How lessons from caregivers can fix the masculinity crisis in America today
What does it mean to be a man? Piles of books attest that too many men today feel displaced — unsure what masculinity is “supposed” to look like in a world reshaped by feminism.
Many don’t know how they’re expected to act or who they’re supposed to be, especially in relation to women.
The masculinity crisis has serious repercussions: men and boys are falling behind in school and the workplace, dying by suicide at four times the rate of females, and making up the majority of overdose deaths and other “deaths of despair.”
Certain political figures, “bro culture,” and the online “manosphere” want to drag men backward — to a narrow idea of manhood defined by dominance over women and suppression of emotion.
But changing gender roles and the valuing of emotional intelligence are here to stay. Their retrograde vision of masculinity not only traps men and women in outdated roles — it shortens men’s lives.
Examples of ‘positive masculinity’ abound
Although some blame feminism for pushing males aside while increasing support for females, public intellectual and author Richard V. Reeves argues in “Of Boys and Men” that feminism didn’t go far enough to help men liberate themselves from the emotional crippling inflicted by patriarchy.
As the late feminist author bell hooks wrote in “The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love,” “Feminist writing did not tell us about the deep inner misery of men.”
So, what is the solution for today’s and tomorrow’s men? Where are the role models who embody positive masculinity — rooted in the best traditional, decidedly non-toxic masculine qualities?
Men who demonstrate courage, dependability, duty, honor, loyalty, resourcefulness, respect and responsibility?
These qualities have long been held up as standards of true manhood. The U.S. Army calls them “Army values.” They are manly virtues — what it looks like to be a man at his best.
It turns out these role models are hiding in plain sight among the nearly 24 million men in America whom AARP in a 2025 report estimates are providing “informal” care to a loved one.
Add to that the growing number of hands-on dads and men working as professional caregivers in “pink-collar” jobs like nursing and home care — fields once considered “women’s work.”
Men possess ‘ancient caretaking tendencies’
The COVID-19 pandemic got everyone thinking about caregiving, receiving and what it means to depend on others. It opened a long-overdue discussion about who can be a caregiver and how vital they are.
Now it’s time to talk about male caregivers and how they can help men and boys embrace their natural caregiving qualities — while demonstrating the best of masculinity in the process — and also meet the nation’s growing need for caregivers.
Even serious scientists say men are built for this role. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an evolutionary anthropologist and primatologist renowned for her studies of motherhood, writes in her 2024 book “Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies” about her own surprise at discovering men’s natural capacity for nurturing.
“My unexpected finding,” Hrdy writes, “is that inside every man there lurk ancient caretaking tendencies that render a man every bit as protective and nurturing as the most committed mother.”
In an interview for the book I am developing on male caregivers and the masculinity crisis, Dr. Hrdy told me, “I do now believe that men have innate caretaking inclinations where babies are concerned, and that men may be nurtured, socialized, or undergo experiences that render them prone to care for babies — as well as others — and to care about the environments those others will inhabit.”
Nurture and socialize boys in a healthy way
Whether they’re hands-on dads, caring for an ill spouse, helping a frail elderly parent, comforting a patient as an oncology nurse, or being a “buddy” to a terminally ill man in the early years of the AIDS pandemic — male caregivers show us what it looks like when men act from a place of positive masculinity, putting another person’s needs ahead of their own.
These men offer role models for healing American men and boys caught in the push for a return to the dark days of patriarchal dominance. They remind us that empathy, protection, and responsibility are masculine strengths, not weaknesses.
One of the best things we can do to raise the “army” of caregivers America will need in the years ahead, is nurture and socialize boys to embrace their caregiving instincts as a natural part of being a man — rather than shutting them down as “unmanly.”
By teaching boys to aspire to “Army values,” worthy masculine values, we can help heal the masculinity crisis and meet the nation’s growing need for care.
John-Manuel Andriote is an Atlanta-based author and longtime health and medical journalist. He is working on a book, tentatively titled “America’s Strong Men: How Male Caregivers Are Healing Masculinity and Supporting an Aging Nation.”
