Get the data on GitHub GitHub data at data/masculinity-survey
Headlines this year have been rife with allegations of sexual harassment against many high-profile men. At the same time, an ongoing national reckoning over gender disparities in the workplace, the patriarchal social system and the role of masculinity in society are calling into question long-standing gender norms.
Along with WNYC Studios’ “Death Sex & Money” podcast, we wanted to know: What does it all mean for how men feel about being men?
FiveThirtyEight and WNYC partnered with SurveyMonkey for a nationwide survey of 1,615 adults who identify as men. 1 We asked respondents to reflect on their ideas of masculinity, workplace culture and intimacy, among other things. The results: A majority of men in the workplace say they haven’t rethought their on-the-job behavior in the wake of #MeToo; a little more than half of men feel it’s at least somewhat important that others see them as masculine; and nearly half of all men say they sometimes or often feel lonely or isolated.
WNYC also interviewed men about their thoughts on masculinity for this week’s episode of “Death, Sex & Money,” which you can listen to below.
Here are some of the most striking findings from the survey:
Feeling masculine or manly is part of a majority of men’s identities in 2018: When asked how masculine or “manly” they generally feel, 83 percent of men said they felt “very” or “somewhat” masculine. But many fewer, 53 percent, said it was very or somewhat important that others see them that way.
A majority of men, 64 percent, said their father or a father figure was a source of their ideas about what it means to be a good man. At 41 percent, mothers 2 came in second. Many also cited religion. There were, however, some generational differences: Pop culture was a source of inspiration for an understanding of manhood for younger men (42 percent of those age 18 to 34), while only 17 percent of men 35 to 64 and 12 percent of men 65 and over said the same.
Sixty percent of men agreed that society puts pressure on men in a way that is unhealthy or bad. And the younger a man was, the more likely he was to believe that.
But while most respondents were in agreement that society puts negative pressure on men, they differed on the form that pressure takes. One respondent said there are “too many unnatural ‘macho’ expectations and too little emphasis on nurturing skills,” while another believed there is “too much emphasis on finding our feelings.”
We also asked men about their persistent worries. Most men said they had some daily concerns, weight and finances chief among them.
