Of Barbie and Men

Feminism has an empathy gap. That leaves men trapped. We can do better.

I want men to become feminists. I get why they don’t, though. Because almost every time I engage with feminist media, the thinking part of me has to convince the feeling part of me that I’m safe.

This post is a long reflection on why that is, and what to do about it; on how to build a feminism that actually feels like it’s for men too, instead of just telling them so.

The Opportunity Missed

I saw the Barbie movie about six months after everyone else. By then I’d seen the online kerfuffle it caused, so I went in wanting to like it: the movie’s loudest haters were people I can’t stand.

I'd also seen the Kenough sweatshirts. And looking back, there’s a version of that message that I could have really used. That men could have really used.

I want to be better than I am. My mind’s eye imagines an Ideal Andrew who’s never existed, but that some ambitious part of me is irrationally convinced I could become. Ideal Andrew gets a lot more sleep, exercise, and nutrition than the real me, and he uses that surplus energy to be as good as I've ever been at everything he does.

Ideal Andrew is ripped and vegan. He thrives at an impactful career he’s passionate about and deeply enjoys. He makes enough to pay D.C. rent, save for retirement, go out for drinks, and still give half his income to effective charities.

Ideal Andrew is the life of the party, and suffers no resultant health consequences. He can go shot for shot with his big uncle without puking out the window of a moving vehicle the next morning. He is a witty conversationalist; a cheerful dispenser of puns and fun stories.

Ideal Andrew makes his girlfriend feel like the center of the universe. Every day he makes her smile to be with him, and know he’s delighted to be with her. Every few months, he calls all his old friends—from all five places he’s lived since high school—so that they stay current friends, too. He listens attentively and remembers what he hears. He is helpful, dependable, considerate, comforting, and interesting. He has a 100,000,000 subscribers on his Substack.

The real me can muster about two of these things per week. And some days, the chasm between who I am and who I expect myself to be gets a little too wide to laugh off. Some days I fear I’m squandering my gifts, and pushing away loved ones, as I aimlessly drift between meaningless, flickering distractions.

Maybe we all feel this way, some days. But under patriarchy, these feelings of inadequacy are especially pronounced for men. Men in our country are really struggling, and part of the reason is that patriarchy plants a little voice in our heads that constantly tells us we’re not enough; that we have to be better—taller, buffer, faster, smarter, tougher, richer, more athletic, more successful in everything—to deserve respect, even from ourselves. I can’t speak for all of us. But personally, the thought that I could wake up one day and actually believe I’m enough—not just conceptually, but in my soul, so that gnawing voice permanently shuts up and I rest in easy confidence that I’ve ran a good race—would bring such release that my eyes well up to even write the words.

This is an unreasonable bar for a movie about dolls. No single piece of art can make men feel that; it will take a village. For many of us, it will take therapy. But as the official Smasher of Patriarchy,™ feminism is supposed to help, in theory. And in the most mainstream piece of feminist art this century, it would have been great to deliver a credible affirmation, delivered by relatable characters, that got us a tiny bit closer. Initial reports got my hopes up.¹

So it seems like a bummer—for me, for men, and for feminism—that instead, the Barbie movie made us feel the exact fucking opposite.

Our pain is still funny

To be clear, everything Barbie says about women is brilliant. It’s empathetic to women. Its message to women clearly struck a chord with millions of them, especially the superb monologue by America Ferrara. It helped me better appreciate the appeal of Barbies as a toy and the complex relationship girls have with them as they age and mature. And thankfully, Barbie is mostly about women, which probably made it a net positive.

Barbie unpacked a nuanced topic in an evenhanded way that still felt like a celebration accessible to all ages. It took something distinctively girly and made it cool for adults. Of course women liked it! It has likable female characters who articulate and validate experiences many women share. It frames their doubts, insecurities, and hardships in a sympathetic light.

And if that’s all it did—if it had merely been a movie made by, for, and about women coming of age in an unfair society—it would have been perfect. Men would have learned more and suffered less. They’d have needed to fake less laughter.

Unfortunately, there are men in the movie, and every one of them is stupid, shallow, and selfish 100% of the time.² The Kens have emotions, yes; but their emotions are exclusively funny. They are dopey, childish, stunted half-thoughts, presented in silly songs before a circus backdrop of men brawling with titty twisters and tennis rackets. They are never a fraction as complex, relatable, or self-aware as the women’s emotions.

In fact, the movie gives no indication that men can come to terms with how they feel or why until a woman is kind enough to enlighten him. The same is true of men in the movie’s “real world,” from Will Ferrell to the poor dad learning Spanish: pure comic relief.

