Who Gets to Define a Real Man?

Kind, aggressive, empathetic, or strong. A million definitions. Only one person is right.

In the wake of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz being named the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, I recently came across the following tweet:

All I’m gonna say is that Walz brand of positive and kind masculinity is a massive tool to use going forward to teach millions of people that being a strong man isn’t about domination and fear but through compassion, kindness and not the fascist masculinity of hate and domination.

The tweet received massive engagement, striking a chord with many. A positive and more empathetic version of masculinity is front and center in our cultural conversation, though not everyone is ready for this shift.

Here are a few responses to that tweet.

Also known as being a pussy

Spoken like a bitch

Compassion is cool, but i do think liberals avoid any concept of what “winning” looks like for men, unless it’s being of service to others. I think that’s lame.

Okay, so maybe Twitter isn’t the best place to find reasonable discourse on masculinity, but with noted masculine man Elon Musk at the helm, it’s certainly the place to be to find the most… interesting takes on the topic.

Staying in politics, recently, I’ve seen an uptick in “If you don’t vote for Trump, you’re not a real man” posts. There was also this beauty saying, “Men, don’t let your wives ruin America. Make sure they are voting for President Trump…!”

And then there was Fox’s Jesse Watters, who recently said, “Now, I don’t see why any man would vote Democrat. It’s not the party of virtue, security, it’s not the party of strength. It’s definitely not the party of family. And to be a man and then vote for a woman just because she’s a woman is either childish, that person has mommy issues, or they’re just trying to be accepted by other women. And I heard the scientists say the other day that when a man votes for a woman, he actually transitions into a woman.”

Honestly, that’s a lot.

When I see comments like this, I mostly laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Each sentence is littered with such nonsense it’s hard to know where to begin.

On the one hand, we have men who are stumping hard for other men to support their favorite man, Donald Trump, who I’d bet hasn’t changed a light bulb in decades or thrown a football with his sons, maybe ever?

And on the other hand, we have men who demonize and belittle others who dare to hold an opinion that doesn’t align with theirs.

By their own definition, isn’t that what a real man is supposed to do?

I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s definition of a “real man,” but I feel like I’ve seen these exact people champion independent thinkers in the past. Maybe there were asterisks that I didn’t see? I don’t know.

But all of this discourse has me wondering: Who gets to define a real man?

I looked up what it meant to be a real man and came across several definitions. It takes strength and courage, resilience and integrity. I saw the words accountability, respect, empathy, and determination.

In the manliest man conversation, I saw men referenced like John Wayne and Jackie Robinson, Clint Eastwood, and Dwayne Johnson.

I’ve seen people reference men who’ve had countless sexual partners and men who’ve been monogamous their entire adult lives. That’s why the conversation around “real men” is confusing; the definitions are wide and endless. Nobody seems to know what being a real man means, yet that doesn’t stop folks from questioning another man’s masculinity.

Jerry Seinfeld was recently interviewed and made headlines by saying he misses dominant masculinity.

“There’s another element there that I think is the key element, and that is an agreed-upon hierarchy, which I think is absolutely vaporized in today’s moment,” he said. “And I think that is why people lean on the horn and drive in the crazy way that they drive, because we have no sense of hierarchy. And as humans, we don’t really feel comfortable like that.”

Seinfeld certainly isn’t alone in his thought process. From wildly toxic personalities to faith-based authors, you’ll find plenty of personalities who think men should get back to doing what they’ve done for centuries. While their methods and reasoning may differ, often, this boils down to providing for your family, using your hands, being the head of the household, etc.

But we can’t talk about men returning to the masculinity of yesteryear without acknowledging what the womanhood of yesteryear also offered.

Although women had other aspirations in life, the dominant theme promoted in the culture and media at the time was that a husband was far more important for a young woman than a college degree. Despite the fact that employment rates also rose for women during this period, the media tended to focus on a woman’s role in the home. If a woman wasn’t engaged or married by her early twenties, she was in danger of becoming an “old maid.” (Source)

Women couldn’t buy property without a male co-signer until the 60s. Women couldn’t hold credit cards until 1974. No-fault divorce wasn’t an option for all American women until 2010. All three of these changes gave women far more significant power than they had “back in the day,” and to some men, that power feels threatening.

