Redefine strength as passivity and you have not elevated men. You have rendered them harmless.
Liberal masculinity is the culturally promoted model of acceptable manhood in which traditional masculine traits such as providing, protecting, and leading are labelled toxic, and the only permissible expression of masculinity is passive, emotional, and hyper-empathetic. It is not a natural evolution of male identity but a deliberate cultural redefinition that serves specific institutional interests.
The concept emerges from the academic and media discourses surrounding “toxic masculinity,” a term that Andrea Waling (2019) argues continues to reproduce gender inequalities even when deployed critically, because it positions men as victims of a vague entity rather than engaging their agency. Raewyn Connell’s framework of hegemonic masculinity, widely cited since the 1990s, provides the theoretical architecture: the dominant form of masculinity is treated as inherently oppressive, and all alternatives must be measured against it as corrections. What follows is a masculinity that apologises for its own existence.
The practical consequence is a male population uncertain of its own purpose. If providing is outdated, protecting is aggressive, and leading the family is oppressive, what remains is a man defined entirely by what he must not be. The depression, addiction, and purposelessness afflicting young men across the West are not random pathologies. They are the predictable outcome of a masculinity that has been stripped of function while being told that losing function is progress.