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- [00:04]
A
This is in conversation from Apple News. I'm Sam Sanders and for Shamita Basu today, what the lives of four men reveal about masculinity in America. For a while now, a certain narrative about men has dominated headlines. Men are in crisis, boys are falling behind. But a lot of that conversation happens at a distance. In statistics, in culture war arguments, in podcast. Hot takes. The real complicated human stories, those tend to get left out. Journalist Jordan Ritter Khan wanted to go deeper. So he spent five years with four very different men, following them in their day to day lives, with their families and friends, talking with them about what it actually means to be a man in America right now. Jordan's new book, American Men, is about the gap between the men we're told we should be and the men we actually are. Jordan argues that this gap is at the heart of a lot of what's driving the conversation about men today. You, our listeners, told us how that gap has shown up in your own lives.
- [01:18]
B
I was taught by relatives, peers, and my culture that boys should avoid anything that could be considered girly manliness.
- [01:25]
A
To me, I should handle my business alone. I thought masculinity meant being unshakable. Don't cry, don't need help, don't look weak, keep moving where we live, stay at home, or even work from home. Dads are not considered masculine.
- [01:40]
C
I definitely felt a lot of pressure about living up to certain standards of manhood that I really never felt like I could fully meet.
- [01:47]
A
We'll hear more of your stories in just a bit, but first I sat down with Jordan to talk about those four men he wrote about and what their lives reveal about masculinity, inadequacy, and what we keep getting wrong when we talk about men in this country. I think the central question of your book is speaking to what it means to be a man today. And everything around that conversation seems to be tied to a conversation about a current crisis of men. How would you define that crisis?
- [02:24]
B
I mean, it's more complicated than this, but my instinct is to say it's not really like a momentary crisis. I think that men are dealing with things that men have always dealt with, but I think they're being mapped onto kind of new technologies. And in a moment when our culture is in a place that's kind of making everyone a little bit more isolated, everyone a little bit less empathetic toward each other. But I think what men are dealing with right now is what men have dealt with for a long time, which are kind of coming up against feelings of inadequacy Like, I think at some point, all of us kind of reach a kind of realization that we've inherited this script about who we're supposed to be. We have these ideas about what it means to be a man, and in some way, we don't measure up. And I think that can happen for some people at, like, age five, on the playground. It can happen for some people much, much later in life. But we all eventually wrestle with that in some way.
- [03:15]
A
I was really struck by, and this is complimentary, the softness of your book. It was kind to the characters, and it was soft in a good way. And I compare that to our national meta conversation about men in crisis, and it doesn't feel nearly as soft. And I think the biggest reason is because your book didn't really spend time with. With the folks who seem to get the most shine in our national men's crisis conversation. The incel bros, the mean guys, the claviculars, the dudes who are aggressively and nastily doing manhood. Why did you not have those guys in this book?
- [04:03]
B
One thing I'll say, it's nice to hear you say what you said about kind of the softness to it. Cause, like, there is, you know, there's brutality in this book. There's real violence. But I think definitely I wanted to write it with a sense of care for each of them and for their. And to get at what was kind of underneath that exterior. But in terms of, like, who I chose, I don't know what it would have been like if I'd chosen someone who was more, like, directly in that vein of, like, the looks maxer, like.
- [04:29]
A
Yeah. The incel manosphere, et cetera.
- [04:32]
B
Yeah. My hunch is that if they were willing to be as vulnerable as these men were, which is a big ask, that underneath, they're dealing with a lot of the same stuff. They're just dealing with it in a way that is, like, so aggressively kind of compensating for the stuff that we all kind of try to compensate for in our own ways. And so, like, I do think that a lot of that stuff comes from this same thing that all of these guys are dealing with. Just this feeling of, like, I don't feel like I measure up. I don't know what to do with that. The kind of easiest way and a message that I think does resonate with a lot of men is just try harder, do more.
- [05:06]
A
Yeah.