I said some men.

My wife and I have an equal partnership. We go back and forth with our responsibilities, and while each of us has specific strengths in our marriage, there isn’t a single task that is one of our jobs.

After the birth of our first daughter, she went to work part-time, staying home with our daughter a few days a week while I worked full-time. When I got laid off, my wife went back to work full-time while I managed to be with the kids.

It’s a partnership with both sides, understanding that it takes a little bit of everything to make our marriage work. The only expectation is that we both try and care to figure things out. We see each other as human beings, not property and certainly not employees.

There is an understanding that while our marriage vows are forever, if I turned into a raging misogynistic lunatic overnight, she is under no obligation to stay with me because of a promise we made more than a decade ago.

It’s an equal partnership.

Podcaster Steven Crowder is not a fan of equal partnerships. Since 2021, Crowder has been a vocal advocate of ending No-Fault divorces, stating, “There need to be changes to marital laws, and I’m not even talking about same-sex marriage … I’m talking about divorce laws, talking about alimony laws, talking about child-support laws.”

Coincidentally, that same year, Crowder’s wife filed for divorce amidst a video going public of Crowder berating his wife, eight months pregnant at the time with the couple’s twins, for her failure to do “wifely things.”

Unsurprisingly, Crowder is one of the many conservative voices claiming that “there is a war on masculinity & men are starting to wake up,” but looking at the common denominators of all these statements, their interpretation of manhood seems to be rooted in power and a penis.

I see no accountability. I see very little nuance. I see a whole lot of whining and wishing to go back to when life was easier for men only.

For men who claim strength is one of the most important aspects of manhood, their arguments sound pretty damn weak.

I’ll be the first to say that being a man in this day and age is confusing, but I’d argue it’s because we’ve been lied to for our entire lives about what it means to be a man.

To be a man, you’ve got to provide for your family, but today’s dollar doesn’t go nearly as far as it did a few decades ago, forcing damn near everyone in the family to work full-time just to pay the rent.

To be a man, you’ve got to speak with authority, but society doesn’t just take my word anymore solely because I’m a man and now I’ve got significantly more competition for that promotion than my father had for his.

You’ve got a whole bunch of men who grew up assuming they were the unquestioned head of society's hierarchy because their Grandpa was, and they’re now confused when they see women in positions of power all around them. It’s the incel version of finding out Santa Claus isn’t real.

As men, we could sit back and say, “Maybe the world is changing for a reason,” or we could say, “Maybe everybody else is wrong but me.” A cosplay man is going to make excuses for their shortcomings. A human being is going to evolve.

So, who gets to define a real man?

You’ll find think pieces galore on masculinity and its role in the world. I’ve written a few, I just wrote another, and I’ll likely write more. All of us have different views and opinions in terms of what makes a man a man and how we can play our parts to ensure we’re building a better world for the people around us.

When I see words like strength, I think of a man who is persistent and consistently finds a way to overcome his hurdles.

When I see words like courage, I think of a man who bet on himself and started his own business.

When I look at the word resilient, I see a man who’s suffered a tremendous loss and came back healthy, prepared, and wiser for it.

When I look at the word integrity, I see a man who admits his faults, acknowledges his mistakes, and reconciles what was with what will be.

But I don’t make the rules. I mean, the words do have actual definitions, but you are free to interpret them however you see fit.

I vehemently disagree with how Jerry Seinfeld, Steven Crowder, Jesse Watters, and others view masculinity. I think it’s narrowing our view of manhood by boxing us into a single boring box. I fail to see how showing compassion, painting your fingernails, or voting for a woman makes you less of a man.

They preach freedom and independence and, in the next sentence, disqualify any man who strays from their interpretation of masculinity. We’re talking Gold Medal performances in mental gymnastics.

Ultimately, the only person who can define your masculinity is you.

Nobody knows what a “real man” is, let alone the people who claim to have it all figured out. If you’re taking care of the people around you and building a better neighborhood for your community, I’d say you’re doing a damn good job.

I am here for a positive and kinder masculinity, and I am confident that a higher level of self-awareness will open doors for men they didn’t know existed.

To me, a real man is willing to evolve and not let other men dictate their personal interpretation of masculinity.