Man's Heaviest Burden: A Review of Contemporary Paradigms and New Directions for Understanding and Preventing Masculine Aggression

Abstract

Given evidence that men's and women's aggression meaningfully differ in terms of motivations, methods, and consequences, behavior scientists increasingly recognize the importance of integrating gender socialization and masculine‐relevant processes into models for understanding and preventing men's violence. As such, the Gender Role Strain Paradigm, a contemporary framework for conceptualizing the psychological and physical problems common to men, has been widely utilized in aggression research. However, translation of this paradigm into effective violence prevention and intervention efforts remains stalled by controversy over measurement and methodology. After a brief review of the Gender Role Strain Paradigm and its contributions to aggression research, the current paper details recent methodological advancements in the measurement of masculine discrepancy stress/strain, a form of distress arising from perceived failures to conform to socially‐prescribed masculine gender role norms. The validity of masculine discrepancy stress is described in terms of its predictive utility and its ability to address longstanding critiques of the Gender Role Strain Paradigm. Finally, masculine discrepancy stress is discussed in terms of its violence prevention and intervention implications.

Feminine Discrepancy Stress and Psychosocial Maladjustment Among Adolescent Girls

“…Discrepancy stress is a form of gender role stress, which stems from fear of the consequences for not conforming to traditional gender roles (i.e., gender discrepant) [1]. By definition, gender roles reflect a commonly recognized set of social prescriptions about how men and women are supposed to behave [1].…”

“…Discrepancy stress is a form of gender role stress, which stems from fear of the consequences for not conforming to traditional gender roles (i.e., gender discrepant) [1]. By definition, gender roles reflect a commonly recognized set of social prescriptions about how men and women are supposed to behave [1]. Society expects men and women conform to these rules about how they should act, how they should look, and how they should experience and express emotions [1, 2].…”

“…By definition, gender roles reflect a commonly recognized set of social prescriptions about how men and women are supposed to behave [1]. Society expects men and women conform to these rules about how they should act, how they should look, and how they should experience and express emotions [1, 2]. Socialization dictates that men be assertive, confident, sexually accomplished, dominant or even aggressive, and hide vulnerable emotions [3, 4] while women are expected to be submissive, modest, nurturing, sensitive, invested in their appearance, and simultaneously sultry and chaste [5].…”

“…Given that gender non-conforming youth are at heightened risk to be socially, physically, and sexually victimized [2, 12, 13, 18, 19], if follows that these youth would have higher rates of trauma symptoms and fear of future reprisals [21]. Thus, many youth may feel significant pressure to adhere to these gender role expectations and will evaluate and compare the image of themselves to that of their gender archetype [1, 4, 22]. If their self-image deviates from the socially prescribed image, this is a perceived gender role discrepancy [23].…”

“…For some, this perceived discrepancy may provoke anxiety and stress about the potential repercussions of this gender role violation (especially those who have previously been victimized). This stress, (i.e., discrepancy stress) [1, 22–24] may likely be a stimulus for the internalizing and externalizing behaviors experienced by gender discrepant youth. Importantly, not all individuals that perceive themselves to be gender discrepant will experience discrepancy stress.…”