What makes a man?

This isn’t breaking news or anything, but men are having a moment right now. And not one of our finer ones.

Men — yes, mostly straight white men — are doing a heaping pile of damage to the country, the planet, and society at large, by engaging in a set of toxic behaviors that are threatening in the world order and causing a fair bit of chaos in everyday life.

Whether in the local branch office, in the oval office, in the home or on the street, men appear to be increasingly acting out — desperately asserting their dominance, devaluing the lives of women and minorities, bullying in schools, and suppressing their emotions — shaking the corked carbonated mix of sadness, fear and anger until it explodes in a fit of rage.

Why is this epidemic sweeping so vastly, deeply and quickly across the globe? Why is it taking the form of things like MRA, gamergate, white nationalism, extreme capitalism and so on? The answer is rooted in the evolving role of white men, and the uncertainty that surrounds this change.

For several Millennia, and in most corners of global society, men have had it culturally ingrained that they must provide, protect and procreate. They charged themselves with a civic and societal duty to conquer, compete and accumulate capital. There were, rightly or wrongly, benefits to this culturally accepted pattern of behavior: In the United States in particular, since the country was founded under the rule of law that women and people of color were not eligible nor encouraged to work (for pay) or vote, white men predominantly created the goods and services that kept a working capitalist society afloat and prosperous, to drive progress forward through innovation and invention, to use their power to teach, to defend against attack, and to ultimately raise families that would secure humanity’s future. This appeared to work for a while, until the world began to slowly accept that other genders and colors could — and should — contribute equally to the workplace, the culture, and the political realm. This could not have happened without the hard-earned efforts of Abolitionists, Suffragists, Activists and Feminists. It was this novel notion — and one that found pockets of support in much of the West and not just in the States — that although it had been a man’s world, in thousands of locales and for thousands of years, that the world would be better served if it were a omni-gender power hierarchy. Which, of course, raises the question: Why would an inclusive world be a better one?

Much of what drives humanity’s march toward progress, the progress that keeps it alive and the species thriving, is dictated by efficiency: Being able to democratize work to the point where we can spend the lowest amount of capital, energy and time to create the greatest amount of good for the most amount of people. As we innovate, evolve and build on previous progress, more people enjoy a greater quality of life, with less effort. When done rationally and ethically, this is how progress works. We get back our time, improve the public health, and more easily protect the public domain. For as long as it was deemed culturally appropriate for there to be a certain ruling class, for as long as other genders were forbidden from cultural institutions that drive us forward, it made rational (for the times) sense for men to control the means of protection, provision and procreation. But what this line of sight lacked was a clear ethical backbone supporting this hierarchy: Sure, there were cultural norms that needed to be upheld, and progressive ideas are only as effective as people’s willingness to accept them, but when you exclude over half a populace from the spoils or the ability to contribute on equal footing, you undercut your ability to drive progress. On a purely logical, as well as an economic, level, there was — and still is — no real reason why men should disproportionately hold power: political, economic, social, cultural, familial. It’s not as efficient. It’s not as effective.

This has been studied again and again — companies with greater women leadership are more profitable and are generally more ethical, countries with greater women leadership routinely enjoy higher rankings on the income-adjusted HDI. Omni-gender access to capital, power, education and healthcare make for stronger societies. There is no true argument to support a society so heavily dominated by men. Separate spheres are an inefficiency, and a detriment. And the world is beginning to wake up to this idea.

You’ve seen those movies where the villain realizes the end is near? Scarface? Goodfellas? As the main character’s walls begin to close in upon him, he begins to lash out — engaging in increasingly risky, desperate behavior, more eccentric and exaggerated versions of the behavior that he’s been conditioned to believe will propel him and keep him pinned to the top of the pyramid? This is what (again, mostly white) men are doing now. This is “toxic masculinity” — extreme examples of behaviors that traditionally held order, but are now upending it. This is a response to a perceived threat to its way of life, comfort, or survival, and beginning to lash out in ways that are increasingly erratic, violent and troubling. This is one of the reasons — but, by no reason the only one — why we see authoritarianism and nationalism on the rise. Why we see mass shootings on the uptick. Why rape culture continues to flourish, often publicly, and why we see an endless parade of Twitter trolls clogging up the timelines of powerful women, people of color and trans people. In a word, these are the desperate, high-stakes moves you begin to play with if you believe you’re being left behind or under siege.

But, curiously, men are not under siege. The modern feminist and progressive moments are only trying to level the table which has been tilted wildly in favor of men. So, why do men feel so threatened? To the beneficiaries of the spoils of power, a downgrade from omnipotent to merely powerful can feel quite a bit like being stripped of all agency. This reversal of roles and power structures is not what is happening — nor is it necessarily what should be happening.

Men have held the keys for a long time. They’ve been conditioned to protect, to provide and to procreate. Now that their agency in each are being challenged, they are lashing out: they’re attacking, gobbling up guns by the truckload, accumulating excess wealth and assuming unwarranted agency over a woman’s body — whether via rape or via the militantly pro-life movement. This is a natural response to feeling threatened. So if this threat is not real, then why does it feel that way?

It goes back to an idea that life is zero-sum — economically and culturally. That if something is being lost, that some other group must be taking that thing away. That there is only a finite amount of capital, power or opportunity to go around. Yet, if we’ve learned anything from the long arc of our shared history, it is this: As progress continues, capital, power and opportunity continue to increase. The world is as wealthy as its ever been, more people have the right to vote than ever before, and the Internet and air travel make global mobility and community possible. That said: capital, power and opportunity are still being gobbled up by disproportionately by white men. Look in the board room, look in the white house, look at the Oscars. Because toxic masculinity rests on the idea of life as zero-sum, the tables continue to tilt, and the force with which men are trying to tilt it continues to increase as the threat appears ever greater. A fierce opposition from the group that’s traditionally held all the cards — no matter how large the deck — will increase inequality, increase the potential for violence, decrease our ability to improve society for the greatest number of people or for the greater good. Toxic masculinity hurts humanity for precisely this reason. If you fight for every card dealt onto the table, the loss of one card blinds you to the fact that you were just dealt five or six more.