Women aren't looking for guys who want to dominate and control them, who are aggressive rather than assertive, who are stoic, and always engaged in performative competitions with everyone about everything. Those are the mainstream masculine norms I'm talking about - and those are the ones that the American Psychological Association recently designated as harmful to men - coming out of 40 years of research. They're also the same ones that drive violence in our culture - against men and against women; they are the ones that drive rape - against women but against men as well.

Confidence is a different thing. Sometimes women have a hard time allowing men to be vulnerable or to show sadness because they too have been steeped in these norms, but almost nobody wants a violent, controlling boyfriend.