1 Outdated and Unhealthy Confined Masculinity

For a good example of a man stuck in confined masculinity, meet Ben.

Ben was a patient of coauthor Ed Adams several years ago.

Ben began his first session of therapy with a grin and a self-assured announcement. “I’m here because my wife thinks I’m unhappy.” “Are you unhappy?” Ed asked. Ben replied with an emphatic, “No, but everyone around me is. My job is to take care of my family. I do that day and night, so why should they complain?”

Ben had a 9mm Smith & Wesson gun “at the ready” in his bedroom drawer. Every night, Ben’s willingness to aggressively defend his family fulfilled his role as protector. Then he would wake up every morning and head to work to assume his role as provider.

In that first counseling session, Ben kept up his emotional shields with Ed. “I’m fine,” he claimed.

But Ben wasn’t fine.

A few therapy sessions later, Ben admitted to Ed that he was exhausted and stressed “beyond belief.” He worked all the time in order to provide for his family. His wife called herself a “work widow” and his kids gave up expecting to do things with their dad.

“My father was a lazy bum,” Ben said. “At school, they laughed at me because of my patched-up clothes. Now, I’m giving my family so much more than I could ever imagine. But no matter what I do for them, it’s not enough.”

Ben’s intention was to love and care for his family—to be a good husband and father. That wasn’t the problem. The problem stemmed from a narrow expression of his masculinity. Ben represented the way confined masculinity shapes many men’s lives—as well as the limitations of this version of manhood. In this chapter, we will define what we mean by confined masculinity in greater detail, describing the beliefs, behaviors, and consequences of this approach to being a man. We also will explore the roots of this unhealthy, outdated, and threatening version of masculinity.

Why “Confined” Masculinity?

People have been debating the nature of what it means to be a man for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks themselves had multiple, sometimes conflicting masculine ideals. There is the concept of the brave, strong hero who ventures forth on adventures and conquests—captured by the figure of Odysseus in the classic epics The Iliad and The Odyssey. But the Greeks displayed a range of masculine models in their pantheon of male deities, including Zeus, the all-powerful ruler; Ares, the god of war; Apollo, the god of reason and moral virtue; and Dionysus, the god of pleasure, awe, intuition, and ecstasy.

Definitions of masculinity—that is to say, male gender roles—have differed across cultures and changed over the course of human existence. For example, at the time of the American founding fathers, the culture encouraged intimate friendships between men—two male friends strolling arm in arm, sharing dreams and anxieties, would likely have raised no eyebrows.¹

Reflecting that reality, Division 51 of the American Psychological Association (APA)—the wing devoted to the study of men and boys—no longer refers to masculinity as a singular, fixed concept. Division 51 of APA now uses the term “masculinities” to indicate that there are many ways men live within and express manhood.

If you survey the landscape of masculinities and words used to describe the ways men are conditioned to live their lives, you will find phrases ranging from “toxic masculinity” to “caveman masculinity” to “traditional masculinity” to “noble masculinity.”

We landed on the phrases “confined masculinity” and “liberating masculinity” to describe where masculinity has been and where it is headed. We chose the terms for a number of reasons. First, they are grounded in the work of Japanese psychiatrist Shoma Morita (1874-1938). He developed what is called Morita therapy, an action-oriented approach to counseling that blends Western and Eastern principles. Morita made a distinction between the “confined self” and the “extended self.” The confined self is self-absorbed and excessively preoccupied with one’s own needs. It’s a mind entangled in subjective fears. Morita believed the confined self was the road to neurosis or poor emotional health.²

Finiteness and Scarcity

The term “extended self” used by Morita describes positive mental health through connection, compassion, and service to others. We’ll talk more about the extended self, and our related concept of liberating masculinity, in the next chapter.

Morita’s concept of the confined self, with its “me” focus and fearful outlook, captures key features of the way men and women have been socialized to think about manhood for many centuries.

Another reason we selected the term “confined masculinity” is that this is a masculinity defined by its limitations. It is centered on restrictions regarding deep-seated beliefs about manliness—about what roles men “should or should not” play, how men perform those roles, in what domains men can act, and for whom. There is also an underlying sense of finiteness and scarcity associated with this concept of masculinity. The mindset of scarcity—about things ranging from resources to sex to status—is intertwined with a fixed worldview. For confined men, a fundamental mental inflexibility creates anxiety around change and ambiguity, as well as confusion around sexuality and the feminine.

