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What does it really mean to be a ‘man’? What does the ‘ideal’ form of ‘manliness’ look like in the modern world? Netflix’s gripping new three-part mini-series ‘Adolescence’ has been a much-needed wake-up call to a world that has not adequately addressed harm caused by patriarchal and chauvinistic notions of masculinity. It unpacks how the pressure to live up to these notions has and continues to alienate entire generations of young men who feel they’ll never be ‘man’ enough in the eyes of the world. It also spotlights the violence that occurs when the hate and vitriol of this insidious ‘manosphere’ are left to propagate unchecked.
I’ve always thought I’ve had a fairly healthy perception of masculinity. I’ve been lucky enough never to be burdened by the need to adhere to any one specific ideal. My dad was in and out of my life a lot growing up, and I was predominantly raised by my mother. My own version of ‘masculinity’ is what I learned from her. She showed me the importance of being empathetic, kind, caring, and even vulnerable, sure, but she also showed me how to do so while asserting yourself and taking charge.
My mother’s version of masculinity put honesty, integrity and personal responsibility above all else. It wasn’t about dominance or posturing or playing a mandated ‘role’. It wasn’t about the number of girls you slept with or how big your muscles were or even how popular you were. It was about taking responsibility for your actions as well as for the people around you. It was about stepping up, even when things are at their most difficult. It was about the integrity and strength of your mind and your heart. As a result, I was, by and large, pretty comfortable being exactly who I was.
This past week, I spoke to some of the men in my life, across my colleagues, family, and friends, to ask them about how they perceive modern masculinity. Are there spaces in which they can be vulnerable? Are there men in their lives who they can be vulnerable with? Do they feel the pressure to uphold any specific notions of masculinity? Lastly, how do they see young men in society today protecting themselves from the same harmful cycles of masculinity that we all experienced growing up?
For Dev Sharma* (name changed to protect anonymity), a 24-year-old visual artist and filmmaker, masculinity is a social bane, as is the gender binary. “While I was growing up, it felt like something to strive towards,” explains Dev. “It was something that was the status quo and something that needed to be ‘achieved’ or something you needed to ‘be’.” Dev affirms that he’s now at a point where he actively tries to steer clear of notions of masculinity as well as the gender binary as a whole.
For Vaaswat, a 27-year-old marketing professional, masculinity refers to the classical Greek definition of the concept, which encompasses traits such as logic, strength, diligence, etc. He says that it’s a culmination of mental and physical attributes, but it has nothing to do with your sex specifically. “At the same time, masculinity during this time was also a lot about self-restraint,” explains Vaaswat. “Just because you’re strong does not mean you can’t also be gentle. This is something that I still feel is relevant and helpful in modern society.”
According to Vaaswat, modern society has taken the Homeric understanding of masculinity and used it as a form of advertisement to mandate the ideal look and behaviour for an archetypal man in society.
Harmful notions of masculinity include stereotypes like ‘men should never show emotion’. The pressure and the sheer insanity of living up to these outdated and irrational societal expectations of masculinity can have a detrimental impact on the overall well-being of men in society.
Dev says he sees traces of this with his own father, who, despite being more communicative and expressive than a typical Indian father, still has issues being truly vulnerable. According to Dev, this is indicative of how masculinity is perpetrated in India. He also had his own experiences with toxic instances of masculinity while in middle school. “I had a meeker voice, higher voice and because of that, people used to call me a derogatory term that’s typically used to describe the Hijra community in India.” The abuse eventually got to Dev after a point, and he actively found himself forcing himself to speak in a deeper voice, something he says had a detrimental impact on his vocal cords.
Jay, a 21-year-old visual artist and freelance designer, says that he’s felt the pressure of living up to particular ideals of masculinity as he’s entered adulthood. "I’ve noticed that there’s an unspoken pressure to embody certain traits and carry a sense of authority, much like my father," expains Jay. “I admire how he balances being assertive without being aggressive,” says Jay. “It’s a quality I see as a positive expression of masculinity, though it’s often misunderstood by many.”
