Pretty much everybody who is studying masculinity these days (outside of The Heritage Foundation) agrees that current masculine norms are harmful - to men and to everyone else. This isn't just women saying this - it's nearly everybody. Feminine norms also stem from outdated patriarchal boxes where we're expected to shoe-horn ourselves into archaic binary roles. Women who are pointing that out are advocating for progress. Men who are advocating for "traditional" femininity are advocating for regression. Pretending that's some sort of double standard is somewhere between naive and disingenuous.
APA’s new Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Boys and Men strive to recognize and address these problems in boys and men while remaining sensitive to the field’s androcentric past. Thirteen years in the making, they draw on more than 40 years of research showing that traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful and that socializing boys to suppress their emotions causes damage that echoes both inwardly and outwardly.
“Though men benefit from patriarchy, they are also impinged upon by patriarchy,” says Ronald F. Levant, EdD, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Akron and co-editor of the APA volume “The Psychology of Men and Masculinities.” Levant was APA president in 2005 when the guideline-drafting process began and was instrumental in securing funding and support to get the process started.
The main thrust of the subsequent research is that traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful. Men socialized in this way are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors.
