The Evolution of Masculinity: From Singular to Plural Perspectives

For most of the twentieth century, masculinity was treated as a single, stable thing – a fixed set of traits that all men were expected to embody. Be strong. Don’t cry. Provide. Dominate. This portrait of manhood was treated as natural, even biological. But sociologists have dismantled this view entirely. Today, masculinity is understood not as one thing but as many – shaped by history, culture, power, race, class, age, and more. Understanding how this shift happened, and what it means, is essential to any serious analysis of gender.

The traditional view: masculinity as a singular norm
The shift to plural masculinities
How race, class, age, and ethnicity shape masculinity
Race
Class
Age
Ethnicity
Connell’s hierarchy: hegemonic, dominant, complicit, and subordinated masculinities
Patriarchal and transformative masculinities
Criticisms of the traditional masculine role
Why plural perspectives matter

The traditional view: masculinity as a singular norm

Historically, masculinity was framed as a coherent package of traits: physical toughness, emotional restraint, authority, competitiveness, and heterosexuality. These traits were not considered innate or universal; they were social constructs. Yet they were presented as if they were – as though being a “real man” had a singular, timeless definition. This narrow framing positioned masculinity in direct contrast to femininity, reinforcing a binary that left little room for variation or complexity.

The problem with this model is that it was never actually universal. It reflected a particular kind of man – typically white, middle-class, heterosexual, and Western – and elevated that type to the norm against which all others were measured. As sociologist Erving Goffman observed, the idealized American man required a long list of specific attributes, and any deviation made a man feel incomplete or inferior. This created a standard that most men could not fully meet, yet one that shaped how men saw themselves and treated others.

The shift to plural masculinities

The decisive theoretical break came in the 1980s, when Australian sociologist R. W. Connell began developing a framework that rejected the idea of a single masculinity. Drawing on fieldwork in schools and informed by feminist theory, gay liberation scholarship, and structural sociology, Connell and colleagues proposed a model of multiple masculinities – an understanding that manhood takes different forms depending on social context, power relations, and identity.

The key insight was that masculinity is not something a person is born with, but something achieved through social interaction. Gender is produced and reproduced in everyday life, which means it is always subject to change. By shifting attention from traits to social structures, this new framework opened the door to a much richer and more accurate picture of male identity.

Because gender varies so significantly – across cultures, over historical time, and over the life course – we cannot speak of masculinity as a constant, universal essence. We must speak of masculinities. Pluralizing the term acknowledges that what it means to be a man differs across groups, contexts, and time periods.

How race, class, age, and ethnicity shape masculinity

One of the most important contributions of plural masculinities theory is its recognition that social factors fundamentally alter how masculinity is lived and expressed. These are not minor variations on a common theme – they produce meaningfully different experiences of being male.

Race

African American masculinity has been historically shaped by racism, economic exclusion, and criminalization, producing expressions of manhood that differ sharply from white, middle-class norms. Black men in many Western societies navigate a dual burden: the pressure to conform to dominant masculine ideals while simultaneously being subjected to racial stereotypes that cast their masculinity as threatening or deviant. Indigenous and Asian men face their own distinct forms of this tension, shaped by histories of colonialism and cultural displacement.

Class

Masculinities vary by social class, with working-class constructions often more tied to physical labor, resilience, and communal loyalty. Middle and upper-class masculinities tend to emphasize cultural capital, education, and professional achievement. These differences are not simply stylistic – they reflect unequal access to resources and power. A working-class man denied institutional authority may express dominance through physical strength; a wealthy man may wield his masculinity through financial control or social status.

Age

Masculinity is also a moving target across the life course. Men manifest masculinities differently depending on their age and living context. Younger men often perform masculinity according to peer-driven norms – proving toughness, suppressing vulnerability, and establishing status within male hierarchies. Older men may redefine their masculine identities as physical capacity declines or as they take on caregiving roles, navigating a transition that dominant masculine norms rarely prepare them for.

Ethnicity

Cultural traditions play a direct role in defining what counts as masculine within a given community. Pressures to enact toughness and avoid feminine-coded behaviors have been documented across diverse groups, but the specific content and meaning of masculinity varies considerably. Diaspora communities often navigate a dual frame, balancing expectations from their cultural heritage with the masculine norms of their host country – a tension that produces hybrid and contextually specific forms of male identity.

