Blog

This blog explores masculinity, human–environment relations, and compassionate cultural change through fieldwork, art, and environmental psychology. Essays examine how labor, place, social structures, and cultural narratives shape identity, belonging, and moral development — and how we might build a new cultural imagination and shared future that composts shame and projection, and is instead grounded in dignity, connection, and responsibility.

rural masculinity, working class masculinity, economic insecurity and men, labor and identity, economic change and mental health, community and belonging Shawndel Fraser rural masculinity, working class masculinity, economic insecurity and men, labor and identity, economic change and mental health, community and belonging Shawndel Fraser

How Economic Change Shapes Men’s Well-Being and Sense of Purpose

…we rarely stay with the simpler, harder truth: when a society organizes masculine worth around labor and then systematically erodes access to stable, meaningful work — through economic restructuring, job loss, and the decline of skilled trades — the resulting disorientation is not a moral failure. It is a structural one.

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men and emotional expression, emotional socialization of boys, masculinity and mental health, communication in relationships, social norms and masculinity Shawndel Fraser men and emotional expression, emotional socialization of boys, masculinity and mental health, communication in relationships, social norms and masculinity Shawndel Fraser

Why Many Men Don’t “Open Up” — and Why That’s Not the Problem

“He won’t open up.”

I hear this phrase often. Sometimes said with concern, sometimes with frustration or resignation. It’s usually framed as a problem to be solved—an emotional deficit, a resistance, a failure to engage. The assumption underneath it is clear: if he were evolved or emotionally mature enough, he would talk more about how he feels. But what if that assumption is incomplete? What if many men are expressing their emotional life—in ways we’ve not been taught to recognize?

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