The Potty Mouth Granny

Masculinity is a social construct—and that doesn’t make it fake. It makes it designed, like money, borders, or the concept of “professionalism.” Real in its effects. Invented in its rules.

Biology gives us bodies: hormones, muscle distribution, voices that drop or don’t. That’s the raw clay. Masculinity is what societies sculpt out of that clay and then pretend it arrived from the heavens already finished. One era says “a real man doesn’t cry.” Another says “a real man dies for the empire.” Another says “a real man provides.” None of these are laws of physics. They’re instructions.

Proof it’s a construct? Masculinity shapeshifts.

A Spartan warrior, a medieval monk, a Victorian gentleman, a 1950s breadwinner, a modern gym-bro podcaster—same species, wildly different rulebooks. If masculinity were purely biological, it wouldn’t need constant rebranding.

Here’s the quiet twist: constructs can be used well or used cruelly. Masculinity can mean courage, protection, steadiness, accountability. It can also mean emotional illiteracy, dominance theater, and calling fear “strength” because fear doesn’t like mirrors. The problem isn’t masculinity. The problem is when a costume gets mistaken for a soul.

And let’s tell the truth out loud: masculinity has often been defined against femininity. Don’t be soft. Don’t be receptive. Don’t be tender. That’s not biology—that’s insecurity with a dress code.

The interesting work now isn’t arguing whether masculinity is constructed. It is. The real question is: who gets to redesign it, and toward what end? Toward wholeness—or toward another tight box with better PR.

Social constructs aren’t prisons by default. They become prisons when we stop remembering we built them.