- [05:07]
B
Pound your face with hammers.
- [05:08]
A
In the case of clavicular. Yeah.
- [05:10]
B
Try this stack of supplements or this lifting routine, or learn how to talk to potential romantic partners in this specific way or do this to make more money. Like, if you keep on trying, it'll work out for you. The ones who are failing are the ones who are weak. And you are not weak. You are going to be the one of the ones who wins in all of this. And ultimately, even the ones who do win, it's not enough. There's gotta be something more to it than just trying to kind of contort yourself into the best version of this flawed idea of who a man should be.
- [05:42]
A
Let's talk about the four characters in your book. The four men in your book tell us who these four guys are.
- [05:50]
B
So first is Ryan. Ryan is a Mohawk man who grows up on a reservation in way upstate New York on the Canadian border. And he grows up getting bullied a lot. And then when he's an early adult, he kind of is wrestling with both his sexuality, coming to realize that he's gay, and with these really kind of angry, like, violent impulses that he has that come out of the anger over what he experienced as a kid. And so he's getting in brutal bar fights while also kind of trying to find a loving romantic partner. Next is Gideon, who is a West Point graduate, baseball star, Kind of gets everything he ever wants almost without even trying.
- [06:27]
A
Until, classic archetypal quote, unquote, American man.
- [06:31]
B
Yes, absolutely. Until one day he doesn't, you know, his wife has an affair with his commanding officer in the army. And, you know, it's less a story about being cheated on as much as a story about this crisis of identity of, like, no longer feeling like you are the one that everyone aspire then. Next is Joseph, who is a law student, Iraq war veteran, grew up evangelical, but who is kind of in the early days of his marriage and in law school and is kind of trying on his own to deal with the effects of childhood sexual abuse and just kind of telling himself, I've got this. I'm fine. I don't need to talk to my wife about it. I don't need to talk to friends about it. I definitely don't need therapy. And all the while, his life is totally falling apart. And then finally, there's Nate, who's the youngest of the men. He's the only one who's Gen Z.
- [07:15]
A
He's my favorite. Nate stole my heart.
- [07:18]
B
That's really wonderful to hear. He stole my heart a lot of times, too. Nate is a trans man in a small town outside of Youngstown, Ohio. And, you know, his story is about just kind of Navigating, being trans, figuring out who he is, but also about kind of being the youngest among them who's dealing with a lot of the things that we are talking about in our culture today around, like, his digital self versus his offline self, like, how he kind of reconciles the two. Especially being a queer person online can feel a lot safer, but the real world can feel a lot more like kind of richer and more fulfilling. He's poor. He's trying to kind of establish security for himself economically and kind of navigate his relationships as a queer person in a place where he knows very few other queer people.
- [08:04]
A
Yeah. Yeah. I was so struck by the way you wrote about Nate's gender journey. It felt so logical and so compassionate, and I was very surprised to see a straight CIS man write that well about transness.
- [08:22]
B
Thank you. That means a lot to hear you say that.
- [08:24]
A
I was blown away by not just having Nate's story included in this book about men, but it also made me realize that so much of this national conversation about the crisis of men doesn't include queer men. Yeah. You included two queer men in this book. Why'd you do that?
- [08:44]
B
Yeah. Because I thought their experiences added a level of texture to the larger portrait that I thought was really important. And I think with Nate in particular, so much of kind of gender. But, you know, masculinity, in the case of this book, is something that we are just kind of like, swimming in from really, the time we're born without really knowing. We're kind of constructing the sense of ourselves in relation to our gender really, really subconsciously. And I talked to a lot of people whose stories did not end up in this book. And for many of them, the first time I ask them, like, what's your relationship to masculinity? Is the first time they've ever thought about their relationship to masculinity.
