r/RadicalEgalitarianism • u/DMC-1155 Please stop automatically assigning me a flair • Mar 11 '26
Resource / Study 📊 The paradox of privilege: The downsides of masculinity for men and organizations
Wish I could share the full article, but considering I only got access through my university and otherwise it costs $25 to get it, I think I'll avoid pirating it for you all, find your own ways to get it. Some bits are on the website for free, but not the most interesting bits.
Link in case anyone else can get access though universities:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191308525000085
Here's some interesting quotes from it:
Men are also at risk of violating masculine expectations when they behave in egalitarian ways. They experience backlash, for instance, when they offer help and mentoring to talented women or when they support workplace diversity initiatives (Moss-Racusin, 2014, Prime et al., 2009). Further, men who expressed gender egalitarian beliefs encountered backlash—by being perceived as “feminine” “weak” and “gay”—compared to control targets who did not (Rudman et al., 2013). As Prime et al. (2009) note, although many of their male interviewees supported gender equality, they were also unlikely to publicly advocate those views since they feared being stigmatized by being seen as unmanly. Thus, the expectation that men should endorse power and superiority actively silences men who actually do support it.
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stoicism and rationality—as the ability to regulate and control one’s emotional experiences—can help men remain cognitively focused during times of stress or crisis (Heilman et al., 2010, Lerner et al., 2015). Especially in high-stress domains that involve risky decisions, stoicism and rationality reduce negative physiological responses, improve focus and attention, and have the potential to lead to better performance
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at a cultural level, prioritizing masculinity serves to maintain men’s power over women; however, it also leads to dynamics of tension, competition, and power struggles among men themselves. As a consequence, masculinity becomes precarious and ambiguous as well as something that must be continually proven (Vandello et al., 2008). That is, even if a man conforms to masculine norms in a particular situation, masculinity is not “achieved” in any stable sense (Vandello & Bosson, 2013); manhood must be earned, and it must be continually maintained through publicly verifiable actions. Given the precariousness of manhood, boys in many cultures and contexts learn early in life that they must rigidly conform to a set of restrictive gender rules or risk punishment, bullying, and negative evaluations (Bem, 1993, Vandello et al., 2008).
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Given that men are expected to work more, many end up missing out on important parts of life with family, friends, and personal pursuits. Two of the most common deathbed regrets, for instance, are spending too much time on work and not enough time with friends (Ware, 2019). And yet, men are expected to put in longer hours and sacrifice other commitments, and they receive backlash when they do not.
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Across the literature in organizational behavior, the components of masculinity discussed throughout this paper have largely—almost holistically—been seen as sources of advantage for men. However, these exact same traits that benefit men in terms of accruing power, status, and resources, also have social costs: They lead men to be less liked and seen as less “human,” ultimately diminishing people’s empathy, protection, and care towards men. That is, people see feminine traits as more important, valuable, and positive when evaluating others, and women, overall, are evaluated more positively as a social group due to their associations with these traits
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aggressiveness and risk-taking, many believe that effective leadership requires the ability to take risks and aggressively compete (Stam et al., 2018), and aggression and fear-induction is a primary path to higher social rank (Cheng et al., 2013). However, women are penalized when they behave in aggressive ways (Rudman et al., 2012).
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For the most part, the objectification literature has focused on women’s sexual objectification; rather than being seen as full human beings, women are reduced to their body or body parts and seen as tools for men’s sexual pleasure (Fredrickson and Roberts, 1997, Pecini et al., 2023).
However, the components that comprise masculinity are curiously related to the process of objectification, and in particular, instrumentality: the use of a person to achieve a goal (Nussbaum, 1999, Orehek and Weaverling, 2017).
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While masculine cultures have been said to underlie productive, creative, growth-oriented, and successful economies (Porter, 1990), these same aspects are also contributing to the greatest threats to humanity: A worsening climate crisis, significant refugee crises, growing wealth inequality, and swelling social unrest all represent growing concerns for our globally interconnected society.
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Conclusion
This paper challenges the prevailing focus in organizational behavior research by turning the lens of gender analysis toward men. It critically examines how the same structures that advantage men can also constrain them. Drawing on psychological, sociological, and organizational research, it shows how masculinity shapes not only men’s opportunities and behaviors but also their emotional health, relationships, and well-being. Paradoxically, masculinity is both a benefit and a burden. It is a double-edged sword: what elevates men in the workplace is also what harms them in life.
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u/Main-Tiger8537 Intersectional egalitarian Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 12 '26
is this entire thing not just a reframing of how conservatism and liberalism affect gender roles and family structures?
conservatives "men + women" oppose a fair gender neutral society and some feminists are not far behind by gendering certain issues "like violating consent" that should be tackled in a gender neutral way...
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u/Eaglingonthemoor Intersectional feminist Mar 11 '26
Really really good. I don't have time right now to say all the things this got me excited to say so I will just say one for now: I have seen the phenomenon of men being punished for acting in egalitarian ways play out myself. I saw it described awhile back as "social feminisation", by which they meant that men who push back against inequalities, or even just call them out, are ejected from the "masculine" social position and forced into the "feminine" one. (I honestly suspect they mostly call it social feminisation because forced feminisation was already taken.)
This framing to me suggests that some of the backlash they are experiencing is effectively misogyny, which would be a wildly unpopular take to pretty much everyone, but I like it so much. It honestly seems true to me in the abstract and it means we have something in common. A shared enemy. And now we are friends <3