point. Daniel’s Bond has flirted with the caring sharing man rather well and of course, there is the famous scene in Skyfall where he does not deny being homosexual.
In New Zealand, the older generation certainly only talks to a woman when they have to and only in age acquire the art of conversation but never reach being bothered by their appearance.
In Arabia, the instinct of the Arab Male outside of the religious observation is fastidious, cute, silk suits, watery eyes and tends to wear a lot of scent so there are cultural parameters to all this.
Ironically outside of good outdoor types in NZ who love the men of Yellowstone, most women have fallen for the work on the face a la Kat’s earlier pieces. Although I will not be around I will be fascinated to see what these women look like when they have actually done something other than work in the media chiselling out narratives.

Last edited 10 months ago by Michelle Johnston
michael morris
michael morris
10 months ago

The will revolt, and it will be ugly. And then they will double down and tripple down.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
10 months ago

WHEW!!! Kat, are you through, honey? Yes? Good. What an exercise in contemporary “journalism” this article is! Yet another attempt to half-heartedly demonstrate maybe a teeny, tiny interest in men, while in reality only writing about oneself. Facetious simplistic drivel, which is the usual fare when women pretend to be concerned about mens’ lives. Please choose some other subject for your enlightening and oh-so-evolved analysis next time. This is just nonsense.

Android Tross
Android Tross
10 months ago

I think male fashion and grooming preferences/habits swing on a pendulum. This article reminded of one of my favorite parts of Vanity Fair, which I finally read this year, which was when Thackeray says something to the effect of the phrase “as vain as a man” being common currency amongst the female bourgeoisie and nobility of the era.

ben arnulfssen
ben arnulfssen
10 months ago

What was formerly called a “dandy”, then?

Kieran P
Kieran P
10 months ago

Hadn’t ‘metrosexual’ morphed into ‘Übersexual’ by 2003? I was living in Manhattan at the time and remember there was some pushback from my US financebro friends at the term.
I could be misremembering though.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago

I use moisturizer, know about men’s fashion and care about the arts.
But I’m still better at golf than you and I was better at rugby too when that was my game.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago

A true Gorgon then?

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago

Oh look! Racist grandpa is back!

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
10 months ago

His swastika is pure tweed.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
10 months ago
Reply to  Jane Davis

What an extraordinary defamatory remark! I am astonished that an educated woman such as your good self would stoop so low.
Sign of the times I suppose.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago

Sign of the fact that nobody likes a racist!

N Satori
N Satori
10 months ago

My goodness! Pan Shame socialist! Where have you been! You’ve been so scarce I was beginning to worry. Could you have been forced into hiding by marauding bands of Brexiteers? Cowed by MAGA hat-wearing Trumpists? Abducted by Aliens? Lost in a pipe-dream of that ever-elusive socialist utopia, perhaps?
But here you are, small as life. Now trying to pass yourself off as an enthusiast for those perennial bourgeois pastimes: golf and rugger.
Over to you Brains…

Last edited 10 months ago by N Satori
Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  N Satori

My faithful little puppy, look how scared you get when I’m not here for you!
It seems like my athletic excellence is intimidating to you. I’m not surprised.
And its rugby. Only the most frightful oiks who have never played call it “rugger”!

N Satori
N Satori
10 months ago

Leaden as ever. Sharpen that wit for goodness sake. Or perhaps it’s just your imagination that’s lacking.
That attempt snobbish disdain falls quite flat too.
Over to you Brains and try to be a little less dull this time. I could do with some entertainment on this bleak December morning.

Last edited 10 months ago by N Satori
Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
10 months ago
Reply to  N Satori

Looks like that oik comment really struck a nerve, eh?!?!

Jane Davis
Jane Davis
9 months ago

Charles if you didn’t go about continually dropping casual antisemitic defamatory language in your posts, I wouldn’t have made that crack.
If you don’t want to be called an antisemite, don’t post obviously antisemitic material.