What We’re Getting Wrong on Masculinity… (Sep, 2024)
It's a word so contentious you can't say it without being laughed out of certain rooms. A word so divisive it puts a red mark above your name. A word so loaded it now staggers under the weight of every expectation, stereotype, and misconception we've piled onto it.
But what is masculinity, really?
Is it chiseled features, a six-pack, the heft of your wallet? Is it measured in notches on a bedpost, in inches of height, in the easy charisma of one who knows how to work a room? Plenty of definitions — societal, dictionary-bound, algorithmically reinforced — would have you believe so.
I'd argue it's something else entirely.
Real masculinity isn't confined to the superficial. It belongs to those who carry hope in the face of despair, courage in the face of fear, and a commitment to leaving the world a little better than they found it.
When I think of the men and women who stand up to injustice — who keep speaking their truth in the middle of cancel culture, creeping authoritarianism, bigotry, and lies — I see masculinity.
When I think of the heroes of the American Civil Rights Movement — Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King — I see masculinity.
When I think of Jesus, winding his way up the Via Dolorosa toward Calvary, beaten, mocked, betrayed by those he loved, and yet whispering with his dying breath, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do" — I see masculinity.
When I think of Desmond Doss, the U.S. Army corporal who refused to carry a weapon because of his faith, the man laughed at and shunned by many of the seventy-five he would later drag, one by one, off Hacksaw Ridge across twelve hours of hell — I see masculinity.
Make no mistake: many of history's greatest figures, the ones who left a permanent dent in the world, were not the archetypal college quarterback. They were the meek, the mild, the overlooked — people society wouldn't have glanced at twice on the street. And yet their lives sketched out a masculinity that transcended the physical, one rooted deep in moral courage and self-forgetfulness.
Social media has done something strange to all of this. It has flattened masculinity into aesthetics — follower counts, jawlines, and the hollow theatre of power. But the world doesn't keep turning because of any of that. It turns because of the quiet, selfless acts of ordinary people.
The street-sweepers who keep our cities clean. The teachers who light fires in the next generation. The researchers grinding away in labs in search of a cure. The residents fighting for the renewal of their neighbourhoods. The parents quietly sacrificing for their children. The aunts and uncles who spend more time praying for other people than worrying about themselves — because they believe in something larger than what the naked eye can see. These are the people who embody true masculinity.
So, with that being said, let's ‘redefine’ it. Let masculinity be the strength to forgive when wronged, the resilience to stand firm when everything around you trembles, and the perseverance to keep walking when the path ahead disappears into fog. Let it be an ideal unbound by gender — defined instead by the actions of those — man or woman, boy or girl, regardless of how popular, how big, how tall — who choose to bring about good, and who speak up even when their voice shakes, no matter the score.
Kamal Farrah
