How dangerous is the pressure to be "A real man"?

Although there are multiple ways to be male, our culture still promotes a model – of hegemonic masculinity – that gives greater value to the masculine over the feminine, promoting in men certain behaviors such as competitiveness, the demonstration of virility, the search for risk, aggressiveness and an insensitive character. This can lead, among other things, to violent and aggressive behaviors towards women and other men, not asking for help to avoid showing “weakness” (which can affect mental and physical health) or repressing emotions, which in turn can lead to lack of empathy and difficulty establishing healthy interpersonal relationships. Now, a new study published in the journal Psychology of Men & Masculinities Men have shorter life expectancies in countries where it is strongly believed that masculinity is difficult to obtain and easy to lose. On average, women tend to live longer than men worldwide. The difference is estimated to be approximately four years and among the reasons are that, in general, women tend to have healthier lifestyles, with fewer habits such as smoking and excessive drinking; And they tend to seek medical attention more quickly than men when they have health problems. But that difference seems to be related, too, to hegemonic masculinity. In the above-mentioned study, researchers surveyed 33,417 men from 62 countries about their beliefs about masculinity and, in particular, whether they consider masculinity to be something to be earned and maintained through the demonstration of control, strength and dominance. They then compared those data with men’s health behaviors (smoking, heavy drinking, problematic substance use, contact with poisonous animals) and associated health risks (lung cancer, deaths from liver cirrhosis, drowning, death from contact with poisonous animals, traffic accidents, etc.). In countries most likely to view manhood as a hard-won and easily lost social status (known as “precarious masculinity”), men had higher rates of risky health behaviors and shorter life expectancies, compared to countries where the trend is lower. Specifically, men lived an average of 6.69 years less and 6.17 fewer healthy years in countries with higher precarious masculinity compared to those with lower beliefs that masculinity is easy to lose.” The present study found evidence that a single gender belief is related to health habits of people in countries representing more than 80% of the world’s population. While previous research linked masculinity to health, this is the first study, and the largest in scale, to show that a basic belief about the nature of masculinity can have far-reaching implications for men around the world,” the research team wrote. While we must be cautious in drawing causal conclusions from the data, and health outcomes are complex and multi-determined, we hope these results will act as a catalyst for research that further breaks down these associations.”  

Original source in Spanish