Healing Masculinity and Dismantling Patriarchy from Within

Proposals Due: December 31, 2026 | Anticipated Publication: 2027

What would it mean for a man to come home to himself?

Not to the patriarchal self that was shaped by silence and performance.  Something more, something better.

Patriarchy has taught men that strength has no needs and that being a man means enduring and providing. What does it look like to reclaim the masculine self that knows how to grieve and how to celebrate, how to ask for help and how to offer it, how to hold space for another without flinching or fixing?

That safe, grounded, healed man exists. We have met him. And we believe there are far more men capable of becoming him.

Better Men: Healing Masculinity and Dismantling Patriarchy from Within is a landmark anthology by Good Medicine Press. We are gathering essays and practical wisdom from writers, thinkers, and practitioners reimagining what it means to be a man in this world.

Why This Book

Patriarchy has not only harmed women, children, and marginalized communities. It has debilitated men.

Patriarchy has taught men to be strangers to their own inner lives. It teaches men that their value is located in what they can produce, provide, or protect.  This leaves them with no language for who they are outside of their prescribed roles, and abandons them to culture in which men die earlier, struggle in silence longer, and are less likely to seek help.

This anthology is rooted in the philosophy of bell hooks, where in A Will To Change, she writes, “The crisis facing men is not the crisis of masculinity, it is the crisis of patriarchal masculinity. Until we make this distinction clear, men will continue to fear that any critique of patriarchy represents a threat.” This book is structured to aid men in reclaiming their emotional lives, their capacity for genuine connection, and as a result, their ability to hold themselves and each other accountable.

The manosphere has offered one answer to male pain: more dominance and more separation from the very qualities that might actually save them.  We disagree. Through movement, growth, and a return to a full emotional self, there is a way to become better men.

What We Are Looking For

We are seeking writing which teaches, illuminates, and invites reflection. These essays should reach the men who may be just beginning to question what they were taught, and those men who are already deep in the work of becoming better.

Every essay in Better Men should leave a reader with something they can use: a new perspective, a framework for self-examination, a method for beginning, a language for something they have been living without being able to name.

We are particularly seeking essays that explore:

Questioning Patriarchy from the Inside:Patriarchy has lied to men, and severed them from the fullness of their lives.  But how is such a dominant paradigm, and one that promises success and dominance through absolute submission, questioned?  Where does one begin to deprogram from the underlying structure of society?

Reclaiming the Emotional Self: bell hooks writes, “Patriarchy demands of men that they become and remain emotional cripples.”  This collection asks what it looks like for men to reclaim their emotions, to be accountable to and for their real and full selves? And how do they begin to embrace the experience of feelings as a strength?

Value Beyond Productivity:What is a man worth when the job is gone, the relationship ends, the body fails? We want essays that help men locate their worth in something more durable than output.

The Art of Deep Friendship: How can men build the kind of friendships that hold them? What does it take to let another man know you? What stands in the way, and how do you move past it?

Communication as Connection: Most men were never taught to communicate in ways that invite genuine contact. We seek accessible approaches to speaking and listening differently in romantic relationships, friendships, families, and workplaces.

Holding Men Accountable: One of the most urgent concepts for a better world and better men is about accountability. How can men hold other men to their better selves without cruelty or abandonment? How do you call a brother in rather than call him out? What does accountability look like among men who love each other?

Masculinity Across Culture: Patriarchy does not look the same in every community, and neither does healing. We actively seek essays from men of color, Indigenous men, queer and trans men, and men from non-Western cultural contexts with paths toward healing.

Violence, Objectification, and Refusal: We want essays that look honestly at the cultures of violence and objectification which define patriarchal masculinity and which articulate a clear and grounded refusal.

Spiritual and Sacred Dimensions of Masculinity: Healing is psychological and spiritual. We seek essays that draw on varied wisdom traditions, inclusive of Indigenous, religious, or philosophical outlooks which articulate a sacred or divine masculinity.