With Trump’s unexpected win in the 2024 election, part of America seems to be headed into a patriarchal Handmaid’s Tale kind of world, possibly for longer than we’d like to think about. Part of what drove Trump’s campaign was an attack on ‘wokeness,’ which translates to being empathetic and kind, really. In particular, this culture forces conformity to traditional masculine gender roles. However, according to a new study, adhering to such roles has a high cost: rising suicide rates in men.

The Patriarchal Crusade Against Kindness

First, what exactly is wokeness about, and why are some men such as Trump supporters on a crusade against it?

“The term ‘woke’ was derived from African American Vernacular English, meaning alertness to racial prejudice. For those who have used the term positively, something I am not sure anyone actually does anymore, its meaning evolved to encompass awareness of other social inequities and forms of oppression such as sexism, misogyny, white privilege, the oppression of any minority person or community, and human and environmental predations of exploitive corporations,” writes Jonathan Klate.

For those opposed to being woke, it’s about rejecting the idea of being aware or overly sensitive to systematic oppression and exploitation of people. So, maybe it’s not very surprising that Elon Musk has called corporate wokeness “the devil incarnate.”

That attack on wokeness is also an age-old attack on feminism and the feminine side of men.

Klate writes that substituting “kindness” for “wokeness” clarifies the “actual sentiment” of the crusade. In the patriarchal Trumpy view, men must at least fake being hard and cruel, not kind. But such a view might be hardest on the ones who believe such a constricting view of masculinity.

The High Price of Pursuing ‘Traditional’ Masculine Norms

According to a new study of thousands of young men, adhering to masculine norms leads to the highest suicide rates in those who are most ‘Stoic.’ These men believe they must not show emotions, not ask for help, and be manly and aggressive in risk-taking behaviors. In other words, they oppress their own emotions and believe their worth is in being bold and brash. Their success may lay in hoarding displays of wealth. As any spiritual person knows, the material is temporary. Utimately, the pursuit of riches proves unfulfilling and meaningless.

“Emotional restrictivity and risky behavior raise men’s suicide risk 2.32-fold,” the study in Heliyon highlights.

In such men, the study finds double the risk of suicide for the Stoic group of men compared to more Egalitarian men who don’t restrict themselves to patriarchal gender norms. In all probability, such men would be considered ‘woke’ by Trump supporters. Yet, they are the ones who avoid suicidal tendencies.

For Stoic men, their strict views lead to ‘tunnel vision’ from which there is no way out.

Interestingly, the Stoic men in the study were not only of the older generation but younger men trying to figure out how to belong to the “club of men.” In a world where social media is rapidly becoming more hard right-wing, they must see constant messages about how being kind is weak. When in reality, being kind is a strength. In the days ahead, being kind will require more bravery than before.

“Standing up to bullies requires courage. Doing so is most noble when it is someone else who is being bullied, when your privileged position allows you to simply stand by and watch in silence or skulk away. Kindness is not passive. It often requires bravery,” Klate writes.

The Eternal Balance of Masculine and Feminine

If you’ve followed this page, you know I believe that each person is both masculine and feminine, as the ancients believed going back to Egypt. Thus, what we call ‘traditional’ gender norms are a relatively modern construct and an unavoidably faulty one.

Going back to the Romans, the patriarchs decided to edit out the equal power of the Divine Feminine. Prior to that, including in the earliest Christian beliefs, the masculine and feminine were equals. Indeed, a symbol of Christianity in the earliest church is the balanced Yin and Yang of Pisces.

Ever since those times, the world of men has remained dangerously out of balance. Surely, there is evidence of it in the higher suicide rates for men who follow that path blindly.

In truth, a world that does not value empathy nor see the masculine and feminine as equals will always be fundamentally unjust. As Will Ferrell’s Elf says to a Santa impersonator, ‘You sit on a throne of lies!’ And it will remain so until we all awaken or get ‘woke’ to this eternal, inescapable truth. If only it could happen without enduring more years of needless cruelty, oppression, and suicides.

Video by Movie Clips showing Will Ferrell in Elf:

Featured image by efes/Pixabay