From compensation to capitulation: examining masculinity threat and masculine disinvestment in the United States

Abstract A growing body of scholarship on gender inequality examines how men negotiate masculinity amid perceived challenges to traditional gender arrangements. Much of this work emphasizes men’s compensatory responses to masculinity threat, which typically involve intensified performances of masculinity. Drawing on theories of emergent or “hybrid” masculinities, this study advances an alternate framework that conceptualizes disinvestment from traditional configurations of masculine practice as a capitulatory strategy for resolving masculinity threat. Using an original, nationally representative survey of U.S. men, we examine whether structural and cultural threats to masculinity predict masculine disinvestment. As qualitative work often observes masculine distancing among privileged men motivated by specific concerns, we also investigate which men adopt this capitulatory strategy and why. Consistent with our expectations, men who perceive structural and cultural threats to masculinity are more likely to report masculine disinvestment. Complicating extant theories of emergent masculinities, this capitulatory strategy is not unique to unilaterally privileged men and is driven by diverse rationales involving status, ideology, and interpersonal relationships. Considered collectively, these findings advance scholarship on contemporary transformations of masculinity, revealing both theoretical continuities and novel insights into the different strategies men use to navigate social change.