For Drishya, a 27-year-old writer and photographer, masculinity represents an outdated, patriarchal lens of looking at what it means to be a man and everything we now consider as progressive, healthy, or ‘soft’ masculinity — such emotional intelligence and sensitivity, empathy, vulnerability, and an emphasis on open communication — are, in fact, conventionally ‘feminine’ traits.
“My understanding of masculinity — and gender at large — changed significantly when I began reading more women authors in my late teens and early 20s,” he explains. “Reading Bell Hooks’, ‘The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love’, in my early 20s was a particularly transformative experience in this ongoing process of learning more about masculinity — especially how patriarchal masculinity limits men’s emotional growth and ability to love, preventing men from fully expressing themselves and forming genuine connections.”
When I was younger, masculinity meant being a tough, rebellious guy — the kind of dude with a fast black car, who smoked cigarettes, drank, got into fights, made money, and had multiple girlfriends,” says Asad Ajaz, a 31-year-old Account Director. “Now, masculinity feels more like independence; being able to stand on my own two feet, both financially and emotionally. I don’t rely on anyone. I can cook, clean, and be happy in my own company.
Vaaswat feels that the common refrain and stereotype of men never showing emotion is something that needs to be unlearned. He also feels it’s categorically untrue in most cases. “Men are equally emotional if not more,” he says. “A few days ago, I watched a comedy skit that said, ‘If men weren’t emotional, we wouldn’t have the Cold War!’ Men are equally dramatic. That’s why it’s hard to draw such a clear-cut binary between masculine and feminine.”
Vaaswat goes on to say, “Every man I know has been harmed by the toxic aspects of masculinity. I think it’s about unlearning the language and behaviour that inhabit stereotypically masculine spaces.” He points to his experiences playing football and the phenomenon of players often equating scoring a goal to hooking up with a woman, explaining that he sometimes saw the performative masculinity displayed by players on the team evolving into harmful behaviours such as catcalling.
“I’ve felt the pressure of those outdated ideas plenty of times,” says Asad. “Back in school, I was great at sports but terrible at academics. I actually won a bunch of medals state and national level as a swimmer, but I could never bring them home to show my dad. I was too scared of being yelled at. To this day, almost 20 years later, he still doesn’t know about those wins.”
For Asad, the lack of support led him to give up on sports, and he still feels the effects of being forced to conform to a specific ideal of masculinity today. “Even when I achieve something big, I don’t share it with anyone. I guess I’m just used to keeping things to myself.”
These experiences are not isolated incidents. Our own notions of masculinity are often reinforced when we’re outside our personal bubbles, particularly when we’re in schools, surrounded by peers and classmates from a wide variety of backgrounds. What we’re exposed to during this time can reinforce or weaken existing perceptions of our own masculinity and, by extension, our own sense of worth.
This is why it becomes all the more important for men to have a place, space, or person that they can go to in order to be vulnerable and express themselves; somewhere they can exist unfettered by the weight of society’s expectations of them.
As Dev grows up, he says he’s feeling less and less connected to men and far more of a kinship with women. As a result, he also feels that he can’t be truly vulnerable with any man in his life. “I feel like I’m not surrounded by the right men; men who’d be open to seeing me express my emotions,” says Dev. “I have male friends who have a liberal set of values, but I still feel like they’re a little stoic. Having said that, there are men in my life who are lovely. I feel like we’re collectively challenging the notion of masculinity together in our own little ways and I think that’s really important.”
Dev credits his partner, someone he’s been with since he was 18, for his emotional growth. “She challenged me to open up better, and I took the time to listen to her and act on it. It’s difficult for sure, but it gave me a lot of insight about myself.” Along with her influence, he says that therapy and journaling provide him with another avenue for vulnerability.
