reprinted with permission of IPR Indiana Policy Review
It's OK to Like Father's Day
by Dan Eichenberger, M.D.
With Father’s Day approaching, the cultural conversation about men, fathers, and masculinity deserves more care than slogans usually allow. This is a season when many families pause to honor fathers, grandfathers, mentors and father figures whose steady presence has shaped lives in quiet but lasting ways. For that reason, the way society speaks about masculinity matters.
The term “toxic masculinity” was never intended as a broad indictment of men. It was coined in the 1980s by psychologist Shepherd Bliss within the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement: a group of men seeking to address emotional repression, authoritarian fathering and the loss of meaningful male purpose in modern life. Early usage focused on helping men become better versions of themselves through self-reflection and responsibility. It was an internal conversation among men about maturity, not an accusation against manhood itself.
That original meaning has been largely discarded. Since the mid-2010s, progressive institutions, the political “Left,” mainstream media and Hollywood have repurposed the phrase into a powerful cultural and political tool. What began as a call for men to examine genuinely harmful behaviors was transformed into a rhetorical weapon that too often pathologizes normal and necessary masculine traits (self-control, competitiveness, physical courage, protectiveness, perseverance, responsibility and leadership) while portraying traditional manhood itself as a societal problem. These traits are not toxic when ordered toward service, discipline, family and community. In fact, they are often the very qualities that make good fathers, husbands, mentors, workers, soldiers, coaches, pastors and citizens.
The shift is striking. Before roughly 2015, the term appeared rarely in academic or feminist writing. After the rise of #MeToo and heightened cultural focus on gender, it became ubiquitous in elite media, left-leaning politics, corporate campaigns and educational settings. It was adopted as shorthand for anything associated with traditional male norms, often applied most aggressively to straight, cisgender, Western men. High-profile examples include the 2019 Gillette “The Best Men Can Be” advertisement, which framed everyday male behavior as needing correction, and the 2016 Ghostbusters remake, where male characters were reduced to buffoons or villains to elevate the female leads.
Sitcoms have long reinforced the “bumbling dad” archetype (Homer Simpson from The Simpsons, Peter Griffin from Family Guy and Phil Dunphy from Modern Family), depicting fathers as chronically incompetent. At the same time, mothers remain the competent adults who hold everything together. Advertising has followed the same pattern for decades. This is not organic cultural evolution. It reflects a deliberate narrative push within left-leaning media and institutions to frame masculinity as inherently suspect. The selective application is telling: similar patterns of dominance or emotional restraint in other demographic groups often receive contextual explanations, while the same traits in traditional Western men are labeled toxic by default. The result is a one-sided cultural conversation that rarely acknowledges the positive roles men have played as protectors, providers and stabilizers of families and societies.
The consequences extend far beyond semantics. Boys growing up amid constant messaging that masculinity is problematic show measurable signs of disengagement. Educational gaps between boys and girls continue to widen, with boys lagging in reading proficiency and college enrollment. Male suicide rates remain three to four times higher than female rates. Father absence (already strongly correlated with poorer outcomes in mental health, education and behavior for children) finds cultural reinforcement when popular stories treat fathers as optional or ridiculous. When media and elite voices repeatedly signal that men are the problem rather than part of the solution, the message reaches boys at the exact moment they are forming their sense of identity and purpose.
This approach also clashes with the understanding of gender and family found in Christianity and other major religious traditions. Biblical teaching presents men as called to sacrificial leadership and protection within the family, with fathers responsible for nurturing and instructing their children without exasperating them. Scripture affirms strength and courage while condemning their sinful distortions. Similar complementary male and female roles appear across Judaism, Islam and classical religious thought: men and women have distinct yet mutually dependent roles oriented toward family stability and human flourishing. The modern media pattern (in which fathers are diminished, and traditional masculine responsibility is mocked) represents a clear departure from these frameworks.
Critics of this critique sometimes argue that the term merely highlights real problems such as domestic violence, cruelty, domination, recklessness, or emotional suppression. Those problems deserve honest attention and should never be excused. The difficulty arises when the label expands to cover broad swaths of normal male behavior and is deployed primarily as a political and cultural weapon rather than a tool for genuine improvement. There is a clear difference between condemning abusive conduct and condemning masculinity itself. A man who protects his family, works hard, competes honorably, controls his emotions under pressure, takes responsibility, tells the truth, leads with humility and sacrifices for others is not displaying toxicity. He is displaying maturity. The original men’s movement sought to strengthen men. Much of its later usage has functioned to weaken cultural confidence in manhood itself.
Society needs men who are strong, responsible and emotionally grounded — not because masculinity is toxic, but because it is indispensable. Reclaiming that understanding will require pushing back against the politicized framing that has dominated recent years. Media, education and cultural institutions would serve everyone better by portraying competent, sacrificial fathers and balanced masculine virtue rather than reducing men to caricatures. Families, churches and communities that still affirm the dignity and necessity of mature manhood play a vital role in offering boys and young men a healthier alternative to the dominant narrative.
As Father’s Day draws near, this distinction becomes especially important. A healthy society should be able to thank good men without suspicion, honor fathers without mockery, and encourage boys without teaching them to apologize for becoming men. The term began as an invitation for men to grow. It has too often been turned into an accusation designed to shame them into silence. That transformation has not made society stronger. It has left too many boys and men uncertain of their worth and unsure of their place. Restoring a more balanced view of masculinity is not only fair to men; it is necessary for families, children and communities that depend on men who are courageous, faithful, responsible, protective and loving.
Dan Eichenberger, M.D., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, is an Indiana native with 30 years experience as a primary care physician, physician executive and healthcare consultant. He is the recipient of the Indiana University Southeast Chancellors Medallion
