A surge of women are “decentering men”: what does that mean?

Bianca Zander investigates women’s tendency to ‘decenter men’ from their lives and asks: is technology alienating men and women more than ever?

Every generation comes up with a new way to undermine that dusty old relic, the patriarchy, and in this current minute, when life is lived online and nothing is nuanced, we have YouTube and Tiktok influencers yelling at women to stop putting men at the center of their lives.

The “decentered men” phenomenon began in the early 2020s and has gained traction, particularly among straight cis women, exploding in all corners of the media. Of course, it’s huge on social media, but there are also podcasts, online manuals, and more than one book. Search “Decenter Men” on Tiktok and choose from 28.5 million posts. Much of what you’ll find takes the form of advice and sounds like this: “Don’t give up your self-esteem to date a man.” “Don’t prioritize men over your friendships with women.” And my favorite: “Decentering the men in my life forced me to step back and really see men for who they are. I realize they are just human beings, with often inflated egos. I don’t need to be huffing and puffing about them so much. They’re just not a big deal.”

We’ve been here before, of course, burning bras and staring at ourselves in handheld mirrors, but this time we’ll do it with shellac nails and moisturizing foundation, and navigating a pretty toxic dating culture.

“I’m a little cynical about the Decentering Men movement,” says Tania Domett of New Zealand feminist innovation studio Project Gender. “It seems like a throwback to 1970s feminism with its key messages of self-love and empowerment. “There is nothing wrong with these messages, but where we are now in the fight for gender equality needs a more strategic approach.”

At this point, the gender pay gap is still around 10 percent, and the retirement savings gap between men and women is 36 percent. “To achieve social change you need to go where the power is,” Domett says. “Men still have the power and we have to do the opposite of decentering them: they have to step up and start sharing power; the patriarchy will not be dismantled by women alone.”

“I would be in charge, like a mother”

On a personal level, among heterosexual women, men’s decentering often consists of building a happy and decidedly single life. Papamoa dog trainer Misha Gildenberger, 39, has been shutting out the men in her life for almost three years and insists she has never been happier. “I do what I want, when I want. If I want to go somewhere for a weekend, I just go. If I want to spend the day in my pajamas, I just do it. If I want to work all day, I just do it. My time is mine. “Once you realize how wonderful it is to not have to worry about anyone in your life except your dog, you feel a great peace of mind.”

Originally from Argentina, Gildenberger has dated Argentinian, Canadian and New Zealand men, but it didn’t matter where they came from. “Unfortunately, in all of my relationships, the men I have been with at some point turned into boys. I would be in charge of everything, like a mother, and I only found one man in all my relationships who was self-sufficient. A man who could clean his own clothes, make us dinner, and have a plan for the weekend. “We were equal.”

When you look around for positive relationship models, you don’t find any. “Every time I meet friends who have partners, they just complain 24/7 about how wrong their partners are for this, this, or this reason, or they completely give in to whatever Whatever the man does or says, and I just look, look at them and go away, my God!

Gildenberger says he could understand this scenario if the man was a billionaire and the woman was in it for the lifestyle the money allows. “But when you’re in a relationship and you’re the same but somehow you end up doing a lot more and knowing a lot more than the other person. To the point of cleaning the house, picking up the damn socks they leave everywhere, walking the dog, cooking for both of them, adding romance to the couple like date nights, restaurants and getaways and you end up doing everything…”

Whenever she feels lonely, which is rare, Gildenberger just has to evoke all the other feelings that come with bringing a man into her life, and the longing for one disappears. “Yeah, I don’t have the whole love part, but I don’t have the whole drama part.”

“Women expect more from men than ever”

Relationship and family therapist Serafin Upton, one of the founders of Men’s Health Collective, Aotearoa, says men have been outsourced and masculinity is in crisis. “Men are not socialized to have social and emotional skills, women expect more from men than ever before, but men greatly lack the skills necessary to relate to women and each other. “Men who harm women feel ashamed and (have a sense of entitlement) because they haven’t been shown how to navigate modern relationships with anyone.”

“Fourth wave feminism has been a disaster in many ways. These days, when I refer to myself as a feminist, I feel my heart sink a little because, while I am passionate about women’s rights and safety, I really care about men’s well-being and mental health because Half of my clients are good men and I am raising a boy to become a good man. It is complex.”

Around the world, men and women are increasingly polarized by their political opinions. While women vote for liberal agendas, men gravitate toward authoritarian leaders and conservative regimes. Supporting this are the statistics that women are increasingly better educated than men, with approximately ten percent more women obtaining tertiary degrees in both the US and the EU. The trend is reflected here: RNZ reported in 2022 that male university attendance had reached an all-time low of 39 per cent. Arguably, going to university makes you more likely to absorb a progressive and egalitarian perspective, and therefore that gap contributes to a distancing of the sexes. In many Western countries, including this one, birth and marriage rates are declining. New Zealand’s birth rate has reached its lowest point since World War II.

‘Social media has this dehumanizing effect’

“Whether we like it or not, we are together on the planet, we are together in communities, with families together,” says Richie Hardcore, educator and speaker on masculinity and sexual and family violence prevention. “Is there a legitimate set of complaints that women can make toward men regarding domestic violence, sexual violence, and who has a say in policy, legislation, and business? Yes, completely”. But, he says, going a step further and eliminating relationships between men and women goes a long way toward re-entrenching historical divisions.

Technology has a lot to answer for. We live in a world where radical polarization is the norm, aided by social media algorithms that are fueling gender segregation. While women are offered videos on how to turn men off without ruining their manicures and pedicures, in the “Manosphere” (an interconnected network of anti-feminist blogs and influencers) dudes watch rants about men going their own way. , a separatist movement where men little by little exclude women from their lives.

“You can’t have these conversations about ‘men going their own way’ or ‘decentering men’ and not reflect on the fact that we have incredibly high rates of anxiety and depression,” Hardcore says. “People take all kinds of psychiatric medications to deal with this when, in fact, a lot of what could help our mental health statistics is this human connection. “If we forget about the fact that we are innately social creatures and that we need strong social networks for well-being, none of that will improve.”

Hardcore doesn’t believe anyone should be approved for bad behavior, but: “If we want our boys to be nicer to our girls, our sons to our daughters, our young men to our young women, we really have to show them what that means.” “What does that look like? Hardcore works with young boys in school to help them break out of stereotypes of masculinity and model experiences that help them develop empathy, something they don’t get in a world saturated with social media, games and pornography. “Social media has this dehumanizing effect. Computer games have a dehumanizing effect. Pornography objectifies women and reduces them to sexual products to be used, and we are not doing enough about it.”

Belgian-American psychologist and author Esther Perel talks about the rise of artificial intimacy since technology entered our relationships and how it is depriving us of real connection. Hardcore sees this too, in the way hookup apps foster a culture of quick sexual intimacy and ghosting that is harming young people. “I understand the impetus, and there is a logical self-preservation in suggesting that you don’t need men in your life if they have continually hurt you. But if that has become a viral movement and a trend on TikTok and is influencing young people’s perceptions of how to build relationships, I find it understandable but counterproductive.”