Caring Masculinities: Is This the Answer?

Caring practices as a path to gender equality.

Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

Key points

• Masculinity is an outdated concept that has outlived its usefulness.
• Caring masculinity embraces the values of care.
• Embracing the values of care by men can be a path to gender equality.

Since the women’s movement of the 1970s, there has been an increasing tendency to identify and describe an ever-growing number of different "masculinities," such as inclusive masculinity, caring masculinity, toxic masculinity, flexible masculinity, and hegemonic masculinity.¹ The study of men is at risk of becoming a study of typologies of masculinities.

Masculinity and femininity are concepts of a certain historical era that have outgrown their usefulness. Women and men have been thought of as having fundamentally different and complementary characteristics, most frequently measured in psychological traits. In addition, the relationship structure between men and women has been hierarchical, with men in the dominant position.

Recent efforts to define masculinity are studying what is called caring masculinities. Sociologist Karla Elliott proposes that caring masculinities are masculine identities that reject domination and its associated traits and embrace the values of care such as positive emotion, interdependence, and relationality.² Men’s practice of caring is theorized to lead to fundamentally different ways for men and women to relate to each other in public and private places.

A Short History of Masculinity and Femininity

For much of human history, “femininity” and “masculinity” were unknown terms. In the 19th and 20th centuries, scholars and researchers began using these constructions to describe how people conform to or transgress gendered expectations.³ Masculinity and femininity are a way of thinking about men and women that has become so widely accepted that it seems like a natural or inherent part of life rather than a new or novel idea.

Our concepts of masculinity and femininity came along with the separation of men and women into "separate spheres" of living that the Industrial Revolution produced. The feminist movement brought masculinity to the forefront of sociological and psychological study. Raewyn Connell and her colleagues popularized the study of "masculinities."⁴ Connell reminds us that "masculinity" as we now use it is a recent historical product.

Two Buckets Into Which We Sort Human Traits

One couple’s coach coined the idea that masculine and feminine "buckets" can become a shorthand for two constellations of human traits.⁵ Attributing any positive quality to one "bucket," masculine or feminine, denies that quality to the other "bucket."

Masculine and feminine personality traits are sorted into two different, and theoretically opposite, complementary buckets. Personality traits, in theory, tell us how a person thinks, feels, and acts. They are theorized to be relatively stable and enduring aspects of a person, supporting the idea that there are "essential" masculinities and femininities.

Caring Practices Can Change Gender Equality

In the past decade, the concept of "caring masculinities" has become increasingly important in studying men and masculinities.⁶ Scholarly attention to boys’ and men’s avoidance of care began appearing in policy documents across Europe and the United Kingdom in the early 2000s. The use of the term in the United Kingdom promoted the rejection of violence and "laddish" behavior in boys and embraced the open expression of feeling without embarrassment. Scholarly approaches to caring masculinities included challenging the perception of caring as a gender-related responsibility and an undervalued societal activity.

Niall Hanlon’s early research on men’s care in the home in Ireland furthered caring masculinity as a core aspect of social life.⁷ This work is one of the most comprehensive accounts of caring masculinities. This qualitative research demonstrated that caring practices could create more caring men. The European approach to caring masculinity supported caring masculinities as an apt concept to shape the way toward gender equality.

In 2015, Karla Elliott introduced a practice-based theoretical framework for caring masculinities that included the following⁸:

• The integration of values of care such as positive emotions, interdependence, and relationality, into masculine identities.
• The study of caring masculinities as "practice-based" refers to men’s doing care work.
• The actual practices of care by men can potentially change men’s views on gender equality.

For Elliott, “…caring masculinities is a critical form of men’s engagement in gender equality and the potential of men’s care practices to lead to change”.⁹

Studying the impact of men engaging in caring practices is important. One limitation is attaching a positive human quality—namely, caring—to the construct of masculinity. One researcher noted, “…why must caring…become “masculine” and not simply just be caring.”¹⁰ Jeff Hearn, a British sociologist who studies men and masculinities, also asks why it is necessary to hang onto the concept of masculinity rather than study men’s practices (i.e., how they act with women and other men).¹¹

Two Areas Men’s Caring Will Make a Difference

1. Men can and should participate in the care economy.

As Richard V. Reeves, British-American writer and scholar tells us, “Men can heal.” Reeves has written a new book, Of Boys and Men, in which he discusses why modern men are struggling, why it matters, and what to do about it.¹² Getting men into HEAL (health, education, administration, and literacy) professions would be good for them and the professions because these are the growing professions. Two HEAL professions, health and education, are caring professions, which have been women-dominated industries. Reeves calls for a massive national effort to get men to move into the growing HEAL industries equal to supporting women getting into STEM occupations. Practicing caring in one’s profession is a path to the well-being of the individual and a path to greater gender equality.

2. Gender equity starts in the home.

Psychologists David Smith and W. Brad Johnson report that during the COVID-19 pandemic, more men in dual-earning full-time couples shared more fully in domestic duties for an extended period.¹³ They note that this experience created a sea change in gendered norms. Women they interviewed for their book, Good Guys: How Men Can be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace, told them that gender equality at work starts with men becoming equal partners at home. They found that when men genuinely practice equal partnership at home, it accelerates gender equality at work in three ways:

• Women with equal partners at home are more successful at work.
• Fathers who are domestic equal partners demonstrate equity for their children.
• Men who equally share unpaid work at home are not afraid to ask for and talk about why they need flexibility in their work schedule.

Rethinking the Relationship Between Men and Women

By weaning ourselves away from defining human qualities in terms of masculinity and femininity, we can get a new perspective—a perspective that sees men and women as human beings (i.e., they are the same), and we can also notice that they are different sexes.

The schematic represents the idea that the relationship between men and women is tensional, that our common humanity is preserved despite our inherent sexual connection. This tensional perspective is like having a stereoscopic view of women and men. We are inextricably connected by our sex while at the same time remaining separate human individuals.

Maintaining the perspective that men and women are humans while being different is fundamental to having an equal relationship. Focusing on the difference between men and women that is grounded in their sexuality has given us gender hegemony (i.e., the control men have and have had over women and society).¹⁴

Let’s stop attaching positive human qualities, like caring, to masculinity or femininity. Encouraging men to engage in caring can be a path to greater equality between men and women.