Latest news with #masculinity
ABC News
19 hours ago
- Health
- ABC News
Respect Victoria challenges men to question masculinity stereotypes in new ad campaign
Alex Mills feels very comfortable with the kind of man he is. But it's taken until the age of 40, a serious run-in with anxiety and depression and plenty of introspection to get there. "I'd just internalised a lot of that, so when I found myself in a really vulnerable space, opening up about that sort of stuff was really hard," he says. "That experience has always really stuck with me." Opening up is hard — for men, in particular — because it's in stark opposition to social pressures and stereotypes that expect toughness and stoicism. These pressures are fleshed out in a new campaign by Respect Victoria that has boiled down 18 months of research and conversations with Victorian men. It found that men who subscribed to macho stereotypes that included aggression, suppressing emotion and hypersexuality were 17 times more likely to commit gendered violence. Research manager Dr Stephanie Lusby says the campaign is about showing men it is possible to buck those expectations. "It's not about calling men perpetrators as a general bloc," she says. "It's about saying we've all got a part to play in finding avenues to change, resetting the social norms that allow violence to happen." Alex Mills is one of the 12 Victorian men featured in the campaign. All of them speak openly and honestly about what kind of man they want to be. Some have been on the receiving end of violence while others, like Alex, have waded through mental health issues. "There's lots of men out there who are really wrestling with this stuff, either in their own lives or maybe working with young people, or other men around them," he says. "A lot of that gets drowned out by the really big, loud, toxic voices. "I mean, you can't kind of talk about masculinity in 2025 without someone like Andrew Tate or a similar online influencer coming up." Respect Victoria drew on surveys of 3,500 men aged 18 to 45 about their attitudes and behaviours around masculinity. Dr Lusby says many men feel pressure to live up to harmful stereotypes, even if they do not personally endorse them. And that throughout the study, it became clear many men wanted to help prevent gendered violence but were not sure how to go about it. "Lots of men in the focus groups we were doing were saying that they wanted to do more, but that they weren't perpetrators … and so what was their role?" Dr Lusby says. "Not wanting to do more harm came out as a theme quite a bit … and so one of the things that we want to show in this campaign is the stories of men who have gone on their own journeys of building relationships that feel safer." The figures around violence against women in Australia are staggering. According to the Australian Institute of Family Studies, since the age of 15, more than 1 in 3 women in Australia have experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of a man. The growing list of murdered women's names feels unrelenting. Names like Jill Meagher, Aiia Maasarwe, Celeste Manno, and Samantha Murphy stoke rage and grief in the community. But there has also been some backlash. A Hosier Lane mural featuring the faces of women who have been killed was recently defaced with graffiti reading "war on men". Dr Lusby hopes this campaign will help engage men who might see themselves reflected in it and encourage them to push back against harmful behaviour and attitudes. "Lots of previous campaigns have been about teaching — do this and don't do that," she say. "This one is about listening and I think that that's a really important shift. Respect Victoria's campaign, called What Kind of Man Do You Want to Be? launches on Wednesday. Alex hopes that sharing his experience prompts other men to open up. "There're so many different ways to be a man," he says. "You can be strong, but you can also be vulnerable. You can be sensitive, you can be caring, compassionate, you can be scared. "I really hope this campaign … gets men thinking about how actually there's a whole bunch of ways that I can be. And they're all OK."
Yahoo
a day ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Jesse Watters Boasts He Saw ‘Jacked' GOP Senator Lifting in the Gym
Fox News host Jesse Watters dished out some odd advice Monday for Democratic men like Sen. Chuck Schumer: don't have a woman's physique. How he knows this: he's seen a top Republican somewhat disrobed. On The Five, where Watters has been known to discuss what he thinks is masculine and what isn't, he claimed that an answer to Democratic woes at the ballot box lies at the gym. 'I was at a resort a little while back and I saw [Senate Majority Leader John] Thune at the gym. The man is jacked and the guy's in great shape, and he lifts hard, too,' he admired of the 64-year-old. 'You look at Schumer—and he's built like a woman. Men do not want to be led by the party of women. Men want to be led by other men,' said Watters, who last summer knocked Kamala Harris as a 'frightened woman.' 'Working out actually makes you more masculine. It increases your testosterone... It makes you more competitive, happier, healthier, all that stuff. Being around other guys is also good for you,' Watters went on. 'And women are more attracted to guys that lift, and that's just scientifically proven.' In response to a column arguing that joining gyms can bring about favorable political outcomes for Democrats, Watters said, 'You can't campaign at the gym; Democrats have to go into the gym. They have to work out." 'So,' he continued, 'Democrats need to become men, and then they can persuade men. But they have to lift first. I'm serious.' Watters then incorporated into his pitch a quotation from, of all people, poet Maya Angelou. 'People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel,' he said. 'People don't like how they feel around Democrats because Democrats don't like the way they feel,' Watters concluded. 'And if they lifted, they would feel better, and then everyone around them would feel better.' In his eponymous primetime show later Wednesday night, Watters reiterated his point. 'Don't hand out fliers outside of Equinox,' he told Democrats. 'Go inside and lift.' One way Democratic donors and strategists have been working to improve their lot with young men—mainly online—is though a $20 million effort called 'Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan,' which aims to 'study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.' 'Above all,' it says, 'we must shift from a moralizing tone.'
