The discourse around the masculinity crisis ranges from discussions about men's declining education attainment, job prospects, suicide and addiction rates, to their alignment with extreme political ideologies. Despite the fact that men have dominated the political sphere, empirical explorations into the role of masculinity in politics (and the purported masculinity crisis) have only recently been undertaken. Explorations have looked at how beliefs about masculinity, masculine identification, and threats to masculinity shape political ambition and policy attitudes. In this paper, we first review the measures of masculinity employed in political science and what we have learned from this growing literature. We then show, with original survey data, how continuous measures of masculine (and feminine) identity can shed important light on intra-gender variation in political attitudes and participation that we miss when we only use categorical measures of gender identity. We argue that to understand the “masculinity crisis" among men, gender backlash, and the role of masculinity in right-wing extremism and in shaping political attitudes, we have to consider not only how men think about gender relations and hierarchies, we have to consider their perceived masculinity, as well as aspirational levels of masculinity. We need to think about how men understand themselves in relation to masculinity as a personal identity and how central it is to their self-concept. This involves moving beyond beliefs about gender more broadly to examine the identity-based, psychological stakes of being a man in a rapidly changing political and cultural landscape. By studying masculinity as a personal identity that is subject to threat and changing levels of salience, we gain a clearer window into men’s political behavior, grievances, and alignment with extreme ideologies. We end with suggestions on measuring masculine self-identification as not just a background variable but a central identity that can help shed light on political preferences, attitudes, and group-based grievances. Demographic and economic shifts around the world have created new grievances and anti-egalitarian sentiments among previously dominant groups, including men. It is essential that we understand the individual-level predictors that drive these sentiments if we seek to cultivate a more integrated and socially cohesive society.
