The opinions expressed in The Lawrentian are those of the students, faculty and community members who wrote them. The Lawrentian does not endorse any opinions piece except for the staff editorial, which represents a majority of the editorial board. The Lawrentian welcomes everyone to submit their own opinions. For the full editorial policy and parameters for submitting articles, please refer to the about section.
Andrew Tate’s arrest was cool to see. Not to trivialize what he did, but it felt incredibly cathartic to watch a man who’s built up his brand around the most comically, exaggeratedly evil version of masculinity you could imagine come undone through those exact same horrible tendencies. But although it’s good Tate is behind bars and out of the cultural zeitgeist, I have no doubt that another wearing-sunglasses-indoors champion of masculinity will come along to capture the hearts and wallets of adolescent boys everywhere. Like it or not, the fact that Andrew Tate became as popular as he did shows that there are tons of people willing to buy what he’s selling, and what that ultimately means is that young people are in desperate search of a masculine role model.
Around the time when Tate was peaking in popularity, I remember seeing posts floating around on social media that would say something like “Andrew Tate is teaching toxic masculinity; here are examples of positive masculinity.” In these posts, one of the weirdest things I noticed was that nearly every example of positive masculinity that was brought up was a fictional character. There were lots of posts about Captain America and Aragorn and Iroh from “Avatar,” for example. The closest thing to a real-life figure that I saw was Jesus Christ. I don’t like this; I would prefer to see real people listed as examples to look up to. What good is a role model who’s bound by the constraints of whatever fictional universe they live in? I’d prefer that men have a model of how to practice positive masculinity in the real world, rather than telling them that the key is just to be really good at fighting orcs.
All of this begs the question—why can’t anybody think of a real-life historical figure that exemplifies positive masculinity? I want to say this is because the type of person who would reject Andrew Tate as a masculine role model is the same type of person who would reject other historical figures, since often these figures associated with masculinity have real-world baggage associated with them. After all, George Washington enslaved people and Teddy Roosevelt spearheaded American Imperialism. In addition, it seems like in the modern day we’re so far removed from “traditional” masculinity (e.g. men who farm all morning and fight bears in the evening) that it’s hard to see any public figure truly exemplifying the role of a male role model unless they’re actively trying to brand themselves as such. It seems like the state of society and community today don’t lend themselves to producing ideal examples of positive masculinity that could be applied to the world at large.
Due to this conundrum, I decided to select someone who I thought could exemplify positive masculinity in the modern world. I picked Justin Schmidt, the man who invented the Schmidt sting pain index. For those not in the know, the Schmidt sting pain index is a rating system for insect stings. The way he measured how much any particular sting hurt was by stinging himself with that insect and rating his pain on a scale from zero to four. Some of these stings were among the most excruciatingly painful on earth, yet he endured them for the sake of his paper. To me, this exemplified the masculine ideal; this was a man who was willing to sacrifice his own body just for the sake of science. He’s a man who subjected himself to extreme physical pain to advance the collective human knowledge. Yes, that’s it—positive masculinity is a man willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of others. But then, I thought about the times when my mom cut her hand open or burned herself while making us dinner. Isn’t she putting herself in danger for the sake of her family?
When I think about masculine role models in my own life, I instantly think of my dad. This is a little odd, though. He doesn’t exemplify a lot of traits that I would associate with stereotypical masculinity: he’s a musician, he’s artistic, he’s quiet, he’s non-confrontational, he’s passive and resigned. My mom, on the other hand, is an extremely hard worker. She’s opinionated. She’s active. She’s assertive. She’s a leader. Yet, I see all of this, and I still wouldn’t say my mom is particularly masculine, or that my dad is particularly feminine. The only association I can make between either of them and either of those words is that my dad is a man and my mom is a woman. I guess that’s all I need to make the connection. Maybe all it takes to be an example of positive masculinity is to be a man who is good. Maybe positive masculinity is a self-fulfilling process, where men emulate the behaviors of men they respect, and regardless of what those behaviors are, they become “masculinity,” just by virtue of the fact that it’s men who exemplify them.
I don’t know, or even think, that this will be an antidote to the Tate fans or the insecure 14-year-olds looking for a role model. But I think the key for myself has just been to observe goodness being performed in the world and try to emulate that. I’m not sure there’s much value in trying to give young men a masculine role model or even in trying to define what positive masculinity is. Masculinity—and femininity—can mean so many different things, to the point where just about everybody on earth has a different conception. So, I would hope that men could stop trying to be good men, and instead focus on being good people.