How Patriarchy Hurts Men Too
Photo by RTWR
By Veronika Ilich
For all the benefits it bestows on men as a group, patriarchy harms individual men deeply, in many different ways.
Patriarchy harms men by disconnecting them from their emotions, and frames seeking support as weakness. It’s an endless pressure for men to conform to a narrow prescription of masculinity, to compete with one another, and to prove their manhood by surrendering their individuality and denying their humanity. It’s also the pressure to take risks, to ignore one’s health, and to cope through substance use.
Patriarchy is one of the single largest threats to men’s mental and physical health.
Patriarchal ideas about masculinity can pose a great danger to men’s health, because masculinity encourages risk-taking behaviour and discourages help-seeking or health-enhancing behaviour—meaning men are more likely to get hurt or sick and less likely to seek help when they are. Men are less likely to go to the doctor or seek counselling support for mental health issues. Additionally, men are more likely to stop taking medication for their chronic or life-threatening illnesses than are women. They are also less likely to take time off work when sick or injured and less likely to recognize symptoms of illness that disproportionately affect them, like heart disease.
© Next Gen Men 2020
Unsurprisingly perhaps, worldwide, the life expectancy for men is around three to four years lower than that of women.
Patriarchy also harms men’s chances at meaningful and healthy relationships with others, by creating homophobia-fuelled barriers against deep male friendships—further damaged by the ever-present threat of violence between men. For gender non-conforming men, or men who don’t ‘fit’ the rigid norms, queer folks or trans folks, they can become targets of hate, attacked for daring to defy norms. In Canada, the most violent hate crimes are typically men attacking other men on the basis of perceived sexual orientation. Nationally, young men account for around 90 per cent of people arrested for gay-bashing crimes.
Patriarchy also promotes hierarchy over women, justifying and encouraging dehumanization of women, leading to male entitlement and violence.
Worldwide, violence against women and girls is still an urgent issue. From child brides, forced marriages, sexual assault, human trafficking, domestic violence, and femicide, there's no shortage of ways in which women and girls are still subject to violence under patriarchy.
In both Canada and the U.S., intimate-partner violence is considered a serious public health issue. In intimate-partner violence cases of heterosexual couples, women are predominantly the victims and men the perpetrators. According to Stats Canada, 85 per cent of victims of intimate-partner violence in 2012 were female. Women also account for 90 per cent of victims of stalking by current or former intimate partners.
At its most extreme, women are much more likely to be killed by partners or ex-partners than are men. Of the 945 intimate-partner homicides that took place between 2008 and 2018 in Canada, 79 per cent involved a female victim. Overlapping with colonialism and racism, these numbers are significantly higher for Indigenous women in Canada, who are three times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be targeted by intimate-partner violence and eight times more likely to become victims of spousal homicide.
Women and girls also make up the majority of sex trafficking victims worldwide because despite feminist advances, women are still being defined as property, objectified, and commodified. There can be no doubt that discrimination against women contributes to human trafficking, especially since trafficking often occurs concurrently with other gender based crimes, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, and forced marriage.
Likewise, gender inequality does not exist separately from other forms of discrimination based on ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status, thus racialized women, young women, and women living in poverty are even more vulnerable than other women to human trafficking and gender-based violence. Not all violence against women is committed by men—in upholding patriarchy, women can be violent toward other women too, especially if it strengthens their own position.
Numerous studies have shown that men who adhere strongly to patriarchal ideals of masculinity are more likely to endorse and use violence against both women and gay men—those who are seen as ‘feminized’ and ‘lesser’.
In short, patriarchy upholds norms and behaviours that are neither attainable, nor desirable, and in the process we all suffer.
By removing the pressures of gender roles, challenging stereotypes, and breaking the binary, feminism benefits us all.
As a movement, feminism has benefited both women and men, but was overwhelmingly built by women. We owe a debt to amazing women like bell hooks and Angela Davis, and all those who did (and continue to do) the tireless, often thankless work of advocating, researching, writing and organizing. We equally owe a debt to all the names we don’t know: to all the fierce women forgotten by history who fought for us.
Today, the shift of men understanding their place as stakeholders and co-beneficiaries of gender equality is picking up steam. This shift has led to the creation of formal organizations like Next Gen Men, A Call to Men, and Promundo, and of grassroots communities like Men Edmonton (an organization that has since sunset), and MensLib Reddit. Such organizations seek to understand and to challenge the ways in which patriarchy harms people of all genders, but with a distinct focus on masculinities. Feminist consciousness-raising for men is now a reality.
Learn more: Take our Raising Next Gen Men course to explore how patriarchy affects people across genders—and what we can do about it as role models for the next generation of men.
No one seems to be able to agree if this is the third or fourth wave of feminism. Perhaps it can be the final wave—creating deep and lasting change. Either way, the tide is turning, and men are understanding that what they stand to gain from feminism far outweighs what they stand to lose.
Want articles like this delivered to your inbox every week? Join our mailing list here.
Additional Resources
Engendering genocide: Gender, conflict and violence (Consortium on Gender, Security & Human Rights)
Masculine gender role stress and violence: A literature review and future directions (Aggression and Violent Behavior)
Constructions of masculinity and their influence on men's well-being: a theory of gender and health (Social Science & Medicine)
Veronika Ilich is the Community Manager for Next Gen Men. Find her at NGM events, on the Modern Manhood Podcast, or on our online Inner Circle forum! She is passionate about social justice, and in particular, gender-based violence prevention and eliminating poverty.