The APA’s war on masculinity
For the first time in history, the American Psychological Association (APA), held up by academics as the gold standard of psychology, has released a set of guidelines for psychological practice with men and boys.
One does not have to go through the entire document to appreciate the trajectory of the guidelines. One section reads: “The main thrust of the subsequent research is that traditional masculinity - marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression - is, on the whole, harmful. Men socialised in this way are less likely to engage in healthy behaviours.”
If the intention was to openly admit an anti-male bias, then the APA are off to a racing start! One might expect to find such prejudice on the front page of some fringe feminist webpage, not on an otherwise prestigious portal like the APA. To say that a set of qualities - which like any other quality have both upsides and downsides - are harmful on the whole is just absurd. In fact, it’s no different than saying that feminine qualities are harmful overall. The irony really comes to the fore when one considers that these red-army decrees were thought up in heated buildings with running water and electricity, built on the back of “traditional masculinity”.
These different qualities are well-established all over the planet. In fact, one need only Google: ‘gender differences in personality traits cross-culturally’ for the relevant data sets. Aside from the clear visual differences between males and females within thousands of species, there is also clear variance between biologically male and female animals as a result of millions of years of evolution. But the APA’s ‘blank slate’ approach assumes that the same evolutionary pressures that occurred in animals and our primate ancestors were somehow absent in human beings.
Shifting focus from the APA’s uninteresting cherry-picked data, the method used to build these guidelines is more readily explained by ideological bias and questionable feminist theorising than scientific rigour. Indeed, these formal prescriptions weren’t compiled using the APA’s professed mission statement of “science and professionalism” in mind, nor were they put together through any concern for men. Instead, the APA - which constitutes a colossal influential body boasting over 117,500 members, mostly practicing psychologists - chose a radical, explicitly anti-male ideology as their basis for conjuring up unnerving political instructions within the caring profession.
The area of domestic violence is one that clearly demonstrates this. For example, when referring to bad male behaviour, the APA is meticulous with its statistics, as it should be. However, when men are on the receiving end, which is to say that when it comes to women behaving badly, reliable data completely eludes them. More specifically, the readily available data from the Centres for Disease Control for the prevalence of domestic violence between men and women is only quoted to reinforce an ideological narrative. The data states that men are more intense and devastating when violent, but at the same time, women are more frequently violent and utilise more coercive control methods than men. These stats seem to have slipped the APA’s attention.
In a section titled ‘masculinity ideology’, they state: “Masculine ideology is a set of descriptive, prescriptive, and proscriptive … cognitions about boys and men (academic citations). Although there are differences in masculinity ideologies, there is a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk and violence. These have been collectively referred to as traditional masculinity ideology.”
This statement seems to have been contrived by someone who has had to bite his/her tongue not to describe men as “deplorables”, or some such nonsense. It also means that a set of very common male traits have now been pathologised, as men and boys are inherently adventurous, risk-seeking and in search of strength and status. But alas, biology and evolved adaptations also seem to have slipped the APA’s scientific research standards. In addition, the reference towards ‘anti-femininity’ suggests that the male preference towards more traditional gender roles is somehow the same as bigotry against women - another absurd statement.
Whether the APA likes it or not, there are instinctual differences between men and women, manifested as desires, attitudes and natural interests - none being inherently better than the other - and until recently, being used by both to compliment the other. Sadly, this mutual understanding is under severe strain, but one can still see the inescapable reality bubbling underneath the surface. For example, Scandinavia is experiencing what academics are calling the “gender equality paradox”, wherein countries lauded for their gender equality such as Finland, Norway and Sweden tend to have a greater imbalance in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) than countries like Albania and Algeria. The researchers believe this might be because countries with less gender equality often have little welfare support, making the choice of a relatively high-paid STEM career more attractive.
In truth, one could spend hours deconstructing the APA’s approach piece by piece, but as Solzhenitsyn said: to taste the sea, you only need one gulp. As per their intended use, psychologists who subscribe to these banal guidelines are expected to inflict this anti-male bias on patients who go to them seeking help. Instead of basing treatment on scientific data, the APA is encouraging psychologists to establish their clinical interventions on opinions - and machiavellian ones at that.
Indeed, what is the intended purpose of these guidelines - to enhance psychological treatment for men and boys, or to advance an ideology? To answer this question, one need only look at guideline number three:“Psychologists understand the impact of power, privilege, and sexism on the development of boys and men and on their relationships with others.”
To hammer the point home, they go even further, with page six stating: “Indeed, awareness of privilege and the harmful impacts of beliefs and behaviours that maintain patriarchal power have been shown to reduce sexist attitudes in men and have been linked to participation in social justice activities.”
In other words, improving mental health is not the main priority, but furthering a political agenda is. By codifying their words in an official academic document, the APA has plainly admitted its true motivations. The supposed gold-standard of psychology is advising psychologists to be dishonest to their clients, prioritise social engineering over treatment (through an incorrect blank slate perspective), and to take advantage of patients when they are at their most vulnerable. In practice, this means that parents with a depressed son (or daughter) now have to worry about the political leanings of their prospective carer before taking the necessary steps to seek help.
Needless to say, I’ve no doubt that most practising psychologists in the field are genuinely interested in helping others - at least for now. But at the same time, there’s no denying this dark stain on the profession.
With that out of the way, it’s high time I threw away my Gillette razor, told a dirty joke, chugged a mug of mead and made ready for the day’s testosterone-fuelled, pheromone emitting gym session.