[Big Think] Masculinity is in crisis.

Who’s to blame - Michael Kaufman

If you went out onto the street and asked most men about their power,
________________________________________
and, say, 'Power? Me? Are you kidding?'

So _________________________________ between the real world of men's power,

that still exists ____________________________________,
and the experience of individual men?

Well I think it's a few things.

One is that when we have forms of privilege or power _____________________________.

As a man I don't have to think about certain things.

I don't have to think about if I'm 30 years old going in for a job interview
and someone thinking, 'Oh, 30 years old, he's probably going to become pregnant.'

Even though, these days, of course, ________________________________________.

There's a lot of ways that men still have power it's often __________ to us.

But I think there's also something even more interesting,

and that's what I think of as the ____________ of men's power.

The ways that we have defined men's power, the ways we ________________________,
come with a set of expectations that ________________________________.

You know, we're supposed to be strong and powerful, _________________,

you know, make money, __________________________,
have incredibly ______________________ like a Marvel cartoon,
not show feelings, not have feelings.

And we punish boys, we punish boys for showing those feelings, for showing emotions.
You know, a boy _________________ and cries
and you know we ________________________, 'big boys don't cry, don't be a baby.'

And so we just __________ boys and men for not living up to these impossible expectations
and _________________________________.

And yet as individual men we just ___________, well, that's what a man is.
And so there's this internal dialogue of ___________________
about _____________________________________.

And you know _____________________________ is

_____________________________.

And I don't just mean _______________.

I mean, you know, men die younger than women because we don't go for help,
we don't go to doctors, we don't get emotional support.

Men are more likely to be addicted to __________ and other drugs,

are more likely to ________________, we're more likely to _______________________,
we're more likely to ________________________.

So all these different things are the result of a ______________________ society.

It's a strange _____________.

Can you imagine designing a world yourself in which your half of the species
had more power, had more control, ran social institutions, ran religions, ran the economy,
and you __________________ in a way that
you'd also die younger, you'd also have all these personal failings?

Now there are some men these days who _____ women on the _______ that men are facing.
There's some men who say, you know, the __________________________________,
men are the real __________.

I don't buy it. I don't buy it at all.

I don't think women are to blame for the pain, the plight, that men do feel.

They've been ____________________________ a set of promises and expectations.

You know, if you do all these things,
if you just ____________________, if you just be a man you'll ___________________.

You know, you'll be rewarded with jobs and sex and _____________________ \or
whatever it might be.

Well, the world doesn't work like that.

It doesn't work like that period, but it particularly doesn't work like that ___________.
The world has changed.
And so men can't just come along ____________,
well, it's still going to just ________________________.

I mean,
we've had this 8,000 or 10,000 year long _________________________ program for men,
and _________________________________.

You know, men haven't had to compete with half of the species for jobs,
for positions of power or influence.

We've gotten to ___________________________ and _______________________.

And the ________________________________________.

And it's not women to blame. It's not women to blame.

It's the society that _____________________________ in the first place.