What is a man? Is he the newborn designated as male at birth? Is he the individual that self identifies as “male” based on some belief of belonging? Is he a chest-beating “alpha” that never backs down or shows weakness? In today’s world, one could argue he is all of the above or none of them, because many have recently accepted that nothing can be absolute, and that everything is subjective until objectivity suits them. This is what scholars call postmodernist thinking, and it is because of its growth combined with the weaponization of gender history against men that what it means to be a “male” has been effectively nullified.
The impact as a result of men feeling lost is clear. In 2022, men died by suicide at a rate 3.85 times that of women in the United States, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. A 2021 study by the Survey Center on American Life found that 15% of sampled men claimed to not have any close friends, a rate five times that reported in 1990, while that of women is at just 10%. Lastly, 71% of U.S. opioid overdose deaths are among men, the American Institute for Boys and Men finds.
Critics will say that men have had the advantage historically and what they are facing now is self inflicted, not systematically manufactured. In an interview conducted for this piece, a sophomore, who asked to remain anonymous, said that “no one can solve this issue other than men. This is not the same as providing access to education in developing countries; this is a very male-focused thing.” Upon further discussion, she added, “Women have been historically excluded, like being banned from education or voting. Men, especially white men, have never endured that institutional exclusion. Including women after explicit exclusion is like ‘making up for lost time.’”
Her answer confused me. In response to me asking about “current” issues facing women, she turned to women being “historically excluded,” something men “never endured"; she answered in the past tense. She’s not alone; many women and some men I interviewed, both at Penn and beyond, had a similar argument. I am not saying that women do not currently face discrimination across society, but what is happening here is the use of history to deny the issues facing men today. The general consensus that men have had the upper hand, so it’s only fitting we ‘make up for lost time’ and whatever issues they face are their own to deal with is driven by revenge, not justice.
The whole conversation then follows a similar pattern seen in politics, where the two genders divide themselves as if they’re playing a zero-sum game. Richard Reeves — a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and president of AIBM — captured this dynamic in an interview with Big Think: “a number of people warned me against writing a book about boys and men … because so many people were afraid that merely drawing attention to the[ir] problems … was simply implying somehow less effort being paid to girls and women; it’s framed as zero-sum, and it’s sort of a ‘whose side are you on’ question.”
When you combine this demonization of men with the intentional, selective dismissal of scientific evidence to push a political agenda of pseudo justice, you destroy the concept of what it means to be a man and thus the fabric of a society. After all, “it takes two to tango,” and if you demonize one, you’re bound to get pushback. The remedy for inclusion is not selective exclusion. What we’re accusing men of historically doing seems to be happening now to them instead.
My purpose here is not to antagonize anyone, man or woman, but to tell men especially: Wake up. Your issues are real, neither solely self-inflicted nor nonexistent, especially in the context of our generation.
In the age of social media and hyper-partisanship, and amid suggestions that society would endure, even improve, in men’s absence, it has never been more crucial to show up and make yourself known. Do not, though, follow the path of an Andrew Tate “stan” or neo-Nazi sympathizer.
Be the guy that walks the walk, acts on fact instead of emotion, and has both the dignity to not judge, especially behind someone’s back, and humility to not gloat. Be the man that tries to see perspectives from both sides and looks for common, logical ground, instead of letting his ego drive his decisions. Above all, be the guy that looks to do right by everyone he meets, no matter who they are or what they look like. In my opinion, this is what being a man is and has always meant.
ZAID ALSUBAIEI is a College sophomore studying mathematical economics from Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. His email address is zaidsub@sas.upenn.edu.
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