- [09:18]
A
Whereas if you are a queer man or a trans man, all you're thinking about your entire life is masculinity and femininity. Yeah. Like, my whole life, because I am queer and was trying to figure out how to be me in a way that felt safe and also real to me. I became a student of masculinity. How do they do it? How do I do it? I know I don't want to do it, and I want to do it my way, but also, how are they doing it? And I think, like, any person from a marginalized background is doing so much more of that work and has so much to share on these questions of identity.
- [09:55]
B
Absolutely. Ryan. Who's a gay man. His story definitely has elements to this, too, but Nate in particular, it's just like he had to, you know, just be a bit more conscious of this stuff. He had to have some kind of real intention around kind of inhabiting masculinity in ways that he wanted to. And so I thought that having that perspective would be one that's really important, someone who's had to be more conscious about this. And also, you know, another thing that I did think was kind of important is that, like, there are certainly distinct experiences for Nate and Ryan that come from their queerness, but also, like, they're dealing with the same stuff, too.
- [10:28]
A
Same.
- [10:28]
B
Like, Ryan is someone who is gay and finds some real community with other gay men, but also, like, is violent at times, is aggressive, is angry. And so I felt like showing that they're swimming in the same waters and kind of dealing with a lot of the same stuff, even though the experience is a bit different. Like, it's not that different in a lot of ways.
- [10:48]
A
Talk about the ways in which Nate's relationship to masculinity evolved over time.
- [10:55]
B
You know, his father is, in some ways, when he's very young, very tender and loving. But then he leaves his life and has a lot of struggles of his own, deals with drugs and has affairs. And Nate, as he's older and he's kind of realizing, like, I am a man. I'm confident that I'm a man. The people I love see me as a man. But also, I haven't had, like, that clear example of exactly kind of the man that I want to be. He finds himself kind of realizing that, like, there have been bits and pieces all around him of men who did show him a way. Like the way his father was so tender and loving toward him when he was a very small child is something that he can take. The way in which he has this friend in high school who is just cool guy who all the girls have crushes on and all the boys are jealous of, but who, like, kind of defends Nate and protects him in a moment when he's kind of under threat and seeing that feeling like, I want to be a bit more like that. And then ultimately, he finds this group of other black trans men in Ohio, and he'd felt so isolated and alone and spending a weekend with these men who some of them are just a little bit older, just a little bit more confident in themselves, have just found their own way to continue kind of thriving in a world that doesn't always offer them a place in it that means so much to him.
- [12:16]
A
Let's talk about Ryan some more. We are introduced to him through violence. You recount in detail a night in which he and his friends are leaving a bar, and it becomes very physical and very violent, and Ryan likes it. Set up that scene for our listeners.
- [12:36]
B
So Ryan had been bullied a lot as a kid and had always just seen himself as kind of passive, as the guy who will kind of wilt in the face of bullies. And then he has this night out. He's a junior in college. He's slowly coming into himself, slowly getting more confident in who he is. And. And he's drunk. He's surrounded by drunk people, and someone says something, and later he would realize that he probably kind of misheard this person or who they were talking to. But it essentially sounds like someone is questioning his masculinity, is calling him a she. And Ryan, you know, this gay man who's not yet out finds being called by this feminine pronoun to be a real insult. And he snaps, and he steps toward the guy. The guy hits him. Ryan then just unloads. And the thing, you know, this is not revealed until a bit later in the book, but he found himself thinking that night back to the kids who had bullied him when he was a kid and thinking like, oh, now I understand why they did it. This feels awesome. And I think when he gets a bit further removed from this fight and from a number of others, the idea is, I think violence can sometimes be, like, the quickest way of claiming power when you feel powerless. It can be the quickest of grasping towards safety when you feel unsafe. Like, if your body is one that can kind of bend other bodies to your will. It's just a way to respond to things that everyone goes through of feeling afraid, feeling disempowered. And Ryan has major regrets over a lot of what he did. But in the moment, he likes the fact that, like, I'm the powerful one now. I'm the one who is inflicting what I've endured.
