New masculinities are advancing inside homes where old rules still carry weight. In Arab and Latin American cities, many young men no longer want to repeat the model of the distant father, the absolute provider, or the son who never washes a plate. They want to raise children, care for others, talk, ask for help, and share decisions. But that desire lives alongside conservative families, religious pressure, expectations of honor, fragile economies, and a persistent idea: being a man means being in control.
Change does not arrive through perfect speeches. It arrives in small scenes. A father bathes his child while his mother in law watches with surprise. A young man rejects jokes from friends when he says he is going to therapy. A husband cooks in a home where the men in the family never entered the kitchen. A son takes his mother to the doctor and accepts responsibility for caring for his younger siblings.
New masculinities do not seek to erase masculine identity. They seek to remove the obligation to be hard, violent, and silent. In Latin America, this conversation clashes with machismo. In the Arab world, it clashes with family structures where men retain symbolic authority as protectors, providers, and public representatives of the household. In both contexts, change moves forward with tension.
What New Masculinities Mean
New masculinities propose another way of being a man. They are not based on control, force, or superiority. They are based on shared responsibility, care, respect, emotional health, and more equal relationships.
The term does not describe a single model. A rural man in Mexico, a young father in Morocco, a student in Bogotá, or a worker in Beirut live different realities. But they face a common question: which part of inherited masculinity serves them and which part harms the people they love.
Traditional machismo gives men command. They must provide, decide, endure, and correct. They must not show vulnerability. They must not cry. They must not depend on others. They must not take charge of daily care because that work is considered feminine.
New masculinities challenge that idea. They propose that care is also a male responsibility. That authority should not be confused with control. That strength does not require violence. That a man does not lose respect by changing diapers, cooking, listening, or recognizing fear.
The Arab World and Male Authority
In the Arab world, masculinity is shaped by family, religion, reputation, and economics. There is no single Arab experience. Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Jordan, Tunisia, and the Gulf countries have different histories. But in many societies in the region, men retain a strong role as protectors and providers.
IMAGES MENA studies by UN Women and Promundo show that patriarchal norms remain present, although they also record men who support more equality, active fatherhood, and women’s participation in education and work. The tension appears inside the home. Many men accept that women study and work, but still feel pressure to have the final word in family decisions.
Karim, 34, lives in a North African city. He is a teacher and the father of a four year old girl. His father worked all day and almost never participated in household tasks. Karim says his decision to care for his daughter after work led to jokes at first. His brother told him he was becoming weak. His mother told him to leave those tasks to his wife.
Karim’s answer was simple. He said his daughter did not need to see him as a visitor. She needed to see him as a father. That gesture changed the routine of his home. It did not change the entire family structure. His mother still believes the man should lead. But she is no longer surprised when she sees him cook.
This type of change defines new masculinities. It does not always break with the family. Sometimes it negotiates from within.
Latin America and the Weight of Machismo
In Latin America, machismo works as a cultural mandate. It demands toughness, sexual control, domestic authority, and emotional distance. It also punishes men who do not fit. A sensitive man receives mockery. A caring father receives suspicion. A young man who does not want to fight is treated as weak.
Equimundo has documented attitudes and practices among men in several countries for years, including Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Its studies show that equality does not advance through laws alone. It advances when men change their behavior inside the home, in parenting, in relationships, and in front of other men.
Diego, 29, a designer in Mexico City, grew up hearing that men did not talk about anxiety. When he started therapy, his father told him that was for people without character. Diego did not argue. Months later, his father called to ask for the psychologist’s contact.
That scene reveals a generational crack. Many young men do not seek to defeat their fathers. They seek not to repeat their pain. They see that masculine silence produced alcoholism, violence, infidelity, loneliness, and distance from children. They want another path.
In Latin neighborhoods, masculinity is still measured in front of the group. Friends watch. Family comments. Partners carry expectations. That is why change is hard. It is not enough for a man to want to be different. He must sustain that decision before a community that still rewards the old model.
Care as a Battlefield
Care is the point where new masculinities become visible. Not in a talk. Not in a post. In the kitchen, bathroom, school, hospital, and the bed of a sick child.
In Latin America, ECLAC states that women dedicate twice or three times as much time as men to unpaid domestic and care work. In the Arab region, UN Women reports strong gaps: women perform between 17 and 34 hours of unpaid care work per week, compared with 1 to 5 hours among men, depending on the country.
These figures show the center of the problem. Traditional masculinity rests on women’s time. A man works, rests, and occupies public space because someone else cooks, cleans, cares for children, attends to older adults, and organizes domestic life.
New masculinities begin when that division changes. When a father asks for time off work to care for his child. When a husband does not “help,” but assumes his part. When a brother cleans without expecting praise. When an adult son cares for his parents without delegating everything to his sisters.
Youssef, 41, lives in a conservative community in the Middle East. For years, he said the house was his wife’s territory. His mother’s illness forced him to care. He learned how to measure medicine, prepare soft foods, and organize medical appointments. At first, he felt ashamed. Later, he understood that he had confused care with loss of authority. Today, he says care made him less proud and more useful.