Before we delve more deeply into what confined masculinity looks like, it’s important to note that some women also subscribe to this version of manhood. To succeed in realms where men have had more power, some women have adopted the attitudes and actions of confined masculinity. Women also can expect men to fit the contours of a constrained concept of manliness. They can reinforce confined masculinity in the way they praise, reward, slight, shame, and punish men— sometimes sending mixed signals. Take Ben’s case. Even though his wife wanted him to spend more meaningful time with her, she also wanted Ben to be a successful breadwinner. Such contradictory messages can raise tricky questions for men, especially how to balance winning the bread with having enough time and energy to break bread with loved ones.

We also want to acknowledge that confined masculinity represents a node on a continuum of masculinities. Virtually all men have been exposed to and influenced by this forceful ideology, but that doesn’t mean they adopt it wholesale. Growing numbers of men and women are challenging confined masculinity—in large part because it doesn’t work in the world that’s emerging.

What Is Confined Masculinity?

Confined masculinity identifies three main roles for men: the protector, the provider, and the conqueror. These are the central archetypes or standard models available to men under traditional views of what a “real” man is. These archetypes have ancient origins and tend to be universal across cultures. They hold value because they speak to timeless human experiences and adaptations. But in each man’s life these archetypes play out in ways that are influenced by time and place. And, like everything else in psychology and biology, there are always individual differences. By keeping individual differences in mind, we can apply the archetypes to our lives, knowing their place is in the realm of the imagination.

In fantasy, literature, and popular culture, the protector has been the knight, the soldier, the defender of the home—as Ben saw himself with his Smith & Wesson. Similarly, the provider has been the farmer, the merchant, the man who brings home the bacon and enables the good life for his family. The conqueror has been the king, the high school quarterback, the corporate-ladder climber, the lady “killer”—the alpha male who vanquishes foes, controls his surroundings, and gets the girl. Confined masculinity makes little room for other roles, like the sensitive lover, the sage, the spiritual seeker and the healer.

A tightly confined approach to manhood prescribes a limited number of ways men can perform their gender roles. Think of this in terms of the “how.” A reliance on competition, aggressiveness, physical courage, and arrogant confidence are the central how characteristics. Confined men view and treat virtually everyone as competitors in a contest. They are expected to “man up” and be brave in all circumstances, and to exhibit no vulnerability—which would be a sign of weakness. Confined masculinity dodges other ways of relating and moving through the world, including curiosity, compassion, and cooperation.

Similarly, confined men operate within a narrow where. Under confined masculinity, men find themselves limited to external realms. These domains include the personal arenas of the physical and sexual as well as the public arenas of fortune and social status. The ideal man is strong and sexually potent. He is rich, and holds prominence in the eyes of others. A man’s internal life is often sidelined because it may reveal vulnerability and thus threaten his status. Confined masculinity tends to wall off the landscape of spirit and emotions—including the range of feelings that accompany interpersonal and intimate relationships. As a result, a confined man can be unaware of the needs of his soul or psyche.

A confined masculinity also restricts a man’s circle of care and concern to just himself, his family, and a a limited number of others. A confined man may identify with particular geographic communities, or those that share characteristics such as race, political ideology, religious beliefs, or even the fan base for a professional sports team. But his sense of communal humanity tends not to extend broadly. There is little attention to wider circles of people, or to his connection to the web of life on earth overall.

Confined masculinity is about finiteness. It creates a cage within which a man paces back and forth. He’s kept limited, isolated and separate. Confined masculinity constricts the imagination because the concept of manhood is plugged into preset cultural ideas. It’s like always coloring inside the lines. The epitome of confined masculinity is the fantasy of a “self-made man”—denying our need for and dependence on others. Confined masculinity creates unhealthy illusions when it calls for self-sufficiency and independence—often leading to loneliness.

Related to the emphasis on discreteness is how the classically confined man tends to view things as fixed, including talents, intelligence, gender roles, human nature, and what a “real man” is. There’s little room for growth in these and other areas. Additionally, confined masculinity operates from a mindset of scarcity. A confined man sees the world as defined by sparse, limited resources that must be fought over in an endless series of zero-sum games. As a result, confined masculinity carries with it a fundamental anxiety based on a persistent state of fear: Will I get enough? Enough food for myself, my family, my people? Enough money? Enough status?

