Terms like “caring”, “nurture” and “empathy” don’t sit that comfortably in the male vocabulary, because generally for men what is most “real”, and consistent with what is expected of their roles, is more associated with action than it is with language – especially “feeling language”. Nor do these terms, in their current usage, readily accommodate or acknowledge the more characteristically male ways of being compassionate, nurturing, or empathic.
Despite the popular assumption that femininity is nurturant and caring, whilst masculinity is largely self-serving and uncaring, nothing could be further from the truth. Most cultures – including our own, simply take for granted that men will perform the most potentially hazardous, harmful and health diminishing roles, and that they will do so in a sacrificially self-giving, uncomplaining and generous manner.
Granted, men’s contribution is less direct and personal than female giving and caring, but it’s no less nurturing – it’s just a different kind of nurturing. It focuses less on the personal and more on externals; the “other” is not so much individual as collective – family and community. Men nurture in a way that is the paradoxical opposite of women: to support the family they may have to go away to work, or spend little time at home, because that’s what providing demands. Caring about family and community may involve not so much focusing on them as on creating or protecting the conditions that ensure a nurturing environment for them.
What of men and empathy? Empathy – making an effort to understand something of another person’s experience; how they see things, and how they feel – is very important as a basis for thoughtful and moral action. Though empathy may not appear to be men’s “default tendency”, that doesn’t mean men aren’t empathic when to be so is of significant importance. And what is plainly of little importance is the popular mush (that’s passed off as empathy) of feeling sad about someone else’s situation – feeling caring and appearing caring, without actually getting around to doing anything caring. A kind of empathy that is merely self-intentioned is morally stunted, and little better than virtue signaling.
Men do tend to focus a lot on the practical, on taking action – action which can always be enhanced by an appreciation of the circumstances and experience of others. But they are rightly suspicious of “caring” that feels good and appears good, without doing good. Because doing good may sometimes not feel good at all. Doing what should be and needs to be done, for someone else’s sake, may not be at all emotionally dramatic; it may in fact be rather dull and ordinary. Men are caring, empathic, and nurturing, but in a characteristically male way. And one shouldn’t be fooled by men’s conspicuous pragmatism. Underneath it is often a good deal more thoughtfulness and deep feeling than you might imagine.