Older "straight men" have no friends, this is a serious study

In 2014, Emma Watson launched a campaign called "HeForShe" in her speech at the United Nations, calling on everyone, including men, to fight against unfair treatment due to gender. This campaign hopes to convey to everyone the idea that "gender equality is not only for women's rights, but also for men's rights."

HeForShe is a solidarity campaign launched by the United Nations Entity for the Promotion of Gender Equality | Wikipedia

The traditional differential treatment of men and women or gender bias not only constrains women, but also traps men in the so-called "masculinity".

Men are often asked to take on more responsibilities, but they are also asked not to expose their weaknesses easily. As the saying goes, "Men don't cry easily." Men must appear to be "strong, independent, and self-reliant" to meet society's expectations of them. Young men who can meet these requirements do gain certain conveniences in life.

Image | giphy

But as they get older, even men who once met these conditions will gradually find it difficult to do so. And those men who accepted these principles when they were young will also encounter some problems, such as interpersonal communication problems, if they continue to hold themselves to such "high standards" when they are older.

A recent study shows that the more older men identify with so-called "masculinity", the more likely they are to lack good friends with whom they can confide.

Image | giphy

Celeste Campos-Castillo, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and four other researchers published a paper in the journal Sex Roles to discuss whether "hegemonic masculinity" affects the friendships of older adults.

The so-called hegemonic masculinity refers to the practice of legitimizing men's dominant position in society, such as "men should have the final say at home" and "men should act like men".

The research data they selected came from questionnaires returned by the same group of research subjects in 2004 and 2011 respectively. The participants were mainly elderly white men, which made their research somewhat limited. However, considering that this research originally involved hegemonic masculinity, which is often associated with white middle-class men, it can be considered targeted.

What is also relatively novel is that this is the first study to treat hegemonic masculinity as a spectrum, or a range, rather than simply dividing it into "male or female", "femininity or masculinity".

Men must appear "strong, autonomous, and self-reliant" to meet society's expectations of them | pixabay

In the end, the researchers obtained 2,536 male samples and 2,951 female samples. On average, men were more likely than women to believe that men should have the final say (2.71 to 2.33), but women were four times more likely to have one or more close friends.

Through sample analysis, researchers found that the higher the older men's scores on male hegemony, the less likely they are to have close friends; and the higher the score, the less likely they are to have friends in both their circle of friends and their circle of relatives and friends. In other words, the more "straight male cancer" an older man is, the harder it is for him to make good friends.

The higher the older men scored on hegemonic masculinity, the less likely they were to have close friends | giphy

To make matters worse, because men tend to make friends at work when they are young, retirement and declining health make them more likely to lose this social circle. As a result, some older men are more likely to be in a state of no one to talk to, and thus unable to get effective support and help when dealing with physical and mental stress.

It is really difficult to change a person's mind, which may be more difficult than convincing them that "social isolation is harmful to health." This study is just a starting point. I hope that more research will be conducted in the future to help those who have been harmed by "being a real man" throughout their lives and help them develop truly healthy social skills.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get rid of the burden of being a “real man” and be a happy, healthy “person”?

References:

Campos-Castillo, C., shuster, stef M., Groh, SM, & Anthony, DL (2020). Warning: Hegemonic Masculinity May Not Matter as Much as You Think for Confidant Patterns among Older Men. Sex Roles. doi:10.1007/s11199-020-01131-3

Author: Shanchu

Editor: Yakumo

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