The Conservative Family as Limit and Refuge
New masculinities do not advance in a vacuum. They advance inside families that are often conservative. That family limits, but it also protects. It gives identity, economic support, reputation, and belonging. For that reason, many men do not want to break with it. They want to transform it without being pushed out.
In Arab societies, the extended family keeps strong influence over marriage, fatherhood, and public behavior. In Latin America, mothers, fathers, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and religious communities also give opinions on how a man should behave.
Change becomes a daily negotiation. One man accepts more care work, but avoids calling it feminism in front of his grandfather. Another supports his wife’s job, but must answer relatives who ask who gives orders at home. Another wants to raise children without hitting, but lives surrounded by men who say “that is how character is built.”
Pressure does not come from older men alone. It also comes from women socialized in the same system. Some mothers teach daughters to serve brothers first. Some wives distrust men who want to share tasks because they never saw that in childhood. Some mothers in law interpret male care as weakness.
This shows that machismo does not live only in men. It lives in rules learned by the whole family.
Work, Money, and Masculinity
Money remains one of the hardest points. In the traditional model, a man’s value depends on his ability to provide. That idea hits hard in economies with unemployment, low wages, inflation, and expensive housing.
In the Arab world, Arab Barometer reported an average gap of 38 percentage points between men and women who have ever had a job across seven countries studied. Although many women reach higher education, the labor market still does not reflect that preparation. That gap keeps men at the economic center of the household, but it also places a heavy burden on them.
In Latin America, many men grow up with the same expectation. If they do not provide, they feel they have failed. If their partner earns more, some feel shame. If they lose a job, they fall into silence or aggression.
New masculinities try to separate male value from income. A man is not worth less because he loses work. A woman does not threaten the family by earning more. A couple does not break because both people make decisions. But this idea clashes with structures where money still defines power.
Male Mental Health
Machismo also harms men. It teaches them to stay silent, compete, and endure. It makes asking for help harder. It turns sadness into anger. It turns fear into control. It turns frustration into violence.
New masculinities open a door to mental health. Talking about anxiety, depression, grief, or shame no longer has to be seen as failure. A man who asks for help does not lose masculinity. He gains tools to live better.
In Latin communities, many young men are normalizing therapy, support groups, and conversations about fatherhood. In Arab cities, youth organizations and equality programs work with men to challenge gender norms, violence, and the division of care. Change is slow, but it is moving.
Omar, 26, the son of Arab migrants in Latin America, says he learned two phrases at home: “be strong” and “do not embarrass the family.” For years, he understood strength as silence. Now he understands it as the ability to speak before breaking. His father does not use those words, but he started asking him how he is. For Omar, that question is already a domestic revolution.
New Masculinities and Religion
Religion often appears in this debate. In the Arab world and in Latin America, religious traditions influence family, marriage, sexuality, and authority. But not every man who practices a religion defends machismo.
Some reinterpret their beliefs through care. They see present fatherhood, respect for a partner, and nonviolence as moral obligations. Others separate faith from family control. Religion does not disappear. The way men read it changes.
Conflict appears when leaders or families use religion to sustain rigid hierarchies. There, new masculinities face a strong barrier. But they also find allies in faith communities that promote care, dignity, and shared responsibility.
A Change With Progress and Setbacks
New masculinities do not move in a straight line. There is progress and there are setbacks. Some men talk about equality but do not change tasks. Some fathers praise caregiving but delegate the mental load. Some companies celebrate fatherhood but punish family leave. Some families accept the caring man in private and ridicule him in public.
Real change is measured in behavior. Who cleans. Who cares. Who listens. Who decides. Who gives up privileges. Who stops a sexist joke. Who educates children without fear or hitting.
In the Arab and Latin worlds, new masculinities live alongside conservative structures because cultural change does not erase the family overnight. It transforms it in layers. First a couple changes. Then a home. Then a group of friends. Then a community.
The Masculinity Ahead
New masculinities do not ask for perfect men. They ask for responsible men. Men able to love without possession. Care without expecting a reward. Work without measuring their value only by money. Be fathers without acting like visitors. Be sons without repeating wounds. Be partners without giving orders.
In Latin America, this means facing machismo at the family table, in the street, at work, and in parenting. In the Arab world, it means negotiating with family authority, honor, religion, and economic pressure. In both cases, change begins when a man understands that losing privilege does not mean losing dignity.
The new masculinity is not born against the family. It is born inside it, when a man decides that love also means sharing power.
Sources used: Equimundo states that IMAGES has researched the attitudes and practices of men and women regarding gender equality, violence, care, fatherhood, and domestic work in more than 32 countries, with more than 67,000 people surveyed.
Arab Barometer reported in 2025 that, in seven MENA countries studied, there is an average gap of 38 percentage points between men and women who have ever had a job. It also documented persistent support for the idea that men are better political leaders in several countries in the region.
UNDP stated in its Gender Social Norms Index that nearly 9 out of 10 men and women hold at least one bias against women, and that almost half of the population believes men are better political leaders.
ECLAC states that, in Latin America and the Caribbean, women dedicate twice or three times as much time as men to unpaid domestic and care work. UN Women reports that, in the Arab region, women perform between 17 and 34 hours of unpaid care work per week, compared with 1 to 5 hours among men, depending on the country.