- [14:18]
A
Yeah. You wrote that Ryan wants both to love men and to brutalize them. In reading that, I said, oh, that's not just queer men. I feel like a lot of straight men are in the same boat. How did writing about Ryan's story and journey with violence maybe change the way you think about men and violence?
- [14:41]
B
Yeah, you're so right that we do want both. When, like, you have a friendship that can feel tender and can, you know, have, like, some physicality to it, like, Some loving physicality to it. Like, it is something we love, and it's something that I think boys are kind of starved for. And I know that I, like, want to feel kind of, like, physically kind of tenderly connected to my male friends. I love it when my friends will say, I love you, and they will, like, give me the hug without the awkward, like, bro pat. The just, like, just bring it all the way in and hold it. And yet there's always that fear of if we don't feel like we have power, wanting to grasp for it. I can think of nights when I've been out with friends where, like, both of those things are happening. We're, like, telling each other vulnerable things. We're being open with each other. But then someone, as men so often do, will say that kind of little twist the knife kind of thing that's meant as a joke but can really injure. And it's just to remind you I'm still a man. Yes. I think that's so present for so many of us.
- [15:42]
A
Yeah. I want to get to some bigger picture themes from the book, but I do want to spend at least a little bit of time on Gideon because his journey, I think, might be the most surprising to readers on paper. In picture, he has it all. A gifted athlete from childhood, doors just opened for him. Tall, charming, hot, West Point, gorgeous wife. And by the end of the book, he is deeply seeking a different and smaller life. Yeah, sum him up for our listeners, because he, I think, was the biggest Whoa. For me in the book.
- [16:23]
B
So like you said, he is someone who just almost without even trying, has everything. He's smart, but doesn't really commit himself fully to school and doesn't need to
- [16:33]
A
because he just kind of floats through.
- [16:35]
B
Is talented athletically, but is not one of those guys who's just like, fully, singularly devoted to his sport. And in high school, if he likes a girl, she tends to like him back. And he marries his college girlfriend, who he meets at West Point, a place where, if you are a straight man, it is a very difficult kind of place to date because there are relatively few women. And all of the other men there are a lot like you. Smart, good looking, and in good shape, all of those things. And after his wife has an affair, and he kind of goes through this period of just realizing that all of that kind of wasn't enough. And it's something that he continues to struggle with for many, many years. He eventually remarries, and it is years into that marriage that he begins to trust that his wife Loves for who he is, loves him for his kindness, for his empathy, for his intelligence, for his curiosity, for the ways in which he, like, cares for people around him, not just as someone who can kind of hit all of these benchmarks that he's always hit his entire life.
- [17:37]
A
Yeah. I love you pointing out that even for this guy who, on paper seems to hit all the benchmarks of the best version of manhood, you said over and over again it wasn't enough.
- [17:52]
B
Yeah.
- [17:53]
A
Is that really what all of this conversation about our current men's crisis is about? The standards that men think they need to adhere to, even once they get to them, it's not enough.
- [18:06]
B
Yeah. You know, the thing that all four of these guys have in common is at some point feeling inadequate. And I think that that's, you know, I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but basically, we all at some point feel inadequate and specifically, like, gendered inadequacy in which we do not kind of measure up to something that we've learned that we should be.
- [18:25]
A
Yeah. Because gender is the most difficult construct.
- [18:28]
B
Yeah.
- [18:29]
A
Yeah. Gender is a building that we've constructed that no one can actually climb to the top.
- [18:33]
B
Exactly.
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A
You can't get there.
- [18:34]
B
Yes.
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A
Even if you're there, you don't feel like you are.
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B
Yeah. It's totally impossible.
