Recently, conservative writers Helen Andrews and Leah Libresco Sargeant argued that “feminine vices” are destroying the workplace — whether through “wokeness” that chills truth-seeking or by fostering a culture that denies maternal care by demanding equality for women.
While they do make some important points that are worth pondering — such as the way women are forced into male-designed systems and how our litigious society may be hindering cohesive progress — I couldn’t help but think of “masculine vices” and how these might be destroying not only our workplaces, but the entire world.
The relationship between patriarchy, capitalism, and masculinity
While patriarchy, capitalism, and masculinity aren’t the same thing, they often move together and reinforce each other.
Put succinctly, patriarchy is a system of gendered power that crosses the boundaries of home and work, politics and culture, science and faith. Capitalism, meanwhile, is an economic system that impacts all of these same spaces. Finally, masculinity (particularly toxic masculinity) works within these systems to reinforce them — detailing the behavioral, physiological, and social norms for “winners” in these systems.
In practice, capitalist production leans heavily on “social reproduction” — the care work that raises children, keeps workers healthy, and sustains communities. Despite it’s critical importance, much of this labor is unpaid or underpaid due to being “feminized.” Patriarchal norms ensure this is the case so that this work remains “invisible” — a natural given. This lowers its cost and keeps markets humming.
Meanwhile, businesses often reward “hegemonic” masculine traits — unlimited availability, risk-taking, competitive dominance. This reveals itself in aggressive shareholder buy-and-sell habits to accumulate wealth and the prioritization of short-term performance targets.
In short: Patriarchy supplies the discount on care; capitalism pockets the change; and masculine norms police the winners. They aren’t identical systems, but together they produce predictable (and predicably unequal) outcomes.
The masculine vice of “growth at all costs” capitalism
Growth is a natural part of the universe. However, everything — from animal populations to company profits to subatomic particles — has a hidden cap. “Growth at all costs” is, by its very nature, unsustainable. In some scenarios (physiologically, for instance), it is literally cancerous. Simply due to the physical laws of the universe, unsustainable growth will always end in a crash. In cancerous cell growth, this is often death. In economies, it’s often a recession or depression.
Despite this, “growth at all costs” is a very real ideal under capitalism. It shows up in incentive plans, earnings calls, and company valuations. Executives and shareholders alike see it as the goal of what they, and the companies they run and fund, are doing — even to the point where aggressive growth is prioritized above the long-term health of the company or even the entire economy.
Given the ways hyper-competitiveness and “winner takes all” traits play into the “growth at all costs” mindset, it is easy to make the case that this is a “masculine” trait.
Indeed, research on finance and business organizations links “tournament cultures” and overconfidence to pro-cyclical risk-taking, excess leverage, and short-term payouts. These habits line up with masculine “contest norms”: dominate rivals, take bigger swings, never show limits.
How masculine vices are destroying American society
Given how destructive unsustainable growth can be in biological scenarios, what does that mean for social and economic scenarios?
It doesn’t mean anything good. Evidence links rising inequality and insecure work to worse health outcomes, midlife “deaths of despair,” and lower social trust. When our care systems are squeezed by austerity or financialized priorities, families absorb the shock — often women first — widening gaps and burning out communities. Masculinity “contests” at work also punish caregiving and reward overwork, deepening time poverty and eroding mental health, physical health, family cohesion, and community connection.
Meanwhile, with each boom and bust cycle of capitalism, the rich consolidate wealth and get richer — at the cost of everyone and everything else.
In short: Masculine vices are fueling the boom and bust cycle of capitalism and leading to the breakdown of society — creating an environment where people are becoming increasingly isolated, increasingly sick, increasingly uneducated, and increasingly poor.
How masculine vices are destroying the world
On climate and ecology, the record is clear: Our world is at its breaking point. And it’s not from overpopulation. It’s from resource exploitation and inequitable resource distribution.
Scientific assessments show that continued expansion of fossil-based production and consumption is driving record CO₂ levels and pushing multiple Earth-system boundaries past their limits (those hidden caps I mentioned earlier).
“Growth at all costs” accelerates the destruction of our planet and everything on it. Seeing planetary stewardship as inferior (because care has been “feminized”) and domination as virtue (because it’s a desirable “masculine” trait) makes it easier for people to discount ecological disasters and impacted frontline communities.
