They want masculinity

Lost on the wrong track to modern masculinity? A Bundeswehr soldier wants to catch the train

16 years ago, some Greens presented a manifesto in which they called for more feminist commitment from men. Now the Greens are debating a new men's manifesto entitled "Strong Men Take Responsibility - An Invitation for Modern Masculinity." A group led by co-federal chairwoman Franziska Brantner wrote it and calls for “a positive image of what good masculinity can be.” This is necessary because authoritarian movements make gender politics one of their most important issues. But does society still need an ideal of masculinity? Antje Schrupp demands that feminism should stick to its true promise: freedom instead of new norms. Jan Stich suggests giving the Antifa bully an update. Selin Gören doubts that men need guidance and an attractive identity offer in order to behave like empathetic, attentive fellow human beings.

Dear men, listen! Oh dear, what does feminism want from you now? Fear not, for a manifesto has been written for you. Finally it's about you, about your suffering - and a way out of it. At least as imagined by eleven men and three women from the Alliance 90/The Greens party. In the said manifesto, they call for “modern masculinity.” According to the diagnosis, feminism, with its criticism of masculinity, has created a void that is now being filled by woman-hating influencers like Andrew Tate and their “old�� images of masculinity. “We forgot to make an offer,” the manifesto says, apparently self-critically.

But a look at history shows that feminist achievements and women's insistence on their subject status have always been followed by resistance. No matter how nice an identity offer for men would have been, it probably wouldn't have smoothed things over. The question also arises as to why feminism, in which the woman (femina) is placed as its subject, should design an acceptable masculinity for men at all. But often the offended person exposes himself through the reflex of accusing the critic of not making constructive counter-suggestions.

Feminism does not necessarily include “modern masculinity,” but the world in which feminism is needed includes men.

The criticism in the manifesto, which was written mostly by men, presents itself as self-criticism - only to then boldly state, based on the principle of arrogating authority through self-accusation: "Modern masculinity is also part of feminism." The authors design themselves as feminist comrades-in-arms in order to be able to legitimately make demands on what appears to be their own movement. But the movement for the emancipation of women does not in itself require masculinity. On the contrary: traditional norms of masculinity are characteristics of the order from which feminism wants to liberate women. However, boldness does not preclude being right, because the Greens are actually on to something at this point.

Because no matter how male-free and female-centered you may define feminism as a movement, its reality is the hierarchical gender order. Otherwise it wouldn't even have to exist. In other words: If you don't want to wipe all the men off the earth, you just have to reckon with them. Feminism does not necessarily include “modern masculinity,” but the world in which feminism is needed includes men. The authors of the manifesto apparently found it difficult to distinguish between men and masculinity. People actually thought they had understood for a long time that both femininity and masculinity are social constructs that support certain social organizational models. However, this lapse fits all too well into a time in which gender identity is confused with gender and the corresponding identity markers have primarily become currency in the political field. Behaving sensibly as a man is therefore not enough: the identification factor “man” itself still needs to be given a positive boost.

At this point, Antje Schrupp criticized that the green manifesto overlooked the fact that men were never a collective political subject. What unsettles young men today is that they “have no idea what a male gender identity is supposed to entail. Because men, they're just people." Schrupp thinks that men see themselves as universal subjects, but they only understand women as a sexual being. An observation that she borrows from Simone de Beauvoir and with which one would initially like to agree. However, the realization that men are only human is something that many of them have yet to realize. And the manifesto is already on the right track in this regard when it proclaims that the old image of men "forced men into roles that made them sick" and that this "old image cut men off from their own humanity."

Now humanity is a somewhat sticky word. However, if the term is freed from unpleasant associations with the peace movement and lateral thinkers, what remains is the human being as a reasoning, acting and feeling being. The ability to act and the emotional life in particular are damaged by ideals of masculinity, with the damage to the emotional life usually being the cause of the limitation of the ability to act. The stereotype of the emotional woman is contrasted with that of the rational man, who, in the worst and probably most common case, squeezes down all unwanted emotions until they break out in the form of the only feeling accepted as male - aggression. It's not healthy and very few people have fun doing it.

In their criticism, the Greens focus primarily on the two masculinity rules of strength and responsibility. To modernize them, simply give them a coat of green paint. “True strength” does not mean “putting others down, but rather growing together,” and one should take responsibility, for example, for “fighting structures that limit other people.” So men must continue to be strong for the good - now understood in a “modern” way. Male heroism therefore remains the ideal.

So it's not quite as new and modern as the authors want to sell you. The only thing that is new is what is defined as good, depending on what the men are supposed to be doing. Schrupp writes that men should now be subordinated to the pressure to conform, just as women were before. As an example of this, she cites US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's initiative to inject US soldiers with testosterone. But this military example in particular shows that men have also been and are collectivized through their gender: military masculinity is a requirement in many - and not so long ago in even more - countries that does not stop at any man, namely where men are subject to compulsory military service.

The opponent of the woman and the man is the same. The men must finally start defending themselves against the men.

Men are also de-individualized and dehumanized. The opponent of the woman and the man is the same. The men must finally start defending themselves against the men.

Simply demanding a new type of strength from men, as the Green Party's men's manifesto does, continues their distortion in the status quo. It also needs to be explained why this strength should now be specifically male. In addition, the question arises as to whether the authors believe there is a position of female strength or whether women are only left with subordination. The manifesto seems to want to leave strength to men, but they should ask themselves questions like: “Are you using your strength to dominate? Or to make it possible?" And it gives them calendar sayings about the "courage to let others grow up without being afraid of becoming smaller yourself." The manifesto represents a collection of masculinity clichés whose green veneer cannot quite cover up the old ideology. If men really wanted to help each other, they would have to fight for their own subjecthood. And that means standing up against misogynistic and homophobic members of the sex who destroy men through ideals of masculinity.