The Confined Masculinity Crouch . . . and Other Consequences

The underlying fear, combined with the conqueror role, competitiveness, and limited circle of care for others, effectively puts confined men in a defensive crouch. Confined men are vigilant, poised to lash out—while their coiled-up stance prevents them from seeing their surroundings fully. This lack of vision means that confined men are without a full range of physical, emotional, and relational responses. Confined men, for example, often fail to notice the emotional signals from others that require sensitive and comforting responses. Because it truncates emotional intelligence, confinement limits vital affective skills.

The confined masculinity “crouch” shows up as distrust as well as overreaction to perceived threat and fear. In response to real or perceived threats, confined men are prone to dominate, avoid, shut down, or appease others. This leads to a paradox: confined men often take up a lot of emotional and physical space. Their very confined-ness leads them to spill outside of appropriate boundaries. They can bluster through business meetings or bully and shame others into submission to make sure they “win the day.” And yet, confined men also end up with too little space and airtime. When men who have accepted the premise of constant competition consistently fail to rise to the top of the heap, they tend to accept the authority of those who do. They are predisposed to tolerate, appease, and befriend bullies—or to retreat into a profound passivity.

Call it the crouch-couch effect. If men find they can’t cope with the ever-present threat of losing status and feeling inadequate, they can fall back into resignation and apathy. They may surrender to vegging out in front of a TV or computer screen. A man’s emotional emptiness and lonely feelings can lead him to give in to destructive habits and empty pleasures, such as an addiction to pornography. In other words, confined masculinity can lead both to overbearing behavior and meek withdrawal. These are two sides of the same crouch.

Another consequence of confined masculinity is a tendency toward self-absorption. “I’m not much, but I’m all I think about,” one of Ed Adams’s patients joked. Though his statement revealed a measure of self-awareness and humility, it nonetheless acknowledged the way he—and many other men—obsess about themselves.

Even when men work hard, long hours in the service of their family, their focus can remain largely on themselves. Providing a good living and home can be as much about “keeping up with the Joneses”—or beating them—as it is about caring for family. Similarly, the achievements of children are often seen as a reflection of the success of their parents. This dynamic helps explain the manic way some men cheer and jeer at youth sports events. How well Susie performs on the field either burnishes or bruises the ego of her father.

Bottled Up

Anyone who has suffered through a soccer game next to an obnoxious, screaming dad knows that this projection is not healthy for anyone—including the confined man himself. In fact, even as confined masculinity makes men prone to self-centeredness, it also prevents men from connecting to themselves in a positive way. Natural feelings of hurt or disappointment or sadness are defined as signs of weakness. They give rise to shame. And that is only magnified by keeping all these emotions within.

“Because of the way many men have been brought up—to be self-sufficient and able to take care of themselves—any sense that things aren’t okay needs to be kept secret,” says Fredric Rabinowitz, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Redlands in California who helped steward the new APA guidelines on treating men and boys. “Part of what happens is men who keep things to themselves look outward and see that no one else is sharing any of the conflicts that they feel inside. That makes them feel isolated. They think they’re alone. They think they’re weak.”³

All the pent-up feelings in confined masculinity can end up expressing themselves in a variety of ways. They show up in self-medication and substance abuse, in bursts of anger, in depression, anxiety, isolation—and sometimes in violence.

We noted above that a social aspect of confined masculinity is its inclination toward acquiescing to those in power. Another communal effect is that it conditions men to join together in opposition to people outside their limited circle. That is, confined men are susceptible to ganging up against people defined as “others” based on characteristics such as perceived racial, religious, geographic, and political differences.

This opposition to the other can be particularly problematic when it comes to misogyny and intolerance of people who don’t fit inside strict sexual norms. “Misogyny” means contempt for women, and it reflects a combination of female objectification, sexual frustration, and a sense that men are fundamentally better than women. Intolerance of people with sexual variations refers to fear and hatred of same-sex relationships and other non-standard choices around sexuality and gender. These choices include bisexuality, transsexuality, and identifying as nonbinary—declining to identify as either male or female.

Stuck with Sexism and Intolerance

Given its limited conceptions of manhood, confined masculinity fosters sexism and intolerance of sexual variation. The conquering, stoic, self-sufficient, sexually potent provider— the warrior-patriarch—all but requires a woman to be his submissive subject. And a fixed conception of masculinity often leads confined men to define gay men as being deviant or “sick”—perhaps as a result of the fear of non-standard sexuality stirring within themselves.

So confined men are inclined to see themselves as superior to and at odds with women and people with unconventional sexuality. They may express this contempt through physical aggression individually. And as accounts of mass rape and group assaults on sexual minorities over the centuries have attested, confined men are capable of carrying out such violence in a collective way as well.