Combine this with the unequitable division of food, healthcare, housing, and other necessities, and it’s easy to see how Earth and all its inhabitants — human and otherwise — are teetering on the edge of the largest mass extinction event in the history of the planet’s life.
In short: Masculine vices are leading to over-exploitation of our planet and destroying it. If we continue to ignore what is happening right before our eyes — in favor of nurturing masculine vices — this continued wealth hoarding and resource exploitation will ensure the destruction of Earth and every living thing on it.
Stop blaming women for our failures
The real crisis facing us isn’t from “women in the workplace” or “women asking for too much.” The real crisis facing us is the result of a society that devalues care, glorifies competition, and forsakes our future in the process.
We need to stop blaming women for our problems (along with immigrants, LGBTQ people, people of color, et al). Instead, it’s time to admit the role patriarchy, capitalism, and toxic masculinity have played in where we find ourselves now.
We seriously need to re-write society’s values — putting an emphasis on care, long-term sustainability, collaboration, curiosity, and shared stewardship. We may not have written the rulebook that society is running on — but we can definitely write a better one, together.
Sources & Further Reading
The financial cycle and macroeconomics: What have we learnt? (2014) — Journal of Banking & Finance (Authors: Claudio Borio)
Stabilizing an Unstable Economy (1986) — Yale University Press (Authors: Hyman P. Minsky)
Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (1978) — Basic Books (Authors: Charles P. Kindleberger)
Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data (2016) — Quarterly Journal of Economics (Authors: Emmanuel Saez; Gabriel Zucman)
Redistribution, Inequality, and Growth (2014) — IMF Staff Discussion Note (International Monetary Fund) (Authors: Jonathan D. Ostry; Andrew Berg; Charalambos G. Tsangarides)
The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001–2014 (2016) — JAMA (Authors: Raj Chetty; Michael Stepner; Sarah Abraham; Shelby Lin; Benjamin Scuderi; Nicholas Turner; Augustin Bergeron; David Cutler)
Rising Morbidity and Mortality in Midlife Among White Non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st Century (2015) — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Authors: Anne Case; Angus Deaton)
A Broken Social Elevator? How to Promote Social Mobility (2018) — OECD Publishing (Authors: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023 — Summary for Policymakers (2023) — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Authors: IPCC Core Writing Team; ed. Hoesung Lee et al.)
Global Carbon Budget 2024 (2025) — Earth System Science Data (Authors: Pierre Friedlingstein; Michael O’Sullivan; Matthew W. Jones; Robbie M. Andrew; Judith Hauck; Peter Landschützer; Corinne Le Quéré; and co-authors)
Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries (2023) — Science Advances (Authors: Katherine Richardson; Johan Rockström; Will Steffen; Sarah E. Cornell; Ingo Fetzer; and co-authors)
Work as a Masculinity Contest (2018) — Journal of Social Issues (Authors: Jennifer L. Berdahl; Marianne Cooper; Peter Glick; Robert W. Livingston; Joan C. Williams)
Boys Will Be Boys: Gender, Overconfidence, and Common Stock Investment (2001) — Quarterly Journal of Economics (Authors: Brad M. Barber; Terrance Odean)
CEO Gender, Corporate Risk-Taking, and the Efficiency of Capital Allocation (2016) — Journal of Corporate Finance (Authors: Mara Faccio; Maria-Teresa Marchica; Roberto Mura)
Capital Flows and the Risk-Taking Channel of Monetary Policy (2012) — BIS Working Papers No. 400, Bank for International Settlements (Authors: Valentina Bruno; Hyun Song Shin)
Hazardous Times for Monetary Policy: What Do Twenty-Three Million Bank Loans Say About the Effects of Monetary Policy on Credit Risk-Taking (2014) — Econometrica (Authors: Gabriel Jiménez; Steven Ongena; José-Luis Peydró; Jesús Saurina)
Bank Leverage and Monetary Policy’s Risk-Taking Channel (2013) — IMF Working Paper WP/13/143 (International Monetary Fund) (Authors: Giovanni Dell’Ariccia; Luc Laeven; Gustavo A. Suarez)