masculinity

What it means

1. uncountableusuallyThe degree or property of being masculine or manly; manliness.

   Over time, society's ideas of masculinity has greatly broadened.

   3 more examples

   Of the six homosexual patients, three men finally overcame the underlying vaginaphobia, increased their heterosexual activities, and enhanced their masculinity.

   1971, American Journal of Psychotherapy, volume 25, page 657

   Steven Cohan highlights the suggestive qualities of Red River's dominant narrative, the opposition between the radically different masculinities Clift and Wayne represent: "the highly charged context between the soft boy and the hard man in '''Red River dramatizes such a shift in the mainstream culture's demands upon ''masculinity".

   '2013, Elisabetta Girelli, Montgomery Clift, Queer Star, page 33

   “What this work shows is that masculinity is not just an ideology that men strive to achieve. It’s something we value as a culture,” said lead author Theresa Vescio, a professor of psychology and women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Pennsylvania State University.

   2021 January 9, Sandee LaMotte, “Valuing male dominance may predict support for Trump, study says”, in CNN

In a sentence

Over time, society's ideas of masculinity has greatly broadened.

Where it comes from

1. Frenchmasculinité
2. Englishmasculinity

From French masculinité, from Old French, equivalent to masculine + -ity. Earlier in same sense was masculineness.