PROGRESS REPORT

ISSUE #139

Rejecting Heterostasis

For millennia, men have been told to be big, manly, and confident to ‘get the girl.’ Women, in turn, were told to be domestic, accommodating, and attractive to ‘get the guy.’ Both sides, locked into the same transactional script.

But for more than half a century now, many women have been rejecting those scripts. They lead the charge in what we call the heterorevolution: the ongoing dismissal of traditional, heteronormative gender roles in media and culture. Brands have responded to meet women, reshaping how femininity at large is represented, and in doing so, opening space for more expansive definitions of what it means to be a woman.

On the other hand, many men remain crystallized in a sort of heterostasis, due (in part) to the narrow brand and media universes surrounding them. It’s hard to find acknowledgment of men’s complexity, beyond the occasional Father’s Day spot or brand partnership around men’s grooming.

The result is a stark disparity: women are accelerating into multidimensional roles while men remain constrained by outdated archetypes. But how exactly did we get here? And how are brands, at least partially, to blame?

Femininity and the heterorevolution.

In the 1960s, activists like Marsha P. Johnson and Gloria Steinem challenged traditional notions of femininity, and companies evolved in tandem, producing ads that depicted women as strong, liberated, and proud. These cultural shifts laid the groundwork for the late 1990s, when third-wave feminism embraced unfettered individuality. Figures like the Spice Girls popularized “Girl Power,” inspiring ad campaigns promoting confidence, independence, and self-expression. The Riot Grrrl movement challenged the idea that women should be quiet and submissive, paving the way for ads that encouraged girls to reject limiting stereotypes and act with strength and agency. In the early 2000s, Dove kick-started the body positivity movement (albeit short-lived), and women of all sizes, ages, and races began confidently appearing in ads.

Today, women have the freedom to flex across a full spectrum of femininity. On one end, there’s a full-circle embrace of traditional roles, visible in the rise of ‘tradwife,’ ‘soft girl,’ and ‘stay-at-home girlfriend’ trends of the 2020s. Legacy brands like Marc Jacobs have tapped into the aesthetic, while newer brands and products rise to meet the needs of a tradwife lifestyle—sometimes at absurd price points. Toward the other end of the spectrum, we find Brat Summer, dressing for the female gaze, and the embrace of singlehood. Women on this end may also be applying a critical lens to motherhood or, at the far extreme, removing men from the equation entirely. In response, we see companies like Style of Our Own (SOOO), an “immersive sports store for fans of women’s sport and the people who play it,” decentralize men in a largely male-dominated industry by putting women at the center of both fandom and product design.

Nara Smith, colostrum, and sports merch aside, what separates these women from the narrow depictions of a century ago is autonomy: the right to choose these roles rather than being forced into them. And we see the impact in the outcomes. Women are statistically thriving: more educated, more happy, and more socially and emotionally fulfilled.

Heterostasis and the cost of narrow ideals.

Brands haven’t quite landed on how to meet men in a similar way. When brands try to offer new lenses on masculinity, they’re often responded to with outright hostility—a reaction that reveals heterostasis at work. We see this most clearly in brands coded as hyper-masculine, like when Bud Light featured the actress Dylan Mulvaney in an ad two years ago, challenging the narrow view of beer as a straight male beverage. The brand paid the price. More recently, the Minnesota Vikings introduced two male cheerleaders (slay) to their squad, sparking backlash from fans who saw their very presence as a threat to the sanctity of football’s image. The controversy put a spotlight on stereotypically masculine spaces in culture, like the NFL, where the mere visibility of men dancing on the sidelines can destabilize over a century of cultural conditioning. As a result, and perhaps for fear of backlash, most brands default to what feels familiar and safe: rugged outdoorsmen, stoic fathers, or confident, woman-chasers.

This pressure to live up to this 'big, manly, confident' image can create intense feelings of inadequacy for some men. We're seeing this now in online forums and manosphere media where a man’s worth is defined by who he can win rather than who he can be. These spaces try to convince men that dominance and sexual conquest are answers to their struggles. And it’s working: these communities thrive because many men feel trapped, boxed in by traditional expectations yet unequipped to move beyond them. That stasis plays out against a bleak backdrop of emotional, social, and economic strain: underemployment, rising suicide rates, and pervasive loneliness. Robert D. Putnam and Richard V. Reeves capture this reality with a sobering decree: “We have too many lost boys.” Nowhere is this clearer than in the most extreme online corners, like incel forums, where frustration over not 'getting the girl' curdles into resentment and hostility. Violent outbursts become tragic proof of what happens when the inability to fulfill a single, broken definition of masculinity turns into rage.

Come one, come all to the heterorevolution.

A heterorevolution for all means moving beyond narrow scripts of what men are supposed to want. Yes, men want sex, confidence, and power—like people of any gender or sexuality. But men also want a lot of other things: to be valued as whole people, to forge friendships rooted in kinship rather than conquest, and to feel purposeful in their contributions, to name a few.

The path forward for brands isn’t in haphazardly subverting masculinity or lecturing men about their values, but in creating expansive, multifaceted portrayals of manhood, so men can feel free to be—whatever that ‘being-ness’ means to them. Increasingly, we’re seeing men experiment with new ways of expressing those desires, through aesthetics, hobbies, and communities that stretch beyond the status quo. Brands can use these as a map for navigating and furthering the heterorevolution:

• Celebrate what they love. Pinterest men are reshaping masculine identity, now making up over one-third of Pinterest’s global audience. Searches for ‘older brother core’ are up 95% and ‘goth guy outfits’ up 125% YOY, while interest in pilates aesthetics and outfits has surged 125% and 300%, respectively. How can your brand meet men where they already are, celebrating the passions and aesthetics they’re actively embracing rather than prescribing who they should be?

• Highlight the roles they choose. Men like William Conrad exemplify the growing prevalence of the Stay-At-Home Boyfriend and the expansion of men’s domestic roles, more generally. He left his high-earning tech job to focus on care (William proudly identifies as his partner’s seamstress) and cooking. How can your brand reflect shades of masculinity that are nurturing and creative, highlighting those leading the change, rather than positioning the brand as the author of that redefinition?

• Support the communities they build. The Brooklyn Stroll Club, a group of dads connecting through daily walks, now has 1000+ members on Discord, drawing attention from brands like Paramount, Baby Dove, and Depop for sponsorship deals. Members highlight the impact of community in reshaping fatherhood: “To be in a community with other men who are trying to figure out how to break cycles… it’s really important.” How can your brand help build or amplify communities that allow men to create their own identities collectively?

For stewards of brands, the goal shouldn’t be to “fix” an entire group of people, but to validate, reflect, and support the ways men are already leading the charge themselves. By doing this, brands stop chasing culture and start listening to it—creating meaningful, new value for the men they serve.

About The Writer

Rose Albanese is a Senior Strategist at SYLVAIN, based in Brooklyn. She’s shaped brand strategy for Amazon Music, Etsy, Synchrony Bank, American Express, Hinge, Resy, and One&Only Resorts. Born to a Haitian mother and Italian father, she began her career in opera and continues her creative practice as a singer-songwriter, bringing her sense of performance, rhythm, and emotion to the work she builds with brands.

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