Spare me another explainer on the crisis of masculinity—especially after we just saw how it played out on the battlefield.
This past fortnight, we witnessed a terrifying display of ‘manhood’ expressed through a series of ‘fitting replies’ between two hyper-masculine nations, egged on by their shadow militaries. I’m not talking about those on the ground, but of the dangerous armies on social media who were convinced they could demolish each other with hate speech.
When the editor of a news magazine said she found the use of the word ‘sindoor’ offensive because she thought it “reeks of patriarchy, ownership of women, ‘honour’ killings, chastity, sacralising the institution of marriage, and similar Hindutva obsessions”, all hell broke loose.
A young woman, who lost her naval officer husband in the Pahalgam terror attack, was targeted because she said she didn’t want people to go against Muslims or Kashmiris. A foreign secretary and his family were threatened because he said that criticising one’s government in such times is a “hallmark of an open and functioning democracy"—or perhaps because he was faulted for India partaking in the ceasefire—who even knows?
Pakistani army personnel strutted and spewed. But our Prime Minister’s post-war speech talked of destroying, damaging, and eliminating. To live in peace, India needs to be powerful and use its power, the Prime Minister said, invoking Buddha. Then he released a photo of himself against S-400 surface-to-air missiles.
Masculinity in Meltdown
The backlash against women speaking up has been a tidal wave. I thought we had witnessed the crest of the toxic masculinity wave when the US elected Donald Trump as its leader and armed itself against women with a posse of predators whose manic followers, far from seeing us as their equal, got a rush chanting ‘your body, my choice’. I’m conjuring an image of a Neanderthal hoisting a woman plaything on his shoulder.
But then Kayne West released a hit single titled ‘Heil Hitler’ and Trump announced on social media that he had solved the Indo-Pak war. Who knows what the crisis of masculinity will bring next.
West, the ‘wronged-by-a-woman’ rapper, sang:
So I became a Nazi, yeah, bitch, I’m the villain ... .With all of the money and fame I still can’t get my kids back… so I became a Nazi.
Chorus: Nigga, Heil Hitler.
Now I understand that this is only the beginning. Expect a new normal, a new crest, a new level of macho every day. A survey of 24,000 people across 30 nations found that Gen Z rolls its eyes at gender equality.
The whole equality babble has gone too far, those surveyed said, and that’s exactly why men are being discriminated against. In short, it’s all our fault.
Masculinity as the New Victimhood
Even those that try to speak up against this culture can inadvertently miss the target. For all its excellence, Adolescence, that hit show of 2025 about the toxic manosphere, ignored Katie Leonard, the teenage victim. Nobody even notices the absence of her story except one detective who’s upset because it feels like “Katie isn’t important. Jamie is. Everyone will remember Jamie, no one will remember her.”
Not meeting the victim is the easiest way to make her a mere statistic in the gender war playing out across the world. In Adolescence, Katie is besides the point.
I empathise with male survivors of sexual violence and harassment. Women at least find the words to share their stories, men continue to grapple with their self-imposed Omerta and worry that the world might catch a glimpse of their ‘unmanly’ side, only showing a hint of what lies beneath when we talk about our trauma. Then they want to know why women aren’t discussing their pain.
Despite all the rape and violence that women face, all one reads about these days is masculine anxiety. It’s the gender equivalent of using the phrase ‘Hindu Khatre Mein Hai’ in a deeply Islamophobic country.
Ever wonder why, when a man accuses his wife of harassment before he dies of suicide, it is more newsworthy than when the opposite happens? To summarise the words of a journalism school professor, ‘Dog bites man’ is a boring headline but ‘Man bites dog’? Now, that is a headline that will make people sit up and notice.
Men who experience masculine anxiety won’t speak up if their colleagues make sexist comments against the women in their workplace, one study found. We are repeatedly told that our lives will improve if we can only placate male anxiety.
Indian courts asking rape survivors to marry their rapists is a classic example of survivors being told to make the best of their situation.
Who Carries the Consequences?
Men may shout and scream that they are the ones under attack, but in fact it is women who are fighting the toughest battles, even for basic autonomy over their own bodies.
Argentina has announced it plans to eliminate femicide from its penal code. The US overturned 50 years of hard work on abortion rights; Turkey banned C-sections; Iran won’t let us roam free with our heads uncovered; and China cold calls women to ask when they had their last period. Is any country policing the penis?
Across the world, women’s reproductive rights are under attack and we are being increasingly pressured to have more babies. In the eyes of the Taliban we are not even human, but that needs a separate column. At this rate, the 21st century dystopia conjured up by author Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale might be a too gentle vision of what lies ahead.
But I agree, men’s lives have become tougher. Poor men. They can no longer say or do anything they want. The days of Mad Men are over (or worse, they are coming back). Women are no longer letting everyday sexism pass. We don’t move on.
What alternative do men have than to embark on senseless wars and write hateful hit songs and overrun online platforms such as X with their angry inanities?
Is Elon Musk's kingdom the last place on earth where men can feel like real men?
We know that despite all the generations of opportunities and advantages men had—and continue to have—over women and marginalised groups, we can do better–in exams, in our jobs, in our relationships. Forgive us if we have no sympathy left for those men who were brought up to believe they are the best; that they can do no wrong; and that they are a gift to society and women.
The Exhaustion of Always Being First Responders
Why do you think women initiate breakups and divorces?
It’s because we feel relief and freedom when we flee toxic relationships. We know that our lives can be as or even more fulfilling in the absence of men and that’s what Korea’s 4B (no marriage, no kids, no dating, no sex) movement is all about. It may be one extreme of the fed-up-of-men spectrum, but it resonates with most women.
There’s a whole genre of dystopian fantasy books set in future worlds where men are rapidly going extinct, or women are living separately from men, or where men survive because women let them.
If you’re a man reading this, a particular annoying hashtag has likely crossed your mind. A lot was written about the #notallmen phenomenon, but the verdict on that was firmly decided when the gruesome details of the Gisele Pelicot case unfolded in France. Her rapists were, literally, all kinds of men.
Nobody’s saying the masculinity crisis is made up but why does it seem like women will have to take the lead to solve this one too? And yet, only women can find the solution to this epic crisis, this incredible widening of the gorge between the genders. Do we have the energy to add it to all the invisible, unacknowledged emotional labour we already do? More importantly, will we have to sacrifice our rage to appease this masculine madness?
Still a Man’s World
Women are pushing governments to speak up on our behalf. Last year, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was forced to call the violence against women a “national crisis”.
“We need to change the culture. We need to change attitudes. We need to change the legal system,” he said. “We need to change the approach of all governments because it’s not enough to support victims. We need to focus on the perpetrators and focus on prevention.”
In short, we need to change the world.
Who knows when or how that will happen. Meanwhile, my mother-in-law’s nursing aide wants leave to go home to Bihar to get engaged. She tells the story of a cousin who was on the verge of paying lakhs to a policeman groom to marry him, until someone discovered the man was unemployed.
In her village, no woman can marry without dowry. Men are doing us a favour by marrying us, you see. Another domestic worker’s husband hits her and threatens her that he will divorce her.
Some day women will have the last laugh, but for now it’s still a man’s world, however anxious or crisis-ridden the man may be. Who knows how many more wars we will have to fight before we reach a better place.
(The author is the founder of India Love Project and on the editorial board of Article 14. This is an opinion piece. All views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)