Early in the film, this is not a huge problem. The movie uses Barbie Land as an allegory for childhood, so it’s fine for Kens to be stupid, shallow, and selfish—so are most kids. The problem begins with their depiction of how Ken reacts upon entering the real world. After wandering off from Barbie, he sees a montage of macho role models in movies, media, and positions of power. The word patriarchy is used explicitly—and Ken thinks it’s great! He’s over the moon excited, and rushes back to tell Barbie and the other Kens about it. Overall, his thought process goes something like this:

“Whoa, this is awesome! This flatters and benefits me, so naturally I support it. In fact, let’s go talk about it with all my bros…”

This was not my experience encountering patriarchy. Mine went more like this:

“Wait, why is everyone making fun of me? ☹  Can’t we go back to talking about sports and Pokémon?”

(10 emotionally scarring years later)

“I feel fucking worthless. Maybe this pick-up artist site can teach me how to stop being a little bitch—which is apparently what I am, and also the most humiliating thing it is possible to be.”

I can’t speak for all men. But I suspect that many had formative experiences with patriarchy closer to mine than to Ken’s (or to Ryan Gosling’s, for that matter).³ It privileges us in unseen ways like not getting raped, catcalled, or patronized; but from what we can see, the most noticeable impact is ridicule. We learn what we’ll be mocked for, and change our behavior to flee that awful feeling. There’s a lot less dopamine and a lot more adrenalin and cortisol. Feminists should know this: doesn’t patriarchy hurt men too?

Men whose formative experiences with patriarchy are closer to mine than to Ken’s have varying levels of awareness of what’s happened to them, and certainly respond to those experiences in varied ways. Some keep reading those pick-up artists, click a few more links down the rabbit hole, and wind up like Andrew Tate. Some compensate with condescension, develop a persecution complex, and become Ben Shapiro.

But a great many more step away from the ledge and—without necessarily resolving their insecurity—do something similar to what the Barbie movie ultimately advises: they find identities unrelated to attracting or dominating women. They find talents and careers that make them feel less worthless. They find hobbies and interests that may not cure their loneliness, but at least bring some pleasure or community. Maybe even pride. Some are lucky enough to find healthier ways to understand and express their masculinity.

You know what some of those harmless yet male-coded hobbies and interests are? Classic gangster movies. Or vinyl records. Or investing. Or sports. Or drinking beer. Or listening to Matchbox 20. Or learning to sing and play the guitar. In other words, all things the Barbie movie indulgently ridicules for 25 minutes near the end there.

If you walked away from Barbie incredulous that a bunch of confused conservatives could hear it as “man-hating,” I hope that sheds light on the mystery. It’s not man-hating; that’s too strong. But it’s definitely man-mocking, and often in overbroad ways that have little to do with the patriarchy. It roasts at least 11 types of men who are definitely not Kenough, and invites viewers to laugh along:

“HAHAHAHA! How could he possibly think she likes his singing?!”

“YAAAAS! Guys never shut up about investing or The Godfather!!”

“YUP, men stink and their houses are SOOO disgusting…

“LMAO, insecure men desperate for validation and floundering in the face of evovling stigmas are so easy to manipulate!”

Which naturally triggers:

“Wait, why is everyone making fun of me? ☹”

The Kernel of Truth

Because I saw the online kerfuffle, I can already hear very-online feminists banging their keyboards to tear into how fragile I am. They’ll recast the man-bashing as light teasing, rather than the primary thing that made Barbie a comedy. They’ll pretend the montage was about mansplaining, broadening that word far beyond its original meaning.⁴ They’ll say I have thin skin and “small dick energy,” weaponizing emasculation without any apparent irony.

And you know what? Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m fragile. Sometimes I confuse that with this vulnerable thing I’m supposed to be instead.

All I know is that the feelings Barbie provoked in me felt an awful lot like my middle-school classmates calling me a little bitch: a big group of mainstream cool kids pointing and laughing and yucking my yum, when I hadn’t done anything wrong. Today I have the privilege, knowledge, self-awareness, and vocabulary to sit with those feelings and resist the pressure to lash out—but a lot of men do not, and that is not always their fault.

So honestly, I get it: there was a kernel of truth to the conservative criticism. They were not right in the broad sense that feminist ideology is bad. But if feminists have half as much restraint, introspection, empathy, and emotional intelligence as they seem to expect of men, the pushback should be instructive nonetheless. Mocking our fragility proved the point.

The point is that much of the feminist movement has an obvious empathy gap for those it purports to liberate. It makes hand-wavy acknowledgments that patriarchy hurts men too, then goes right back to depicting them in ways that show zero concern for this reality. It takes 100x more joy in mocking men for a whole new set of inadequacies than it does in lessening the ones they’ve already spent their lives grappling with. And just like patriarchy, it intensifies that mockery if men ever dare to admit that it hurts.

