In the #MeToo era, what does it mean to be a ‘real man’?
Dave Fishman has spent a lot of time pondering what it means to be a man during his four years in college.
He’s a 6-foot-5-inch, 240-pound senior at Richmond College, the all-male coordinate college at the University of Richmond in Virginia. And as a student leader who heads the college’s interfraternity council, he admits that he can sometimes cut an imposing figure with his brush-cut haircut, “huge eyebrows,” and generally conservative “military style.”
But like many Millennial men, Mr. Fishman, who is also a former congressional intern, has been consciously trying to break free of what he and others sometimes call the “man box,” an elusive but deeply-ingrained set of social expectations that have generally defined American manhood for generations.
As a former athlete who spends a lot of time with fraternity members, he’s no stranger to what he calls “macho” culture and its expectations: A man should be tough and aggressive, master his
From ‘toxic masculinity’ to ‘no masculinity’A ‘real man’ or a good one?