I'm not being defensive! 😅 I'm not taking anything you're saying even slightly personally because the caricature of masculinity you're painting is a million miles from my experience and the experience of every man I know. I’m not saying the APA doesn’t know anything about men’s experience, I’m saying that on the evidence of your replies so far, you don’t. And that the more nonsensical things you’ve said so far aren’t coming from the APA.

So I think you're wrong. And are overgeneralising about or oversimplifying a number of things. I also think you're failing to recognise that a key element of what “allows this stuff to stay in place” is women. In fact, in some cases, most women want this stuff to “stay in place.”

Be self-sufficient - Yes, I agree that most men feel pressure to be self-sufficient. Chris Rock even has a great standup about this fact. Men are expected, especially by the women in their lives, to be useful. And yes, I know this isn't absolutely universal. But generally speaking, a woman will be less attracted to a man who doesn't earn a decent wage, or who has no ambition, or who can't make decisions or fix things or speak confidently. As Chris points out, when a friend gets a new partner, most men ask "what does she look like?" And most women ask, "what does he do?"

Act tough - Yes, men are also expected to be strong or "tough." Again, this is an expectation placed quite heavily on men by women as well as by other men.

Physical attractiveness - Everybody is expected to be physically attractive to some degree. Women far moreso. I don't see how this is about being a "real man."

Rigid gender roles - Yes, most men are expected to be financial providers. Again, this pressure comes from women too (please, please see this short video for a beautiful illustration of his point. Also, read the comments). I don't think most people imagine that a man will be the sole breadwinner anymore with the cost of living, but yes, broadly speaking there is an expectation for the man to provide in a way there isn't an expectation on women to provide. Every single women I've ever been romantically involved with, even if just for a few dates, contributed less financially than I did. Every single one.

Yes, most men do less than their fair share with regards to child/home care. I totally see this issue.

Heterosexuality and homophobia - It's interesting, I'm only recently becoming fully aware of how much latent homosexuality there is in society. I don't really think, outside of jock culture, that this is overt. I can honestly say that very few of the men I’ve ever met were overtly homophobic. I have gay friends, and we occasionally joke about homosexuality, and they joke about heterosexuality, because ribbing each other is definitely a part of male bonding (we rib each other about everything and we don't mean any of it).

But I'm slowly becoming convinced that there's a huge undercurrent of repressed homosexuality among men that they can't express (or even admit to) because of shame. But yeah, that's a whole other conversation.

Hypersexuality - If we're talking about teenage/early twenties boys, I agree that this is the expectation. Boys who aren't super into sex are presumed to be gay or have something “wrong” with them. But for most teenage boys, this hypersexuality isn’t some kind of act.

I've heard some interesting anecdotes from trans men about their shock at how horny they got when they started taking testosterone. I honestly wonder whether women can truly appreciate this. Pubertal testosterone really is a helluva drug. Very difficult to study this objectively, but I honestly think men, especially young men, are just genuinely far hornier than women. So as men get older and their sex drive declines, I think their egos don't want to acknowledge the change and the overcompensate.

Aggression and control - I agree with the first part but not really the second part. Yes, "real men" use physical violence "when necessary." Men are expected to and women want them to.

Take the Jordan Neely/Daniel Penny case for example. This is what men "stepping up" looks like. It will lead to tragic consequences in some cases because violence, even when used to protect people, is messy and ugly and often goes too far. Yet numerous women on the train said they were grateful for Penny's actions and even thanked him personally. Because they were scared and didn't feel able to defend themselves.

I think the overwhelming majority of women, if they're honest, want a male partner who would and could take action when necessary. If there's a noise in the house in the middle of the night, it's the man who gets sent downstairs with the gun or the baseball bat. But women typically don't like the idea of violence and its consequences, so simultaneously want men not to be capable of violence. Sadly, you can't have it both ways.

To be clear, the capacity for violence shouldn't never be confused with a compulsion to violence or an inability to control one’s temper. Absusive men are not the same as men who use violence when necessary.

But women being in control of household decisions, especially financial decisions, is common enough to be something of a trope. And again, I think the number of men who expect to be in control of their female partner’s movements is vanishingly small. Happy to see evidence that I'm wrong. But something more substantial than "I'vE dOnE fOrTy YeArS oF rEsEaRcH" please. Show me a study that shows a meaningful number of men think they should be able to (or even want to) control their partners movements.

And, you'll note, none of this says that men bond by denigrating women. Or that a core aspect of masculinity is dominating others. Or that jock culture is male culture. These are the ideas that I criticised. Because everything I know about men, both personally, and in my own research, says that this is nonsense, often touted by women who are happy to leap to simplistic, demonising conclusions about men because a minority of sociopaths exhibit this behaviour.

Also note that these “pillars” are entirely focused on the negative aspects of masculinity. Is there simply nothing positive about men and masculinity in your view? Or is it that, as I very strongly suspect, you’ve given next to no thought to the positives masculinity brings?

I spent a lot of time looking at male/female dynamics in the wake of #yesallwomen. I was shocked by how many women came forward and realised that even though I had some sense of this problem, I'd missed a lot. I spoke to the women in my life, I looked at studies and research, I'm not denying that there's a problem. I'm saying that this isn't a problem that you can simply tell men and boys to fix. Partly because it's a problem that many women very actively encourage in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, and partly because the men who rape and dominate and control women aren't #doingthework. And they aren't going to.

So the men you have an opportunity to reach, the men who are trying, the men who, therefore, are far less likely to be guilty of this stuff, are far less likely to listen to you if you hold them collectively responsible for the actions of the worst men in society. And especially if you talk down to them about their own feelings and experiences and pretend that their experiences with women are just figments of their imaginations.