One of the most important issues of our day is the funk that many young men find themselves in. Studies show that it was the shift toward Trump among young men—black, Latino and white–that got him elected this past November. Gender rates of college students have shifted dramatically in the last few years where the current numbers are approaching 60% female to 40% male.
College is by no means the only way for young men to find themselves good and useful employment, certainly. But still that trend away from college by young men is concerning since there are many opportunities to live full lives and serve the community that college can open up to young men and women alike.
The appeal to men by Trump and MAGA is concerning as well. In my most recent book I include an Appendix on “MAGA’S Precarious Manhood vs. Authentic Masculinity” where I cite Harold Meyerson who, following the Republican party convention last summer, observed that the Republican party is a “party of precarious manhood.”
He believes that the MAGA movement is “reliant on the cult of toughness and hypermasculinity.” Trump’s holding up of Hungary’s Victor Urban and lauding him as “a very tough man” along with his admiration of Putin and Kim Jong Un for their toughness are further examples of this reality.
Is starting a world-wide trade war and tariffs on everyone—including islands around the world inhabited only by penguins—another product of exaggerated “toughness”?
David French, in an article entitled “Hulk Hogan is Not the Only Way to Be a Man,” points out that Trump sports a certain kind of masculinity where “grievance is at the forefront.”
But he warns that grievance is a form of “counterfeit purpose” and anger is a form of “counterfeit courage.” While it leads to “fighting the hated foe, when you center masculinity on grievance and anger rather than honor and courage, you attract men like Hogan and Kid Rock,” but you leave a lot out.
In my words, you bring forth the reptilian brain in spades, but ignore the mammal brain where compassion and caring reside. What American men need to hear is this message, French says, citing from a commencement speech given by Admiral and former Navy Seal William McRaven: “You must have compassion. You must ache for the poor and disenfranchised. You must feel for the vulnerable.”*
In this context, I was struck by a recent article in Rolling Stone magazine entitled “Meet the College Kids Making ‘Positive Masculinity’ Tiktoks To Counter the Manosphere.” At Colby College in Maine, some young male students are posting fun skits exploring toxic masculinity, homophobia and healthy male-female relations.**
Professor Adam Howard, head of the education department, oversees the project. Topics include how to prioritize female sexual pleasure and the difference between coercion and consent. Topics like the mental health of men, healthy relationships and healthy friendships are on the horizon. It’s an effort to get young men to think about masculinity “in healthier, more productive and less harmful ways” than the manosphere world is doing, says Howard.
Offering young men examples of the ten archetypes I lay out in my book on healthy masculinity and engaging in skits to celebrate them would be strong medicine to share as well. Such metaphors as Father Sky, the Green Man, the Blue Man, Spiritual Warrior, Hunter-Gatherer, Fatherhood and Grandfatherhood (elder) lend themselves wonderfully to Positive Masculinity.
* David French, “Hulk Hogan Is Not the Only Way to Be a Man,” New York Times, July 28, 2024.
** Fortesa Latifi, “Meet the College Kids Making ‘Positive Masculinity’ TikToks to Counter the Manosphere,” Rolling Stone, March 25, 2025.
See Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
And Fox, “Spiritual Warriorhood” in Fox, One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faith Traditions, pp. 404-423.
Banner Image: Long Islander Chris Arsenault, devoted founder/owner of the Happy Cat Sanctuary for rescued and abused felines, “died a hero” while running repeatedly into his blazing buildings to save as many cats as he could. The suspected arson is under investigation amid worldwide expressions of grief and outrage. Photo from the GoFundMe organized to rehome the 200 surviving cats and continue Arsenault’s work.
Queries for Contemplation
Do you recognize a distorted masculinity in much of today’s far right wing politics? Is it time to offer alternative models of masculinity to our young men and is the Colby College experiment with TikTok one such way?
Recommended Reading
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author, The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
One River, Many Wells: Wisdom Springing from Global Faiths
Matthew Fox calls on all the world traditions for their wisdom and their inspiration in a work that is far more than a list of theological position papers but a new way to pray—to meditate in a global spiritual context on the wisdom all our traditions share. Fox chooses 18 themes that are foundational to any spirituality and demonstrates how all the world spiritual traditions offer wisdom about each.“Reading One River, Many Wells is like entering the rich silence of a masterfully directed retreat. As you read this text, you reflect, you pray, you embrace Divinity. Truly no words can fully express my respect and awe for this magnificent contribution to contemporary spirituality.” –Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit
6 thoughts on “Challenging Unhealthy Masculinity & a Cult of Toughness”
Let’s look at both sides of the coin.
One could say that the distorted masculinity in far right wing politics is looking to counterbalance the distorted ‘wokeness’ in far left wing. The far left ‘woke’ have taken many to the edge of the cliff. Instead of falling off themselves, the ‘far right’ is pushing the ‘far left’ off and are watching them fall. One could surmise that both sides are distorted in different ways, are they not? — BB.
A greater emphasis on physical and health education in schools better balances the masculine and feminine in everyone.
In answer to your Queries for Contemplation, Definitely Yes! There is definitely and tragically a “distorted masculinity in much of today’s far right wing politics”! Matthew, you have gone further and deeper in the past in your writings to point out that humanity, for a long time, especially modern society and institutions, have been spiritually unbalanced by an unhealthy patriarchy that has devalued the feminine and Sacred Mother Earth with Her feminine values. The sacred energies of the Sacred Feminine and the healthy Sacred Masculine have always needed to be consciously integrated and balanced in our personal and communal spiritual journeys and evolution. This personal and communal spiritual imbalance has always been the source of many historical and continuing societal problems, ecocide, inequities, violence, suffering, and disconnection from Our Source~Creator’s Divine Love~Wisdom Always Present within and Among Us in the Sacred Process of the ETERNAL PRESENT MOMENT in Our LOVING DIVERSE ONENESS with one another, Sacred Mother Earth, and Our physical and nonphysical spiritual dimensions of Our LOVING EVOLVING COSMOS….
Perhaps the young men offering TikTok explorations of healthy masculinity might want to review the history of war where countless millions of men lost their lives in battle, all the while despoiling and torturing Mother Earth with increasingly lethal weaponry, ultimately described as MAD >>> Mutually Assured Destruction. And of course, there was always the collateral outcome of war rape for women and girls.
When did war begin….. when Cain killed Abel……??? The movie ‘Saving Private Ryan’ would be a good place for young men to start exploring this question. There is a scene in a church when the soldiers searching for Ryan’s brothers were discussing their situation. I think it was then that they realized that war results in a FUBAR outcome: F___ked Up Beyond All Recognition.
There need to be more ways to offer positive models to young men, as Colby College is doing. The current model is based on fear, insecurity, inner emptiness, and cowardice. How has our society so perverted things that many young men seem to feel like victims?
I love that you are discussing healthy masculinity and ways to manifest new paradigms. I also love that you posted the gofundme account for Chris Arsenault. But (sorry but there is a but), I am disturbed using Chris as a role model without other comments. I don’t live too far from his sanctuary for cats. He had hundreds and while many were well cared for, there were far more than he could handle and some were quite sick. The cause of the fire has not been determined but it is fair to assume that with that many cats, the fire hazards abounded. I am also not comfortable with the martyr aspect of his life. Dying for what you love might be noble but he didn’t have to die in this instance. That saddens me even more.