Here we are in 2025 and GQ is back at it with another “State of Masculinity” survey. This time it’s Glen Powell on the cover in a muscle suit (Hollywood’s idea of strength), because the same magazine that bent the knee to woke culture and told us to soften up in 2019 (and put Pharrell on the cover in a yellow dress) now thinks flexing and putting a jacked guy on the cover having fun will sell ads because the cultural winds have shifted back. What wimps.
It was about pandering in 2019 and it’s about pandering today. GQ has no spine. They aren’t leading the conversation, they’re chasing the money. Real “masculinity” for a magazine that calls itself “Gentleman’s Quarterly” would have been putting a fit guy on the cover in 2019 with a headline saying: “Strength is good. Men are here to stay. Masculinity isn’t toxic.”
But here’s the thing: I don’t give a shit about GQ’s take on masculinity and neither should you.
I used to care about their style tips, product recommendations, and interviews with interesting men. But that was years ago. They lost me when they stopped reflecting real men and started manufacturing narratives. So I canceled my subscription. That’s how I vote. With my wallet.
What GQ never understood is what I’ve lived: masculinity doesn’t swing with the political winds. It doesn’t need to be redefined every news cycle. It’s consistent, timeless, earned in how you show up every day.
While the world tried to flip conventional wisdom on its head from 2019 to 2020 and into today, I stayed the course. I worked out daily. Set goals. Took on physical challenges. I talked to my boys. I stayed true to my wife. I guided my sons with the same lessons my father passed to me: discipline, respect, responsibility. I didn’t need hashtags or surveys to tell me how to lead my family. I didn’t wait for society’s cues about whether lifting was “toxic” or fatherhood was “fragile.”
Hell, I launched the Midlife Male podcast at the exact moment mainstream media was telling guys like me, white men over 40, to shut up and disappear. That wasn’t silence. That wasn’t confusion. That was conviction. That was me saying: I’m not going anywhere, and neither are the men like me. Husbands. Fathers. Leaders.
Masculinity is the conviction to stand where you stand. To say: I am who I am. You can live however you want: marry who you want, identify how you want, dress however you want. That’s freedom, and I respect it and I stand up for it. But don’t tell me that strength, discipline, loyalty, and responsibility are outdated. That’s hypocrisy.
And let’s be real: when the shit hits the fan, nobody’s calling the guy in a dress to defend the neighborhood. They’re calling the harder-to-kill men who can protect freedom and provide for their families. That’s not toxic. That’s logic. That’s survival.
I didn’t need #MeToo to know abuse of power was rotten; I lived it in my 20s working for Harvey Weinstein. I didn’t need GQ to tell me masculinity was “fragile”; I watched men cave under lawsuits and cancel culture in my 40s. And I sure as hell didn’t need a pandemic to remind me my sons needed leadership when schools closed, locker rooms disappeared, and anxiety spiked.
Through it all, I led. Not perfectly, but consistently. And that’s the point.
The state of masculinity isn’t defined by surveys, covers, or clickbait think pieces. It’s defined by midlife men who keep showing up. Who raise their kids. Who stay loyal to their wives. Who vote with their wallets. Who refuse to let GQ (or anyone else) decide what manhood means.
That’s the state of masculinity in 2025. Not fragile. Not toxic. Not in flux. Solid. Steady. Ours.
In Health,
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Greg Scheinman
Founder, Midlife Male
52. Husband. Father. Entrepreneur. Coach.
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