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Exploring the Deep Roots of Male Behaviour, Cultural Expression, and the Modern Crisis of Belonging
In recent years, conversations around men and boys have increased, though they often remain fragmented and ideologically charged. As an evolutionary psychologist, I approach these issues through a lens that seeks to understand the deep-rooted biological and psychological drivers behind male behaviour, identity, and their impact at a societal level. This perspective doesn’t negate cultural or social explanations, it complements them offering a foundational framework for why certain patterns persist across time, space, and species.
In this piece, I share some unpolished reflections on masculinity, status, and the evolving challenges faced by men in modern society, reframing the discussion by grounding it in evolutionary theory, highlighting how deep-rooted motivations manifest in contemporary behaviours, and why acknowledging these roots is essential if we are to address the growing crisis of male displacement and mental health.
As an evolutionary psychologist, I find myself drawn to this perspective on most matters by default. I acknowledge this, and I don’t intend to exclude other perspectives – all are important pieces of the puzzle; however, this is an important contextualising perspective that is often omitted. For me, evolutionary theory always worked so effectively in contextualising why we see various patterns of behaviours or phenomena, particularly illogical ones that otherwise wouldn’t make much sense.
In my teaching, I cover a lot about maleness, masculinity, sex and gender, what these things ‘are’ and what they ‘are not’. It seemed illogical to me that we could consider maleness and masculinity as something that ‘looks’ different across time and space. Only an evolutionary lens brings coherence to this, because maleness and masculinity manifest in socially acceptable ways owing to a shared evolved motivation.
The way masculinity can manifest differently across time and space (and indeed, in different species) may give the impression that there are multiple masculinities, but I would argue that this is a moot point and it really depends on what it is you are looking at as a researcher, or what you are interested in as a policy maker; that is, whether you consider the surface level ‘masculinity’, or the core underpinning ‘masculinity’.
Sex refers to gametes – the sex with the smaller more mobile gametes are male. Maleness and masculinity result from a cascade of masculinising processes thanks to evolved genetic and developmental systems associated with gametes. Therefore, although gender usually correlates with sex, it doesn’t always. Furthermore, what is considered as masculine therefore looks different across different contexts, times, and spaces. Evolution has created a range of strategies designed to propagate genes into the next generation and survival only gets you so far in that endeavour. The key component is reproduction.
Owing to sex differences in reproductive biology, throughout our ancestral past, we have had unequal operational sex ratios. That is, there will always be more reproductively available men than women at a given moment, whether they are currently pregnant or lactating or are in the post-reproductive stage of their life. This means men have competed for access to women, to be chosen by women, meaning they need to be seen as attractive mates. They need to get that message out in whatever way their culture deems optimal or even acceptable. The ancestral environment relied heavily on physical competition, but that isn’t the case anymore, and this is why we see such an array of different displays across the world, whether in sports, academic achievements or risky behaviours such as dangerous driving and substance misuse.
One issue we see today is that the playing field is no longer level and this is partly because of very positive changes in society. Women entering the workforce and being educated has changed their perspective on what is seen as an attractive mate and excludes a good portion of the men in the environment who are no longer able to meet their standards. While this is great for women and society in general, it means our men have been left behind and displaced. It means we need another change somewhere, somehow, to prevent our boys from being left behind. Simultaneously we see many avenues for healthy competition being shut down because it isn’t fair for the kids who can’t compete as well in that specific domain. This negates the fact that kids are going to compete over anything, no matter how benign. Status hierarchies will form no matter how we try to intervene.
In sum, we know we have a problem in society currently. Men are increasingly displaced and working-class men seem to be most affected. I don’t have all of the answers about how to fix this, but I have some ideas taken from our evolutionary past.
Men need community now more than ever. We are in an increasingly connected world but men in particular are lonelier than ever. They have been marginalised, they are seen as disposable, and they are not valued. Men need purpose. We need to look at core evolutionary drivers around the desire for status, belonging and maximising reproductive success, and we need to tap into those to make any progress with the male mental health crisis. Adding adjectives such as ‘toxic’ to masculinity is unhelpful as it can further displace men and exaggerates the issue we have.
Dr Rebecca Owens is an evolutionary psychologist and is the Head of the School of Psychology at the University of Sunderland, an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
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