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Bad news for manly men! Women prefer blokes with more FEMININE faces, study finds
With chiselled jaws and bulging muscles, Hollywood's ultra-masculine heartthrobs are often held up as the ideal of male attractiveness. But it's bad news for macho stars like Chris Hemsworth and Jason Momoa, as science suggests women prefer blokes with more feminine faces. In a test of over 1,500 participants from Japan and the UK, researchers discovered no preference for men with more masculine features. Despite some research suggesting otherwise, participants across the board had a general preference for more feminine features in both men and women. Lead researcher Dr Thora Bjornsdottir, of the University of Stirling, told MailOnline: 'We were somewhat surprised that we didn't find that any group preferred masculinity in men's faces.' Strikingly, this preference was consistent across genders, sexualities, and ethnicities - with only the degree of preference changing between groups. For example, among heterosexual women in the UK, being younger was associated with greater levels of preference for feminine features in men. This might help explain the popularity of less traditionally masculine stars such as Tom Holland, Timothée Chalamet and Harry Styles who have widespread popularity with young fans. While it might seem odd for scientists to investigate attractiveness, research shows that this factor has a big impact on people's lives. This is referred to as the 'halo effect', a phenomenon which means more attractive people are also seen more positively in other ways, such as being friendlier or more successful. The same is also true of someone's perceived masculinity or femininity. For example, a recent study from researchers at Princeton University found that men with masculine features like a square jaw were considered to be better at their jobs than others. However, there isn't a great deal of rigorous research into the connection between these two categories. Likewise, what research has been conducted generally focuses on white heterosexual individuals from Western countries. To address this, Dr Bjornsdottir and her colleagues recruited heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual participants who were either White British or East Asian Japanese. The participants were asked to complete two tasks designed to test their preferences towards masculine or feminine features. Traditionally, men with more masculine features such as Chris Hemsworth (left) or Jason Momoa (right) have been thought to be more attractive. But new evidence shows this isn't the case Men who like MEAT are more likely to bag a date In a recent study, scientists found that being a vegetarian makes both women and men less attractive as potential partners. Male vegetarians are also viewed as less masculine, according to the researchers. 'Women who reject traditional masculinity based on strength and dominance may perceive male vegetarians differently than those who embrace traditional masculinity,' they said. 'This, in turn, may explain why for some women a vegetarian man is "not a real man".' In the first task, the participants were shown two images of the same face that had been digitally altered to be more masculine or feminine and asked to choose which they preferred. In the second, the participants were given an image and asked to use a slider to adjust the levels of masculinity or femininity until they deemed it most attractive. Overall, participants from all backgrounds tended to choose the more feminine faces in the first task and were more inclined towards feminine features in the second. This result came as a surprise given that both conventional wisdom and some previous research suggest that some groups prefer more masculine men. Dr Bjornsdottir says: 'It's important to note that some heterosexual women prefer masculine men's faces, but as a group on average they didn't prefer either masculinity or femininity in our study.' However, there was evidence of cultural impacts on participants' preferences. Male and female Japanese participants showed a stronger preference for feminine facial features than their British counterparts, particularly in male faces. The researchers also found that white women's faces were judged more attractive when made increasingly feminine than East Asian women's faces. By contrast, East Asian men were considered more attractive when feminised than white men. The researchers suggest this shows that that preference for male or female features was not an absolute preference, but one informed by a number of other factors. Dr Bjornsdottir says these preferences might be due to the judgements that we all subconsciously make about people based on their faces. She says: 'People aren't just perceiving attractiveness when they look at faces; they're also making inferences about what that person is like, what their personality might be. 'For example, there is research indicating that people assume that men with more feminine faces will be better caregivers and that men with more masculine faces will be more dominant but less reliable, even though this isn't necessarily the case.' Additionally, this study was the first time that the masculinity or femininity preferences of bisexual participants have been measured. Notably, this showed that bisexual individuals had distinct patterns of preference which were not simply a midpoint between heterosexual and homosexual preferences. Bisexual men in both cultures preferred less femininity in women's faces compared with heterosexual men but had very similar preferences to their heterosexual counterparts when it came to judging men's faces. The graphs show the average preferences for female participants both from Japan (pink) and the UK (red). This shows that women of all sexualities have a slight preference for more feminine men and women Homosexual men on the other hand tended to prefer increased masculinity in both male and female faces. Bisexual women, meanwhile, showed different preferences based on their cultural backgrounds. British bisexual women had a greater preference for femininity in male faces and a greater preference for masculinity in female faces. However, their Japanese counterparts preferred less femininity in both male and female faces. Dr Bjornsdottir says: 'People often tend to think of sexuality in terms of a gay/straight binary, but this doesn't reflect reality. 'Very little is known about what bisexual people find attractive in others, and we wanted to address this.'
Washington Post
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Quiche, drag brunch and sit-ins: How food informs queer identity
Is quiche queer? Until recently, I wouldn't have known quite how to answer that question. Sure, I remember the 'Real Men Don't Eat Quiche' book, which became a bestseller in the 1980s by satirizing stereotypes about masculinity. And as a Texan who grew up on barbecue and later came out as gay and even later as vegetarian — I'm now a tofu-and-potatoes man — I understand how, to some people, food choices can seem inextricable from sexual identity.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Do Democrats Understand the Manosphere Enough to Win It Over?
President Donald Trump ran on a slogan of Make America Great Again and central to his project is to make men great again. But it's only certain kind of men and a certain kind of masculinity. Think Hulk Hogan, who spoke at Trump's nominating convention as did Dana White, the CEO of UFC. This 'masculinist' approach now steers not only Trump's bombastic, in-your-face political brand, but his personnel and policy choices. At its core, it's an ideology rooted in nostalgia and restoration and the belief that 'real' men, the kind who work with their hands and lead with aggression and brawn, have been left behind and now need a hand up — and room to say and do whatever they want, without any consequences. It means Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his talk of restoring power to the 'war fighter.' It means promising to restore the US as a place where men make things again, even if it means threatening to wreck the global economy in the process (and even if most Americans don't want to work in factories).