Connell’s hierarchy: hegemonic, dominant, complicit, and subordinated masculinities

Connell’s framework does more than identify variation – it maps how different masculinities relate to one another through power. Hegemonic masculinity describes the dominant form of masculinity within a given social context, not because it is the most common, but because it sets the standard against which all men are judged. It is associated with traits like strength, emotional control, heterosexuality, and authority over women. Importantly, it is a normative ideal rather than a description of how most men actually live.

Below hegemonic masculinity in the hierarchy sit other positions. Complicit masculinity describes men who do not fully embody hegemonic ideals but benefit from the system nonetheless – they receive the “patriarchal dividend” without actively enforcing dominance. Subordinated masculinity encompasses forms of manhood that are actively devalued – most visibly, gay men, whose identity has historically been positioned as the antithesis of hegemonic masculinity. Marginalized masculinity describes men whose gender expression is further constrained by race, class, or disability, leaving them unable to access the full privileges of masculinity even when they conform to its norms.

Patriarchal and transformative masculinities

Patriarchal masculinity refers to forms of male identity tightly bound to the maintenance of male dominance – over women, over children, and over men who do not conform to the dominant ideal. It relies on structures of control embedded in institutions such as the family, law, and the workplace. This type of masculinity does not simply describe individual behavior; it is, as feminist sociologists have long argued, a structural feature of social life that reproduces inequality.

In contrast, transformative masculinity describes men who actively challenge traditional gender norms and advocate for equality. The UNDP’s Targeting Men, Transforming Masculinities initiative frames this work as addressing patriarchal power not just at the individual level, but at institutional and ideological levels as well. Transformative masculinity is not simply a personal disposition – it involves structural critique and active engagement with the conditions that sustain gender inequality. Men who take this position are positioned as agents of change who adopt anti-patriarchal identities, challenging norms around emotional restriction, domestic responsibility, and the policing of other men’s behavior.

Criticisms of the traditional masculine role

The singular, traditional model of masculinity has attracted sustained criticism from across the social sciences. At the most fundamental level, critics argue that it is harmful – to women, to other men, and to men themselves. The emphasis on dominance and control can lead to workplace discrimination, gender-based violence, and inequality in relationships. Men socialized into emotional restriction are statistically less likely to seek help for mental health problems, contributing to documented disparities in men’s wellbeing.

Sociologists have also criticized trait-based models for being analytically limited. Connell and Messerschmidt themselves acknowledged that rigid typologies are unsound and that masculinity cannot be reduced to a fixed set of character traits. Postmodern critics go further, questioning whether any stable concept of masculinity can be maintained in a world of increasingly fluid gender identities. While the concept of hegemonic masculinity continues to inform research in education, criminology, public health, and beyond, scholars emphasize the need to account for internal contradictions, local variation, and the genuine possibilities of change.

Why plural perspectives matter

Moving from a singular to a plural understanding of masculinity is not merely an academic exercise. It has direct implications for how societies address gender inequality, mental health, violence, and identity. When masculinity is treated as one fixed thing, men who do not fit the mold are marginalized, and structural causes of gender inequality are obscured. When masculinity is understood as multiple, contextual, and changeable, it becomes possible to identify the specific conditions under which harmful norms emerge – and the conditions under which they can be transformed.

Researchers recognize significant transformations in masculinities’ models in a shift toward more egalitarian forms, even as reactionary pressures continue to reassert traditional ideals. The tension between these two directions defines much of the current sociological debate – and much of the everyday lived experience of men navigating questions of identity, belonging, and power.

What do you think? If masculinity is shaped by social context rather than biology, what does that suggest about the possibilities for changing harmful masculine norms at a structural level? And to what extent do you think dominant masculine ideals in your own cultural context reflect the experiences of men from different racial and class backgrounds?

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Table of Contents

The traditional view: masculinity as a singular norm 🔗

The shift to plural masculinities 🔗

How race, class, age, and ethnicity shape masculinity 🔗

Race 🔗

Class 🔗

Age 🔗

Ethnicity 🔗

Connell’s hierarchy: hegemonic, dominant, complicit, and subordinated masculinities 🔗

Patriarchal and transformative masculinities 🔗

Criticisms of the traditional masculine role 🔗

Why plural perspectives matter 🔗