A recent study stopped me cold.
Researchers at King’s College London found that 31% of Gen Z men support traditional gender roles, including the belief that women should obey their husbands and that men should ‘try to be physically tough.’ And here’s the part that really rattled me: that number is 22 points higher than the percentage of Baby Boomers who hold those same views.
Let that sink in for a moment. The generation we raised is more traditional in their gender attitudes than our parents’ generation. More than their grandparents.’
As a Gen X feminist, I grew up believing – really believing – that the arc of progress was long but reliable. That by the time my sons were adults, equality would feel less like a fight and more like a foundation. Instead, I find myself watching a cultural backslide in real time, trying to figure out what I could have done differently, and honestly, what I can still do now. Because my sons are still becoming who they’re going to be. And so are yours.
The World Our Boys Are Growing Up In
I have two sons, and I have always felt the particular pressure of raising boys who are kind, respectful, and emotionally intelligent, which, if I’m being honest, required me to do some of my own growing along the way. Learning to model emotional regulation when you’re still figuring it out yourself is humbling work.
But here’s what I didn’t fully anticipate: how loud the competing voices would get.
The messages boys receive about masculinity today aren’t coming just from crotchety dads or locker room talk anymore. They’re coming from algorithms. From influencers with millions of followers who frame dominance as strength and empathy as weakness. From online communities that are specifically designed to cultivate resentment in young men who are still figuring out who they are.
My sons have grown into good men. Kind and compassionate men, actually, the kind who consider themselves feminists and would be genuinely offended to see themselves reflected in that statistic. And their friends, the ones I know, aren’t much different. So, my first reaction to that study wasn’t recognition. It was shock.
But I also know the water they’re swimming in. The algorithm doesn’t check whether your kid is already a good person before it serves up the next video. And I’m watching younger boys – friends’ sons, kids in my community – absorbing messages that my own sons mostly missed, or resisted, or were lucky enough to encounter later. The culture is loud, and it’s patient, and it’s aimed directly at boys who are still figuring out who they are.
That’s what keeps me up at night. Not my own kids, mostly, but rather the world they’re moving through, and the boys coming up behind them. That’s the world we’re parenting in.
What Psychologists Call It
Psychologists and sociologists often use the phrase ‘toxic masculinity’ to describe the harm caused by rigid cultural rules that tell boys they must always be tough, dominant, unemotional, and in control. It’s the ‘boys don’t cry’ message, extended and amplified, the idea that anything associated with vulnerability, empathy, or femininity is weakness.
The phrase doesn’t mean masculinity itself is toxic. It means that narrow, brittle definitions of manhood hurt everyone, including the boys forced to live inside them.
Social media has supercharged these messages. Boys who spend significant time online, whether on gaming platforms, discussion forums, or social media, encounter a version of masculinity that glorifies dominance and emotional suppression and frames women and equality movements as threats. For a teenage boy still figuring out where he fits in the world, those messages can feel clarifying. They offer a simple story: you are strong, or you are weak. You dominate, or you lose.
It’s a seductive story. And it’s a lie.
Signs Worth Paying Attention To
Exposure to these messages doesn’t automatically mean a boy will absorb them. Adolescence is a time of trying on ideas and identities…that’s developmentally normal, even healthy. But there are patterns worth noticing.
A shift in how he talks about girls and women. Comments that portray women as manipulative, inferior, or responsible for men’s frustrations often echo ideas from specific online spaces. One or two dismissive comments might be nothing. A pattern is something different.
Fixation on ‘alpha male’ status or dominance. Some corners of the internet are obsessed with dividing men into hierarchies – alpha, beta, ‘high value.’ If your son starts talking about people in terms of who’s dominant and who’s beneath them, that framing didn’t come from nowhere.
Rejection of his own emotional life. Healthy boys can learn that strength and vulnerability coexist. You can be tough and also cry at a good movie, or tell a friend you love them. Toxic masculinity teaches the opposite. If your son starts mocking vulnerability, shutting down emotionally, or insisting that feelings are for other people, it’s worth a gentle conversation.
Growing resentment toward equality or feminism. If he’s starting to talk as though gender equality somehow harms men, or that men are the real victims of a rigged system, those ideas are coming from somewhere specific. They don’t just materialize.
A ‘them versus us’ view of relationships. Perhaps the most concerning shift is when boys start framing relationships with girls, with women, or with the world as battles to be won or lost rather than connections to be built. That kind of thinking breeds isolation, not confidence.
None of this means your son is lost. It means he needs you.
What Parents Can Actually Do
Here’s what I keep coming back to: we still matter more than the algorithm. I have to believe that, and honestly, the research backs it up. Parents remain one of the most powerful influences in how boys understand themselves, their relationships, and the world.
Here’s what has helped in my own home:
Teach emotional intelligence early and keep at it. Boys who can name and express their emotions are better equipped for everything: friendships, relationships, conflict, life. In our house, we’ve tried to push past the basics (mad, sad, glad) and get more specific. There’s a tool called Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions that names eight core emotions and then maps their intensities; it’s a surprisingly useful thing to look at together with your kids.
Let them see how you handle your own relationships. My sons have learned more from watching me and their dad navigate disagreements respectfully – or sometimes poorly, and then repair it – than from anything I’ve said to them directly. We absorb what we witness far more than what we’re told.
Say something when you hear something. Misogynistic jokes, dismissive comments, degrading language…address them immediately. Calmly, directly, without making it a lecture. Silence reads as approval, and kids know it.
Ask about what they’re watching and who they’re following. Not as interrogation, but as genuine curiosity. What are the messages they’re hearing about what it means to be a man? Help them think critically about those messages rather than just absorbing them.
Expand their definition of strength. This is the one I feel most strongly about. Courage isn’t just charging into danger. It’s also telling a friend the truth. Apologizing when you’re wrong. Standing up for someone who’s being treated badly. Asking for help. Our boys deserve a bigger, more interesting definition of what it means to be strong.
The Goal Isn’t Shame; It’s Freedom
I want to be clear: I’m not raising my sons to feel guilty for being male, or to perform sensitivity as a kind of penance for the culture. Masculinity itself isn’t the problem. The problem is when narrow definitions of masculinity keep boys from becoming fully realized human beings.
My sons deserve better than that. Yours do too.
They deserve the freedom to be strong and kind, confident and tender, resilient and emotionally alive. They deserve to grow into men who respect women, really respect them, not as a performance, but because they’ve been shaped by people who showed them how. Men who respect themselves enough to know that vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s just human.