Back when men suffered only their conventional insecurities, they could at least temporarily “man up” and perform their way to a fleeting social safety. But adding mockery of the performance removes even that refuge, as does mocking the authentic, non-performative interests men actually identify with. It traps us in an endless cycle of derision and self-doubt.

The Barbie movie, and weeks of memes about men who didn’t like it, turbocharged this cycle. It was one big exercise in lecturing men about why their feelings are invalid.

Sadly, this mirrors trends on social media that contribute to men’s plummeting mental health. The single biggest driver of social media engagement and visibility is whether a post dunks on an outgroup. In mainstream gender discourse, this overwhelmingly manifests as dunking on men.⁵ On the logic of “punching up,” progressives gleefully hit us where it hurts until it provokes a response—which they then ridicule further by leveraging patriarchy’s demands of male toughness.

The result is a toxic feminism that weaponizes insecurities it ought to be abolishing. Where patriarchy makes women insecure—say, about body image—feminism offers limitless affirmation and a ferocious defense against all insults. As it should! But where it makes men insecure, toxic feminism aims lots of ridicule exactly there, on the spurious pretense that hurting men somehow lessens women’s oppression.⁶

Feminism is not innately man-bashing. But much of what men see of it on their feeds is, because the algorithms reward extreme content. What tears men down goes much more viral than what builds women up.⁷ Barbie missed a chance to show you can have one without the other.

Kenough for what?

It should not be hard to understand how everything leading up to the “Kenough” scene undercuts its intended message. Each humiliation is an accusation that in some important respect, we are not enough.

All across the country, women dragged their partners to the theater to watch this. Millions of men were so loving and giving and altogether not toxic in their masculinity that they pretended to be excited by this idea, and then pretended to enjoy a crowd of pink people pointing and laughing at their exaggerated imperfections for two hours. The big cultural event of the summer made male mannerisms and insecurities the butt of most jokes.

And then at the very end, it threw us a condescending pat on the head: we are “Kenough.” In what way? They don’t say. The movie just ends. And then the women turned to their partners and said “How fun! Wasn’t that uplifting?”

Fucking no! It was an hour of squirming in my seat, followed by an utterly hollow affirmation.

Upon learning that he is Kenough, Ken does not go on to demonstrate any alternative vision of masculinity that might be safe from all the derision Barbie just heaped on things real men actually like. Perhaps this is because its creators don’t know what this looks like either. “We all know what we don’t want in a man,” said one adoring review, but maybe not what we do want.

The basic message of “don’t measure yourself by a woman’s attention” is a good place to start, but it does not liberate men from the rest of society’s judgment. Until more progress is made, many men less privileged than I will sadly not be enough to collect the ingredients of happiness.

They are not yet enough to make and keep intimate friendships. They are not yet enough to get the girl (and cannot just flip a switch to stop wanting girls). They are not yet enough to keep pace with girls in school or work, nor to talk about these problems without fear of stigma. They lack crucial emotional privileges that women have in their knapsacks. There does not seem to be a whole lot they can do about this, and neither Barbie nor its fans seem to especially care. They are “Kenough,” but nobody knows what that means because it’s literally a joke, just like everything else about us in the movie.

Manalogues

The best part of the movie is a monologue by a mother, played by America Ferrara:

“It is literally impossible to be a woman. You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don't think you're good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we're always doing it wrong.

You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass.

You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.

You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.

But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line.

It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault. I’m just so tired watching myself and every single other woman tie herself into knots so that people will like us.”

This monologue is moving and spot on. I completely get why women wanted men to hear it. It made them feel heard. Notably, it’s about the patriarchy and why it’s bad, but it doesn’t put down men at all.

The Barbie movie, Western feminism, and society at large would each benefit from a comparable monologue from Ken. Developing and expanding on how patriarchy traps men, with a level of empathy approaching what Ferrara offers women, might sound something like this:

It is literally impossible to be a man. You are so capable, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we always have to be men, but somehow, we’re always doing it wrong.

You have to be better—buffer, tougher, richer, more confident—but never seem like you’re trying. You can never say you want to be alpha—that’s toxic—but also, you need to be alpha. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because men are supposed to already have it.

You have to be a “natural leader” without being what people mean when they say that. You have to be yourself, but also change how you are—how you’ve been socialized to be since before you can remember. You have to initiate, but only when it’s wanted, and the only way to find out if it’s wanted is to initiate. You have to dote, but never seem desperate; to be vulnerable, but never fragile; to open up, but not expect sympathy. You can’t be violent, but get laughed at if others use violence on you.

