WTF? No they don't. Artificially suppression normal human emotions, aggression and performative competition with absolutely everyone all the time is what all the depression and suicide in men is caused by - not according to me, but according to the American Psychological Association (who sifted through 40 years of research to conclude that) and all sorts of men's groups who study this stuff.
Men are not the sum total of how they've been told to act in a patriarchal culture. Those are norms - of the moment in our particular part of the world. It's not who men intrinsically are. For a lot of human history, men were expected to openly weep as show of passion and intelligence.
The only reason that Homo sapiens survived was our ability to connect and cooperate. Some forms of competition are reasonable at times, but not the zero-sum “if you don’t win, you lose” attitude that most guys are indoctrinated into.
Acting like it's attacking men to point out that the shit they've been told to be and do is harmful to them - and to everyone else is the worst sort of pandering.
Men can and should be any sort of pro-social trait that is either natural or aspirational to them - that they decide on. Formulating some new box of acceptable masculinity is going to be just as restrictive and problematic as the one we currently have because there is no way that every single man is going to fit.
Gender norms are an artificial social construct - one that has historically (for the past 5k years) been used to bully men into a small number of acceptable traits all the while "othering" women as the opposite of men. They aren't timeless, universal, or necessarily natural for men. Men aren't being attacked, inherent masculinity isn't being attacked - because these norms have little to do with those things except as we've constructed them today and in the relatively recent past in our culture.
Male gender norms like enforced stoicism and aggression drive depression, isolation, and most of the violence in this country. This sort of masculinity needs to be condemned - because it's hurting men too! But, it has nothing to do with maleness, and men need to understand and realize that. So do other people as well, it seems - this is not "male nature" - it's male socialization, something that is not in the least bit inherent.
I get that you're trying to be helpful, but furthering the idea that this is male nature is NOT helpful. Traditional masculinity = patriarchal masculinity, something that has only been around for past 5-6k years. This is not anything to do with how men "naturally" are and it desperately needs to shift toward a more pro-social dynamic - hopefully with men leading the way.
