By Tessa Thwaites

Novelty items and male-targeted branding abound to protect fragile masculinity: from tumblr’s “menswear dog” to grenade-shaped bath bombs to bacon-scented candles. Although these items superficially appear to be simple jokes, they may actually reflect insidious experiences of what Joseph Vandello from the University of Southern Florida describes as a culture of “precarious manhood”.

“Manhood” is a status, unlike womanhood, that must be socially proven, constantly monitored, and rigorously maintained. When manhood status is threatened, the individual must take reactive measures to re-establish their identity.

In the opening session of the inaugural Gender preconference at the SPSP Annual Convention, Vandello outlined a theoretical framework in which to situate these threats and reactions of masculinity, and through which to understand the complementary research of fellow panelists Donald Saucier from Kansas State University and Tori Brescoll of the Yale School of Management.

Vandello suggested that manhood status could be threatened in three ways. First, a man may perceive a threat to “prototypicality,” in which their representativeness of the concept “masculinity” is challenged (such as when they are given false feedback that their behaviors correspond to more effeminate prototypes).

Second, he may perceive a threat to “dominance,” wherein his superior status is challenged by, for example, being outperformed by a woman. This was demonstrated by Brescoll’s research in which men felt challenged when they had a woman boss in a typically male-dominated industry or role (such as a police chief).

Third, a man may perceive a threat to his “distinctiveness,” a challenge that extends beyond the individual to jeopardize the status of “masculinity” as a whole.

Each of these sources of threat results in a unique pattern of reactions to re-assert “masculinity.” Men may avoid feminine products or affiliations, or may actively derogate the seemingly threatening outgroup (whether females or homosexual males).

Alternatively, they may perform compensatory behaviors that re-assert their masculine credentials, a process Brescoll described as brandishing their “man card.” Saucier explained that such compensatory behaviors may often be problematic and include excessively aggressive acts used to “avenge” their precarious masculinity. However, Saucier also suggested that compensatory behaviors may sometimes have prosocial (although not entirely un-problematic) consequences when they lead men to assert themselves as “guardians” of women and family honor.

These conceptualizations of men’s reactions to threatened masculinity provide a new perspective on explaining the prevalence of sexist attitudes and behaviors. The novelty of this perspective, however, means that a number of questions remain for exploration.

For instance, what are the unique emotional mediators and reactive behaviors that arise after each type of threat? Are there other threats to masculinity perceived by men? And, finally, incorporating many of the recurring themes in the Gender preconference, how do these threats and reactions change for men of different races, sexual orientations, socioeconomic statuses and other intersectional identities?

Ultimately, it would seem that seeking to understand the psychological phenomena behind such novelties as bacon-scented candles and grenade-shaped bath bombs is a productive and pressing area of future research in social and personality psychology.


Tessa Thwaites, Columbia College Class of 2016, Columbia University