You have to answer for other men’s bad behavior which you are also a victim of, which is insane; but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You have to find things you enjoy and identify with apart from a woman’s attention; but not talk about those things all the damn time. You have to be emotionally available to women, but not so emotional that you push back on anything they say about gender dynamics. They have it all figured out and you exist to listen and learn and repent.

But always stand out and always be grateful, because the system is rigged and you benefit from it—always, every time, no exceptions. So find a way to acknowledge that. You have to never be eager, never cry, never submit, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line.

It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault. I'm just so tired of watching myself and every other man tie himself into knots so that people will like us.”

As you can see, I had to change some of the words, but not all of them. A patriarchal society in the middle stages of feminist improvement hurts men in different ways than it hurts women, but some of these ways overlap. The overlap includes the broad theme of Ferrara’s speech: it creates impossible, contradictory expectations for how men should behave, and punishes them no matter which side they err on.

There could be lots feminist manologues. Or maybe some sidebars where men open up about these things healthily. This post is getting long, so I’ll spare you additional examples.⁸ But however it’s done, planting seeds of reciprocal empathy seems like a faster path to progress than making a caricature of half the population. The occasional symmetry of men's and women’s experiences under patriarchy can be a powerful tool. It would not only make men feel heard; it would also help them to hear.

Right now, the only communities for men going through these things seem to be Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, and Joe Rogan. If the feminist movement actually wants to pull men out of their trauma instead of pushing them deeper into it, it needs to offer an alternative that makes them feel safe from what they are fleeing. It cannot assume punching men is always punching up. It needs to actually feel like it’s for men too, instead of just telling them so.

1. The movie’s creators assured as that this was “a story that will resonate with men” too. Greta Gerwig expressed surprise at the conservative pushback and told the New York Times she hoped the movie was “an invitation for everybody to be part of the party and let go of things that aren’t necessarily serving us as either women or men.” She echoed similar themes in the LA Times.

2. Some will argue the portrayal of men as stupid, shallow, and selfish is an intentional satire of how women have been presented in movies for years. That would be fair enough if it were true; as a hot person infatuated with the protagonist and existing solely for her gratification, Ken is the equivalent of a Bond girl. But a) Bond girls are at least successful in gratifying the protagonist, and more importantly b) this interpretation does not square with the much more popular interpretations in footnote 1. The message on my feeds was not “see how it feels when a movie makes your entire sex an accessory?” but rather “Ryan Gosling stole the show with his masterful, relatable depiction of men’s struggles.” It shifts the goalposts to pretend he wasn’t supposed to represent real men.

3. Ryan Gosling is a gorgeous, gregarious, incredibly talented actor who’s been a Hollywood prodigy since he was 13 years-old. He may be the hottest man alive. So he is probably the least relatable messenger imaginable for this movie’s intended message to men. It is hard for me to imagine that Ryan shared my difficulties with women in his teenage years.

4. Fans of the movie will defend this montage as satire of men “mansplaining” their interests, rather than the interests per se. But this only highlights how broadly that phrase has been stretched, to ever-narrowing effect on ways men are permitted to speak. Take the Godfather joke. Men being excited about a male-coded movie and eager to share what they like about it with their partners is the exact mirror image of women dragging their boyfriends to the Barbie movie. But today, the term has become a catchall for any topic of intergender conversation that induces in women the slightest boredom or irritation.

For example, I will surely be accused of mansplaining for pointing out that the word originally described contexts in which “the [female] explainee knows more than the [male] explainer.” Whereas throughout the Barbie montage, each alleged incident of mansplaining is preceded by the woman expressly admitting they know nothing about the subject and requesting an explanation. Yes, patronizing women can take many problematic forms—but it’s not the joke here. What makes the scene funny is that the men are stupid and manipulable; their efforts to enthrall women, woefully inadequate. What makes it funny is that we’re not enough.

5. Unless, of course, you take refuge in far-right spaces.

6. Indeed, Barbie offers this same pretense. Just before the mockery montage, the protagonist frets that her anger at Ken “doesn’t mean I want to hurt him.” In a line women seemed to love, a gal pal reminds her that Ken stole her house and took over the government, implying his pain didn’t matter. Never mind that most individual men in the real world did nothing of the sort. They are to be held collectively accountable for the systems in which they were born, even though these systems cripple their happiness too.

7. Much less what builds men up. God forbid.

8. Late in the movie, Barbie tells Ken not to measure his worth by women’s attention. This is a great message. Sadly, it falls on deaf ears because the movie does nothing to prime men to hear it, unlike its messages to women. More serious male characters could have explored the corrosive, self-hating, deeply ingrained mindsets that pressure men to seek women’s attention in the first place. A future post may try.