Alienated Young Men and “Toxic Masculinity”: A Social Phenomenon in Contemporary Western Society
Sir Gareth Southgate, former England national football team manager, recently delivered the 46th annual Richard Dimbleby Lecture, which was broadcast at 10: 40 PM on 19 March 2025 on BBC One. He took the opportunity, as he delivered his 54-minute-long talk on ‘The Beautiful Game: Building Belief and Resilience in a Younger Generation’, to mention “callous, manipulative and toxic influencers” who “willingly trick young men into believing that success is measured by money or dominance, that strength means never showing emotion, and that the world, including women, is against them.” Earlier, Adolescence, a four-part crime drama miniseries, premiered on Netflix on 13 March 2025. It tells the story of 13-year-old Jamie Miller, who is is arrested for the murder of a teenage girl. Both Southgate’s lecture and Netflix’s chart-topping Adolescence dwell on the unhealthy influence of the “manosphere”- an online network of blogs, websites, and online forums- on the minds of boys and young men who are estranged from, and feel left behind by, wider society.
The term “toxic masculinity”, as opposed to “healthy masculinity” and by no means universally accepted as a valid concept, was coined by the psychologist Shepherd Bliss and first appeared in print in an article on ‘The Gender Rap’ by Daniel Gross in The New Republic in April 1990. Men have increasingly felt threatened by a progressive reversal of gender roles, just as women seek “traditionally male jobs” and their male counterparts are expected to share in childcare and household chores such as cooking, cleaning, and washing-up. No longer the sole breadwinners, men’s roles are being challenged by women no longer prepared to stay at home as passive partners in cohabiting relationships. Challenges to traditional masculine roles, and the threats posed by feminism, have created toxic masculinity or whatever else you might choose to call it, whereby men seek to re-establish their once-dominant status in society and either mistrust, display contempt for, or even actively hate women. There is also a small subculture of so-called incels, or involuntary celibates, who have come to hate girls and young women in response to spurned sexual advances, blaming them for their lack of romantic success. Being raised in a single-parent households, with absentee fathers, and a lack of other male role models, further add to the risk of becoming a misogynist.
Toxic beliefs have encouraged young men to toughen up both mentally and physically and become alpha males, who are aggressively competitive, emotionally controlling, consider women as property, engage in casual multiple sexual encounters, and are homophobic to boot. Traditionally feminine behaviours, such as as open displays of emotion, compassion, empathy, and the willingness to share problems and to accept help, are rejected. Admitting to mental ill-health is considered a sign of weakness, while denial equates to strength. Risk-taking behaviours, such as casual violence against partners and strangers, dangerous driving, and substance abuse, among others, are engaged in.
Toxic masculinity not only harms women but also those who subscribe to the phenomenon themselves. Socially disconnected and isolated young men are prone to stress, anxiety, depression, self-destructive addictions, and self-harming behaviour that includes overdosing and may culminate in suicide.
Social media platforms are widely considered to have played a major role in spreading misogyny, with prominent influencers able to attract millions of online supporters. Podcasts, videos on TikTok and YouTube, and extreme online pornography all serve to propagate misogynistic content. Bullying, sexual violence including rape, domestic abuse, physical assaults, and murders have all been attributed to misogyny.
Many young men undoubtedly face problems coping with rapid societal change. As women continue to overtake their male peers in educational attainment at school and college and in workplace progression, even despite a gender pay gap that continues to favour men, some males feel left behind and disengage from the jobs market and become “economically inactive.” Unfortunately, instead of suggesting constructive solutions to the problem and targeting support to disadvantaged and alienated young men, the cause of male underprivilege has been taken up as a rallying cry by those on the right of the political spectrum, with somewhat unhelpful consequences.
Ashis Banerjee