Looking ahead to masculinity in 2026

What does the year ahead have in store?

Happy New Year everyone.

I hope however you celebrated your holiday period was a nice one.

I start the year feeling a mix of emotions about men and masculinity. On the one hand, it’s impossible not to feel some excitement and joy. My book, Be a Man About It, launches on 22nd Jan, something I’ve been working to for over a year, so naturally there is some pride there.

And that pride comes from a place of optimism. I wrote my book because this topic is one that needs more attention, but also because people are more willing to have these conversations.

Roll back the clock even 5 years, would my book be getting any traction? Would we have half as many sign-ups on JACK as we do?

We’re getting to the point where we can talk about “men’s rights” and not only be met with the roll of eyes and a few sighs.

That gives me optimism, and I see more of that coming for 2026. More books being published and more difficult conversations being had. More poor behaviour being called out, but more focusing on the positive stuff too.

Do I think we’ll nail it this year? No. But we’re talking about working back decades, maybe even centuries, of cultural conditioning. This stuff isn’t going to be a quick fix.

But if we can take one step at a time in the right direction, then that feels good.

Sadly though, my optimism and pride is tinged by some usual head shaking and disappointment.

We’re only a couple of weeks into the new year, and I’ve seen stories that have made me question if we’re going to continually take two steps back for every one of those steps forward that we make.

First, I see a story about Grok, X’s in-built AI companion. You can ask it to do a bunch of stuff in the feed and it will comply (e.g Grok, please explain the context a post).

It hasn’t taken long for some of the more depraved people on the internet to use it for seedy purposes. From what I’ve seen, this has involved a lot of men commenting on women’s photos and asking Grok to remove her clothing, and place her in scantily-clad items instead.

Now let’s be clear, this isn’t just men. There are frankly an overwhelming amount of female porn stars doing it to themselves, uploading a photo and then asking Grok to undress them, as well as male porn stars.

But the narrative that is getting shaped around this is what men are doing with the tool. It frustrates me because it gives society at large another stick to beat the collective man with, as it plays into the stereotypes that we’re sexual predators who must be stopped. It’s not all men, but it’s enough men that it gives the rest of us a bad rap.

There’s a lot to unpack here, not least the lack of safety the platforms themselves are building in. But still, not a great way to start the year.

Then I see a discussion on the Diary of a CEO podcast, where a male guest talks about how a large percentage of the male gene pool is dying out, and Steven Bartlett asks if society should be intervening in some way. I think the question was intended innocently - perhaps maybe that is me giving the benefit of the doubt, assuming it came from a place of “what if everyone stops reproducing and the world dies out?”, but that’s not how it’s been received.

Unenviable and fair comparisons have been made to The Handmaid’s Tale, the premise of which is about state-controlled reproduction where women are essentially treated as forced surrogates for a bunch of rich people. It feels dystopian, but conversations like that make people question if it was less dystopian, more reality. The trouble is it took them too long to raise the important perspective of body consent and personal choice.

It’s not a great look, and it’s fuelled the narrative again that men almost don’t deserve to be talking about struggle, when they aren’t able to consider the struggles of other groups.

My LinkedIn feed has been awash with these two stories since I logged back on this year, and it’s made me sad to see the general narrative it can lean into about how much of a problem men are.

Don’t get me wrong, both of these stories aren’t good, and we can’t avoid or excuse problematic conversations like this. My worry is if we keep doing the thing we’ve always been doing where we only focus on the bad in men, and forget to look at the positives too.

I’m holding onto hope for this year though.

I think this year is going to be a good one for men and masculinity.

What do you think?

Have you seen any stories that caught your eye?

P.S I’d be eternally grateful to anyone who picks up a copy of my book - any sales help with early momentum and genuinely mean the world to me. Let me know if you do - I’d love to say thank you :)