- [18:39]
A
We asked you, our listeners, about moments when you felt like you weren't measuring up to these ideals of manhood. Ryan from Georgia told us about life as a dad who works from home. I get to see my children so
- [18:52]
B
much more than the average dad or
- [18:54]
A
maybe even the average parent. But I end up in situations a lot where I'm the only dad present with a bunch of moms, like, almost every day at school pickup time. I end up leaving that situation, both grateful that I get to spend that time with my kid and his community, but. But at the same time feeling super lonely. Another listener, Oscar from Florida, is a retired Marine. He spent most of his life trying to conform to an idea of manhood that he says nearly broke him. I thought masculinity meant being unshakable. You know, don't cry, don't need help, don't look weak, keep moving. But the truth is, some of the worst damage in my life came from trying to. Trying to live up to that idea. It kept me emotionally shut down. It made honesty harder. It made asking for help feel like a failure. And John from Pennsylvania talked about what happened when a medical condition forced him to reimagine what being a man even meant.
- [19:58]
C
I grew up in a very blue collar household and family where there was a lot of pride taken in the work that they did. My dad was an electrician. I had uncles that were different types of craftsmen. The men in my family did hunting and fishing and outdoors, things like that. But when I got into my early 20s, I ran into a medical condition that left me legally blind. And so a lot of those activities I wasn't able to do. So I had to kind of redefine my life and myself at that point. I definitely felt a lot of pressure about living up to certain standards of manhood that I really never felt like I could fully meet because I couldn't drive. I'm not good with fixing things around the house. So I do my best to give a totally different message to my son, which is more of, you know, you become a man by not so much what you can do with your body, but also just how you treat people.
- [20:53]
A
So what do we do about this? Jordan says a big first step is what we're doing now. Just talking about it.
- [21:00]
B
I don't want to speak too much outside of my field of expertise, but, like, when I look at conversations in feminism, you know, as an outsider, like, it feels like there's just such a robust conversation around expectations of gender and kind of how to navigate those and what that has looked like over time. And you men have just much less experience talking about all of that. Like, how do you kind of define your identity and how do you kind of navigate these expectations that continue to be in the world that you're going to continue to have for yourself, you know, in my own life, I continue to deal with wanting to live up to certain standards and figuring out what it's like when I don't. I think is really like listening to those conversations that have already been happening for decades and are continuing right now, I think would help us a lot.
- [21:40]
A
Oh, yeah. I also find that when I start to think about how people are performing, gender or sexuality or identity or race, as soon as you start thinking about and watching folks do it, you realize everyone is performing 100%. Everyone is always in performance.
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B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
Everyone is doing the version of what they think they should be. And when you realize that, it frees you to hopefully just do what the hell you want.
- [22:06]
B
Yeah. Once you hear it for the first time, you realize, oh, yeah, that's what I am doing when I am, you know, like, sitting next to a stranger at the sports bar talking about this game you're performing.
- [22:17]
A
Yeah, I'm spinning out of Turn here. But I think that a lot of what is also happening in the rise of this quote, unquote, men's crisis is the decline of jobs for men that could sustain them and their families for life. Without a college degree, those jobs are harder to find now, and there are fewer of them.
- [22:37]
B
Absolutely. Again, the reason why that provider role is so powerful is because it is a very simple, clear way to feel like I am doing something meaningful. We want to feel needed. We want to feel like someone is relying on me. And work is just an incredibly powerful tool for kind of giving meaning to a life. And I do think that, that, you know, there's been a lot of talk about kind of like the rise in, you know, quote unquote, pink collar jobs that men often could have if they wanted, but don't necessarily want in the decline in a lot of kind of more physical, like, blue collar jobs. And, you know, I'm not entirely sure what the fix is there, like how we either keep more of those jobs that have been traditionally in the past held by men, or kind of push men to take more of those jobs that they might associate with femininity. But I do know that, like, it does matter a lot to be able to go do something several days a week where you feel like you are contributing to something larger than yourself, where you get outside of yourself a little bit, even when it feels tedious, even when it's hard. Nate, in this book, goes through a prolonged period of unemployment, and then he starts working at a grocery store, just stocking shelves, and finds so much kind of meaning in that work. Just feeling like there are these people who are relying on me. I'm going to be in my body lifting these heavy boxes every day. And it adds a lot to his sense of himself. And I think that's true across the board.