The beliefs, behaviors, and consequences we observe in confined masculinity dovetail with other analyses of men’s traditional gender roles. Consider, for example, the conclusions of scholar Robert Brannon in his seminal study of American men. Writing in 1976, he identified four key elements of masculinity:

No Sissy Stuff (anti-femininity)

The Big Wheel (status and achievement)

The Sturdy Oak/Male Machine (inexpressiveness and independence)

Give ’Em Hell (adventurousness and aggressiveness)⁴

Brannon’s observations about the dominant way of being a man have held largely true through the first two decades of the twenty-first century. We believe it is useful to locate these four aspects of manhood within the overarching concept of confinement. The confined masculinity model frames opposition to femininity, focus on power, stoicism, and combativeness as limited options. In effect, these “man-rules” act as invisible walls of a box, as unseen bars of a cage. As we will see, it’s possible to be liberated from this constricted view of manhood.

The Roots of Confined Masculinity

Where does confined masculinity come from? How did we arrive at a cramped version of manhood that typically features hyper-aggression, extreme competitiveness, stoicism, and independence to the point of isolation? A masculinity in which a man’s self-worth depends almost exclusively on besting others, where vulnerability is off-limits, and where women and those with non-standard sexualities are inferior?

Some argue that the reason men are aggressive is because “that’s just the way men are” or because “men have always been this way.”

Neither point is true.

Let’s look first at the past. Based on the 6,000 years or so of recorded human history, it’s easy to assume our species has always had largely fixed gender roles in which men are combative, insensitive, and individualistic—driven to “get the girl” and amass personal power and riches. This view of the macho, Machiavellian male captures several millennia of humankind succinctly, but it does not define what men were like before recorded history.⁵

For tens of thousands of years, our Homo sapiens ancestors lived in hunter-gatherer societies. And scholars generally agree that these early men and women seemed prone to share power and were likely to engage in caring, “prosocial” behavior.⁶

A number of observers view the rise of agriculture as pivotal in reshaping gender roles. One theory points to the emergence of the animal-drawn plow in particular as critical to the polarization of the sexes. Working a plow behind a draft animal wasn’t suitable for pregnant women, because it gave rise to miscarriages. Scholar Ken Wilber argues that the animal-drawn plow led, in large part, to the domestication of women’s roles—and to more economically productive, public, and ultimately powerful roles for men.⁷

It’s possible that when agrarian settlements became permanent and grew in population, the most aggressive men were able to seize social and political control—establishing autocratic, hierarchical male traditions that continue to this day.⁸

Just because the history of human civilization has largely been a patriarchal one, that doesn’t mean men have always been defined by a confined masculinity. If anything, the past several thousand years appear to have been an aberration. The full story of our species suggests men are capable of very different beliefs and behaviors. As scholar Paul Gilbert put it in the foreword to this book, “When social environments are benign then male psychology is also benign.”

The Nature of Man

Still, some claim that the truest expression of male psychology is dominance—the alpha male who rules those weaker than himself. As this logic goes, men are naturally belligerent thanks to the power of testosterone, which is associated with aggressive behavior and sexual impulses. But it is too simplistic to claim that this hormone determines how men think and act. “Study after study has shown that when you examine testosterone levels when males are first placed together in the social group, testosterone levels predict nothing about who is going to be aggressive,”⁹ writes Robert Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neuroscience at Stanford University.

A study that Sapolsky coauthored points to how socialization can outpower biology—and to the way gender roles can change quickly. While researching baboon behavior, Sapolsky observed a particular group of the primates feeding from a rubbish dump that contained poisoned meat. Because dominant males always ate first, they consumed the tainted meat and died off. Those of us who assign great importance to testosterone and the supposedly fixed “law of the jungle” might have predicted that new alpha males would rise to fill the vacant slots. That didn’t happen. Instead, the group became far less aggressive, more egalitarian, and more affiliative. In other words, when the dominant males that created the atmosphere of aggressive competitiveness perished, the structure they created perished with them.¹⁰

Sapolsky’s baboon study has parallels in research on differences between the sexes. Despite the popular notion that men and women are so unlike as to be from different planets, the science suggests we have more in common than not. Research demonstrates that the most statistically significant and predictable differences between men and women are small. A major study of variations between the sexes in 2005 discovered that men and women are basically alike in terms of personality, cognitive ability, and leadership. Psychologist Janet Shibley Hyde, PhD, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found only a few main differences: men could throw farther, were more physically aggressive, masturbated more, and held more positive attitudes about sex within uncommitted relationships.

