I'm actually pumped that TMR published a piece like this because I'm pretty sure most mags would be afraid to do so based on the topic alone (which I think only supports your point here, Django). I appreciate that this piece makes space to critique misogynistic writing, too, instead of simply criticizing contemporary female authors, and I personally really liked the vast number of examples of how both men and women fall short in showing us real and complex human beings (which I used to hope was the goal of literary fiction compared to, say, commercial fiction). I found the voice incredibly playful in its intensity (definitely going to start using Rigged for Her Pleasure lol). I hope TMR will publish more pieces like this that make people uncomfortable, especially if readers here disagree with the author, because in the literary sphere, it can sort of feel like everyone is tiptoeing to the same side, and that's rather dull.
I recently read Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan (a good novel, btw) over a weekend and felt that part of what made it so easy to read was that it was immediately relatable, even though I'm not a woman. So even I can find it a compelling read despite being very different from the protagonist and author, how much more compelling would it be if I were?
We always ask why there's such a growing gender disparity these days when it comes to reading, let alone writing. One obvious answer is that it's very fun and flattering to always read about yourself. I've re-read Loner and The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. numerous times because in many ways (not all of them a source of pride), I identify with the protagonists. While it's great to see things through other perspectives, it's also great to have your own experiences reflected back at you, letting you process them from a more removed position.
In shorts, young guys won't read more until there are more genuine young male characters being written.
"Loner" and "Affairs" are the two counterexamples to this trend I was waiting for, though it seems like Ellenhorn wants something even harsher than those? I'd defend both of them as just plainly engrossing while also refusing to flinch from the ugliness of characters of both genders, but yes, as you point out, they're only going to seem relatable if you went to a pretty elite college or are part of a social milieu where at least a few people went to one of those places.
This is genuinely a great piece on the dilemma of men in literary fiction, and pretty damn important if anyone wants a snowball's chance in hell of addressing the issue of young men in modern culture (especially in the West, especially after this past November). It's easy to curl up and get comfy in an echo chamber; it's much harder when reality comes a-knocking and you find yourself with comparatively paltry cultural offerings to the subject. A fantastic work of invigorating criticism, regardless of wherever you fall on the sociopolitical spectrum.
Really compelling. Also, and this is a bit adrift of your main point, but you're the only writer I've seen acknowledge something that I have been praising Rooney for all along (though I recognize you're not praising it, just pointing to it). She writes about what it's like to be a young woman, seeking love in the shadow of pornography -- and what love between men and women might look like in spite of it.
Okay, my algorithm must be taking the absolute piss out of me, because it silver-serves me pieces (and I’m sorry, Metropolitan Review, this is 100% not personal, it’s the algorithm, not me) and so, here I am. I hope you read, because I'd love a good, rigorous—guns-sheathed but still present—conversation about this.
This essay isn’t about how men are written in contemporary literature—it’s a performance of cultural anxiety disguised as critique. The claim to analyse gender representation in fiction is, at its core, a reaction to perceived displacement. What’s wild is that the argument hinges on a misrepresentation of the literary landscape, tracing back to what I’m sure was an intellectual, career-motivated crossroads.
Django, aren’t you writing this essay, sharing it with an audience, and holding editorial power over what gets published? From that chair, you’re just telling the world their efforts are beneath you. Instead of engaging with the full spectrum of contemporary portrayals, you cherry-pick books that confirm your bias—ones that either demonise men or reduce them to props.
Lol. Welcome to commercial fiction.
Or, if this is just an attempt to birth an over-cooked foetus of resentment, congrats, it’s out there. Now, clean it up—it's not a boy or girl though, are you going to be okay?
What you fail to acknowledge is that many female writers explore masculinity with depth and care—not for male validation, but because it’s interesting. You’re clearly reading within the class bracket that soothes your ideology. You've picked works from sides to reference that clearly endorse whatever point you're trying to make. I almost kicked myself I didn't at the beginning by a lottery ticket, two paragraphs in when I thought - alright, how far along til Rooney and American Psycho? Damn.
My advice? Read Stone Work by John Jerome, then Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature, then Bushra al-Maqtari’s What Have You Left Behind. Then re-enter the chat with a clearer vantage point.
The problem isn’t that men are being erased—it’s that they’re no longer the unquestioned default. This isn’t just about men; any group previously wielding disproportionate power is facing recalibration. This shift isn’t exile—it’s expansion. Your essay treats it like banishment.