- [23:58]
A
What is the biggest way writing this book changed the way you do? Manhood.
- [24:04]
B
It made me more direct in my personal relationships. I think one thing, you know, just in general as a journalist, and maybe you feel this at times too. Like, it's so easy to have, like, direct, intimate conversations when, like, you are there for that job. Oh, yeah, you pull out the recorder, you get on the mic or whatever, and, like, you can really get into these, like, really meaningful things. And it's not always just one way. Like, I would share pieces of my life with these guys. But realizing that, like, in my own personal life, like, I just need to, like, make sure to kind of make that extra effort to, like, take what could be a pleasant, casual Conversation about sports or whatever else and turn it into something more and more intimate and connective. During the time I was working on this book, I had a son into early parenthood, and I let a lot of friendships kind of atrophy a little bit. And so, like, really pouring energy into, kind of resuscitating those into forming new ones. And just through just that willingness to say, like, hey, you know, I like spending time with you. I would like to do more of that. Do you like spending time with me? Would you like to do more of that?
- [25:08]
A
Like, a little, like, note passed in seventh period?
- [25:12]
B
Exactly, Exactly. It's harder than it sounds.
- [25:16]
A
Oh, yeah.
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B
But it's so important.
- [25:18]
A
What do you think is the biggest thing that our national conversation about the state of the American man gets wrong?
- [25:24]
B
I'll speak just for the way that men tend to talk to each other. There's so much talk of, like, self improvement in your career or your relationship to your body, or taking care of yourself physically, and so little conversation about, like, how to be a whole human. How to be someone who is in relationship with people who you really love and who love you in return, who is committed to kind of making the world around you a better place, who is working toward a life that feels, you know, robust and full of kind of love and care and excitement. And I think, like, we need to take our. The same way that men can often be good at taking their careers very seriously. Working very hard on that. Working on kind of finding a romantic partner, like, very seriously, Working on kind of your own emotional well being, working on your own platonic relationships, working on your relationships with family members. Like, those are, like, critical pieces of a good life. And I think that conversations among men need to more fully reflect the degree to which all of that stuff really matters to who we are.
- [26:35]
A
How old's your son?
- [26:36]
B
Two and a half.
- [26:37]
A
At what age do you think it would be appropriate for him to read this book?
- [26:42]
B
At least high school?
- [26:43]
A
Yeah. When you give it to him to read when he's in high school, what will you say to him before he starts it?
- [26:52]
B
The thing that I would want him to take away from it is just that whatever he will inevitably eventually be encountering about his own ways in which he doesn't quite measure up to these ideas that he's inherited, whatever ways in which he is wounded by me and my own, like, kind of maladaptive ways of dealing with kind of my own wrestling with all of this stuff and just knowing that he is connected to and is part of a much, much larger constell of people who have been wrestling with these same things in their own lives, who have been trying to kind of grasp their way toward being a version of themselves that they can feel at peace with. The things that can feel so impossible in the moment, that can feel so overwhelming, the ways in which you can feel restricted by or agitated by kind of these expectations around who a man is supposed to be. You're not the first person to kind of struggle with this stuff, and you won't be the last.
- [27:50]
A
Yeah. And you aren't alone.
- [27:52]
B
Yeah, absolutely.
- [27:53]
A
My goodness, what a heartwarming conversation and a lovely book. Jordan Ritter Khan, thank you for doing what you do.
- [27:59]
B
Thank you, Sam.
- [28:03]
A
Jordan Ritter Khan is the author of American Men. You can find it on Apple Books. We'll include a link on our Show Notes page. Thanks so much to everyone who shared their stories. And every weekend you can find new episodes of Apple News in conversation in the Apple News app. Just tap on the audio tab, the little headphones at the bottom to find.