Vaaswat agrees with Dev’s view and affirms that the best conversations he’s had pertaining to his own masculinity have been with women. “I’ve grown up in an all-woman household and even now the closest people to me are my sisters and my partner,” he explains. Just like with Dev, while a lot of his friends are men, he does not feel that the men in his life have the emotional depth or the range to talk about things that are emotionally wrought or personal, although he puts this down to societal conditioning. “Men have been conditioned to just shut up and take it all. You’re supposed to just earn money and shut up. You’re not supposed to express anything. You take it till you break, and I’ve seen it break some of my friends.”
Drishya mirrors Vaaswat and Dev’s perspectives and says that there are currently no men in his life who he feels like he can reach out to for support in times of emotional crises. “In a way, I suppose my disappointment with the older men in my life is what disillusioned me with conventional masculine values and made me want to be someone the younger men in my life could reach out to.”
“My cousin-brother is the one person I can always turn to,” says Asad. “We’ve been close since we were three years old and grew up in the same chaos, just fighting different battles.”
“Whenever I feel the need to be vulnerable, I’m grateful to have a strong support system in my friends and family,” adds Jay. “I’ve been blessed with people who allow me to express myself, and I make it a priority to be there for them as they are for me.”
Beyond providing safe spaces for men and ensuring that they know it’s okay for them to express themselves to other people, is there anything else we need to do as a society? How does India as a country collectively move towards a point where men across all walks of life can live their lives without being haunted by the spectre of toxic masculinity?
The more insidious aspects of modern masculinity are so deeply entrenched in our culture as a whole that it’s impossible not to be affected and shaped by them in some way. Looking back at the last 30 years of my life, there have been pivotal moments where I’ve been influenced by my own fears, insecurities, and doubts; where I’ve given in to that all-pervasive toxicity and not lived up to my own ideals of what a man should be and do.
Despite my upbringing and the best efforts of my mother and all the women who’ve raised me, there have been times when I’ve been horrible to women in my life; where I’ve knowingly and unknowingly acted without concern for their feelings and their boundaries; where I’ve consistently selfishly put my needs and feelings above theirs. Despite everything I was taught and what I thought I believed about masculinity, I’ve made mistakes. How do we stop future generations from making the same mistakes?
Dev’s perspective is a little bit of a hot take by his own admission, but it’s definitely food for thought. “I feel like not just men, but all kids should have restricted internet access until the age of 13,” he explains, “and even after 13, it should be filtered. If hadn’t actively questioned some of the things I saw growing up, I think I would have 100 percent fallen into an incel or Alt-right pipeline. The internet is a huge enabler of these movements, and creating healthier spaces for children and men is very important.”
Dev also feels that destigmatising both Queer and Feminist allyship will allow for more empathetic men overall but emphasises that this must be done in a way that means that they sit and listen rather than co-opting these movements for their own ends.
Asad also has a refreshingly honest take on this and maintains that a large amount of responsibility for toxic traits has to rest on the parents of young men. “I’ve always wondered: why don’t we have checks in place for people before they become parents? To drive a car, you need to pass multiple tests. But anyone can have a child, no questions asked. And the consequences of bad parenting? They last a lifetime.”
Vaaswat feels that, regardless of their parents, future generations are better equipped to deal with patriarchy than his generation ever was. He feels that while toxic masculinity still very much exists, we’re far better placed to address it than we were even a few decades ago. He uses his experiences with his younger cousin and brother to illustrate this. “They don’t ascribe themselves to any sort of a binary when it comes to masculinity or performative masculinity, and I definitely have more hope for future generations than I do for my own.”
“I do believe that mocking, lampooning, and openly making fun of bad male role models (those who promote sexist, racist, bigoted ‘traditional’ values) will deter younger men from looking up to them,” adds Drishya. “If there’s one thing I know about men, it’s this: no man wants to identify with a loser.”
A large part of being a man in India 2025 is acknowledging, reflecting, learning, and unlearning the toxic traits and behaviours that still make up far too much of contemporary masculinity. It’s clear that we’re nowhere close to being done, but I think it’s imperative we stop trying to push it under the rug and pretend the problem doesn’t exist. Toxic masculinity may never completely disappear, but it’s on us to do better every single day.