And I think you can see in the comments section exactly what kind of discourse this piece invites. Most of it is reductive, but then there’s that one guy—very publicly entangled in the world of sexual assault—saying, “Oh, I should think about the people I’m writing about,” as if that’s some fresh insight. Do you reckon he might’ve had that thought sooner if it weren’t for the fact that your argument now lets him reframe his position as intellectual?
This isn’t a radical take—it’s just shouting. It’s the illusion of an anti-establishment argument while reinforcing the same binary it claims to critique. Welcome to the same fence, just a few pickets along.
If men feel unrepresented, it’s not because they’re barred from entry—it’s because they’re no longer the unchallenged centre of the conversation. The most interesting portrayals of masculinity today are being written by those unafraid to question it.
Read some queer lit, or someone outside the US/UK, and get back to me.
> performance of cultural anxiety disguised as critique / over-cooked foetus of resentment / it’s just shouting
I think that's fair, and I criticized the form and tone of this essay in my own comments. It's very defensive.
> The problem isn’t that men are being erased—it’s that they’re no longer the unquestioned default.
This is the standard feminist response. And I agreed in the past, but I don't anymore. I think male artists are being discouraged. Negative depictions of men in contemporary culture emphasize rapacity or incompetence, and positive depictions emphasize servility. I kind of avoided seeing it for a long time by sticking to high-brow art, but it's true.
When you say that female writers are better at writing men, that's really indicative of how far afield internet feminism has gone. The story we're told is that men have nothing to say about femininity and nothing to say about masculinity. But women have lots to say about both. It's just silly. I think that men & women should be writing about everything.
Finally, I'd ask you to consider that American men have a 10% lower enrollment at four year colleges. That's crazy. And those young men aren't responsible for whatever social ills internet feminists think they're correcting.
Django argues that contemporary depictions of men fall into two reductive categories: rapacious incompetents or servile nothings. It’s a catchy claim, but it crumbles under even the lightest scrutiny.
If men are being flattened into caricature, why do contemporary novels abound with richly drawn, complicated male characters?
Ben Lerner’s performative intellectuals.
Brandon Taylor’s emotionally hollow men.
Percival Everett’s fractured seekers.
Hernan Diaz’s pragmatic yet yearning figures.
Even within commercial fiction, we have McCarthy’s weary patriarchs, Colson Whitehead’s haunted wanderers, and Richard Powers’ cerebral loners.
The problem isn’t a lack of male interiority in fiction. If anything, it's one of the first times in the HISTORY of creative expression, that interiority that doesn't look like the stock-standard expectations of masculinity, is actually welcomed. What falls into the old news hat, is this kind of peace - woe is me. Reminds me of Hemingway, a most gifted writer, but ultimately sounds sad, deeply sad, about what he is expected to be - a caricature of a man, not a self.
The problem I think, as Django and others frame it, is that this interiority is no longer granted automatic authority.
You cite declining male university enrolment as if it signals a crisis of exclusion, but enrolment is not a gendered issue—it’s an economic and structural one.
Enrolment in all institutions is down. Universities aren’t rejecting men in favour of women; they are struggling to take in students at all because they can’t keep up with digital education models, economic constraints, and shifting generational priorities.
Younger men are disproportionately isolated, economically strained, and disillusioned with traditional education—not because they are being discouraged from attending university, but because the industries that once provided stable post-education pathways no longer exist in the same way.
It’s not that men are opting out of education; it’s that education is no longer the guarantee of security it once was.
[continued in comments (I know, but this is essay territory for me) ]
Django writes this essay on a platform that overwhelmingly favours men.
I’ve conducted a data analysis of every major Substack account(I know, but this is something that ties with my skillset, not like, being an internet psycho), their historical engagement, and audience distribution. I also analysed three days worth of social feeds under Fiction, Literature and General.
69% of Substack’s dominant voices are men.
22% are women.
The rest do not explicitly state gender.
So where is this supposed “erasure”? If anything, men have created an entirely new media ecosystem that they overwhelmingly dominate—and yet Django still frames his place in it as exile rather than adaptation.
He’s not being silenced. He’s not being excluded. He’s simply no longer the default.
And the reason takes us back to economics, not ideology.
Django’s frustration isn’t that male writers are disappearing—it’s that they aren’t automatically revered in the way they once were. Publishing no longer functions as a linear gatekeeping force; digital platforms have shifted literary power toward engagement over pedigree.