It may be tempting to see the findings around aggression and sex as confirming gender stereotypes. But Hyde’s study undermines that conclusion. She found that gender differences seem to depend on the context in which they were measured. For example, after participants in one experiment were situated such that they could not be identified as male or female, none conformed to stereotypes about their sex when given the chance to be aggressive. On the contrary, they did the opposite of what would be expected—women were more aggressive and men were more passive.¹¹

It’s too easy to hide behind the false notion that men and women are forever condemned to be alienated from one another. It’s useful to acquire an allergic reaction when people say, “he’s just being a man” or, “that’s the way women are.”

In other words, DNA isn’t destiny. Men’s mindsets and learned gender roles play a major role in how we behave. The mindsets and roles of confined masculinity haven’t always been the standard for human beings, but they have shaped a male-dominated history over the past six thousand years or so. This history has been marked by aggression, competition, separateness, and emotional inhibition.

Taking the Measure of Confined Masculinity

It would be a mistake to condemn confined masculinity altogether. Elements of the ideology, such as the conqueror figure, stoicism, and focus on the material realm, have combined to lead men to great feats of exploration, ingenuity, and athleticism. Confined men have probed the corners of the earth, erected cathedrals, and pushed the limits of human physical ability, often enduring great hardship in the process. The provider and protector roles have contributed to good-hearted personas such as the knight and the gentleman, and to related values such as honor, valor, and virtue. Influenced by confined masculinity, men have sacrificed life and limb to bravely combat tyranny and oppression.

Another positive of confined masculinity is that it is a counterweight to ideologies that diminish the individual. Self-reliance and personal ambition also have generated great advances in artistic expression and contributed to technological and material progress.

That said, confined masculinity has never been an ideal approach for being a man. Throughout the ages, wise souls from the Buddha to Jesus to Mohandas Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr.—not to mention many women visionaries— have challenged its tenets of aggression, materialism, and selfishness. Artists and poets have questioned the limitations of confined masculinity and expressed the suffering of men whose lives have been defined by this constrained male ethos. And many men and woman have bravely refused to accept the heterosexual norms prescribed by a traditional, narrow manhood.

Today more than ever, confined masculinity is under fire. Put simply, confined manhood doesn’t work for the twenty-first century. Confined masculinity now limits and damages men as individuals, in our family and friend circles, in our organizations, and in our global society.

Most men know there’s something wrong and deeply restrictive about following the traditional man-rules to a t. They gravitate toward liberating masculinity—if for no other reason than the fact that confined masculinity doesn’t work in their lives. These men are bigger than what society has largely told them to be.

Ed Adams was asked what his years of working with men in therapy and groups has taught him. His short answer is that “the love and sacrifice I see men capable of giving to others is literally awe inspiring.”

Both authors believe in the goodness and humanity of men. That is why we encourage a vision of masculinity that frees men and unleashes their full potential. And why we are eager to help men move away from a limited version of manhood that has run its course.

Ben’s story from earlier in this chapter illustrates how a good and well-intentioned man experienced the restrictions of confined masculinity. By taking his provider role so seriously, Ben brought himself out of poverty, and later prevented his family from backsliding into deprivation. His children never had to wear patched-up clothes as he had. They avoided the humiliation he suffered on the school yard.

And yet the rules of confined masculinity did not fully serve Ben or his family. In fact, those rules created more enduring problems than they prevented. And that is becoming more and more true for men stuck in confined masculinity— as well as for the people around them.

But there’s hope.

We now know that many of our confined ideas about masculinity may be commonly shared but they are not fixed. We can change. And we can create a more egalitarian, cooperative, and safer world.

Now let’s explore a masculinity that helps us build that world.

THINGS TO PONDER AND DO

CURIOSITY: What rules of confined masculinity have you assumed are valid? Can you pinpoint an event or encounter when this version of manhood influenced you?

COURAGE: Can you acknowledge the ways confined masculinity harms you and others?

COMPASSION: Can you forgive yourself for actions you took while under the influence of a confined masculinity? Can you better understand a man in your life who hurt you while operating from confined masculinity?

CONNECTION: Is there someone in your life who has reached out to you, but whom you shunned out of anger or fear, or because of some other reason? Can you reach out to them now?

COMMITMENT: Can you pledge to move away from the attitudes and actions of confined masculinity? Can you commit to challenging men who hurt others?

The Release