The Chinese Leaders are Correct to be Worried- Their Boys are Becoming Feminine
In 2002, a large number of Chinese scientists embarked on a quest to find the ‘warrior gene’ in men. Armed with wads of government money they were searching for a gender ‘Holy Grail’ one which has eluded all scientists — proof that variations in DNA were linked to men’s violent behaviour. Not that these Chinese were hoping to reduce male violence. On the contrary, they wanted to find ways of ‘boosting aggression and building a better soldier’. Ten years later, they quietly gave up on the quest — the research was declared a failure and stopped.
The Chinese research didn’t prove that male violence was biologically programmed, but it did prove that ‘genes played an almost negligible role in young male’s aggressive behaviour compared to environmental factors such as poor social support, physical abuse and instability at home.’ (Whitehead, 2019).
In other words, it is all about environment, not biology. A change of environment leads to a change in human behaviour. The brain is plastic and life experience significantly alters the ‘wiring’ of neurons, affecting personality and behaviour. Therefore, if you want to produce abusive and aggressive males, you can start by ensuring they grow up in an abusive and aggressive environment.
A decade later and the Chinese are at it again — attempting to ‘programme males’ to become more aggressive, more macho, less ‘weak, inferior and timid’.
This time the Chinese Education Ministry is getting directly involved, declaring that a ‘masculinity crisis’ is enveloping Chinese male youths, with large numbers of Generation Z males becoming ‘feminized’ as a result of ‘female teachers and pop culture’. The government fears that these boys will ‘not be able to defend their country when an outside invasion comes.’
Of course, the Chinese are correct. This is exactly what is happening to boys in China, though not only in China. This is an Asian phenomenon, very possibly to become global.
In my latest book on modern masculinity, I describe three types of male behaviour patterns, or dominant discourses of masculinity, now apparent, globally:
1. Toxic/Tradition Masculinity
2. Progressive Masculinity
3. Collapsed Masculinity
What we are seeing in China, and also in South Korea, Japan, and across South East Asia, is ‘Collapsed Masculinity’, which I define as follows:
Collapsed masculinity results from the inability, or unwillingness, of men to continue contributing to the myths which have historically sustained notions of traditional manliness. Collapsed masculinity infers an implosion, wherein the edifice of maleness and all supporting imagery, is revealed to be an artifice; a linguistic trickery which has long influenced the behaviours of men but is subsequently recognised as being artificial, inauthentic. (Whitehead, 2019)
I describe men with this type of masculinity as ‘feminoids’ and they are signified by these characteristics:
1. Lack of aggression
2. Passive in relationships
3. Lack of interest in sexual relations
4. Soft, warm, caring and sensitive
5. Physically presenting in feminine ways
6. Higher levels of emotional intelligence
Many feminoids also become ‘soloists’ that is, they retreat to their bedroom, choose to become physically isolated, maintaining human contact almost exclusively online. The Japanese even have a term for such males — hikikomori.
This is now a very real masculine phenomenon across Asia and there is evidence of it becoming a global masculinity.
The Chinese government is belatedly waking up to what is happening to their young men, but (fortunately) they are too late to stop this masculine collapse happening.
As I discuss in my book, the reasons why this is happening are complex and multifaceted but they cannot be erased by simply getting boys to do more physical exercise, go for long runs, take up martial arts or replace feminine teachers with male teachers.
Masculinity always was and is now, multiple. But what we are witnessing at the start of this century is a dramatic, unprecedented and important shift in how males behave. Across Asia, it heralds the end of the ‘salaryman’ male identity, the demise of a ‘martial masculinity’ and the rise of a more androgynous way of presenting as a male.
The consequences are going to be far reaching, not just for the Chinese government worrying about not being able to produce an army, but also for women, relationships, marriage, birth rates, housing, fashion, education, demographics, and indeed the very male competitiveness that has until now defined capitalist society.