The result? The men who once dominated through institutional prestige now have to compete on the open market—alongside women, alongside marginalised voices, alongside anyone willing to engage deeply.
And some, instead of rising to the challenge, write long-form grievances about how the world is against them.
That’s not literature. That’s just professional stagnation.
And the drumroooooollllllll...
University enrolment is not a gender crisis—it’s an economic one and societal one.
Men are not being shut out of creative industries—they are still overrepresented in high-performing literary spaces like Substack.
The problem isn’t erasure—it’s that institutional prestige no longer guarantees literary dominance.
Django’s argument isn’t about literature—it’s about his refusal to adapt to an industry that no longer centres him by default.
If he truly wanted to engage with these issues, he wouldn’t be talking about gender hierarchies at all. He’d be talking about how economic instability, digital disruption, and social fragmentation are reshaping what it means to be a writer in 2025.
But that would require a deeper critique—one that doesn’t let him claim victimhood as a shortcut for relevance.
And that, ultimately, is the real failure of his essay.
Publishing, media, and the arts have fragmented into gig work, digital-first platforms, and unstable freelance models. Entry-level employment has eroded. Jobs that once allowed young men to support themselves while pursuing creative work are shrinking due to automation, globalisation, and cost-of-living pressures.
Universities are no longer obvious investments. With rising debt and diminishing career security, many young people—regardless of gender—are questioning whether a degree is worth it.
Institutional distrust is rising. Universities have failed to adapt to digital shifts, leaving many young men and women looking elsewhere for knowledge and career-building.
But here’s the real issue: where people go after they enrol.
Historically, enrolment has skewed toward women in many fields, but career placement does not.
Women are funnelled into marketing, PR, admin, HR—adjacent roles that support but do not define creative industries.
Men are prioritised for technical, analytical, and creative leadership roles.
These placements aren’t choices so much as outcomes of systemic expectation.
Employers assume women will prioritise flexibility, so they are shunted into roles with lower promotion ceilings and less direct decision-making power.
Meanwhile, men remain trapped in toxic productivity cycles—expected to perform harder, faster, and with more relentless output to prove their worth in an economy that increasingly commodifies intellect at the expense of humanity.
This is what’s fuelling the real male frustration—not some imagined purge from literary spaces, but an economic model that offers no refuge.
Which brings us to Django’s own space: Substack.
[continued in comments (I promise it's the last one...) ]
Yes, Django’s piece is defensive. Yes, it performs anxiety more than it engages with literature. But the problem isn’t just that it’s defensive—it’s circling a drain of self-inflicted victimhood while masquerading as literary critique. He’s not interrogating why the books he criticises exist, what cultural moment they respond to, or how they function within a broader literary ecosystem. Instead, he frames them as punishment, a kind of aesthetic revenge against men. That’s not criticism. That’s paranoia.
But let’s move to where we disagree, because your response takes the bait on an assumption that needs to be questioned:
You frame this as an issue of male discouragement. I’d ask: discouraged from what?
Discouraged from writing books? No. Publishing remains largely white, largely male, and entrenched in power networks that still prioritise certain intellectual lineages. Django himself—MFA-credentialled, editorially positioned, and published on a platform that skews male—has not been shut out. His real complaint isn’t that men can’t write; it’s that they can’t write without friction.
What you’re calling discouragement isn’t a system shutting men out—it’s a recalibration of expectation. Male perspectives are no longer assumed to be default. They are being asked to articulate themselves within a wider intellectual conversation rather than preside over it unchallenged. The fact that this feels like discouragement speaks to how much literary culture previously prioritised their voices without question.
Django himself reveals this dynamic when he derides male novelists who “pander” to feminist sensibilities. But what he calls pandering is simply adaptation—writers responding to an audience that now includes people who expect to be engaged as equals, not as passive observers of male interiority. Instead of asking why literature is shifting, Django frames it as submission. But good literature has never come from unchecked authority; it thrives on contradiction, limitation, and friction.
It's frustrating to me that you've replied to my single brief comment with four very long comments. If you reply, could please keep it in one comment? You make many assertions, many of which I disagree with. For example, you state:
> Publishing remains largely white, largely male
It is largely white, but it's a completely female dominated industry.
> Universities aren’t rejecting men in favour of women; they are struggling to take in students at all
Universities aren't struggling to take in students! And I did not claim that universities are rejecting men in favor of women, I actually think universities (at this point) are desperately trying to increase male enrollment.
What I think is happening culturally is that women are no longer helping men. I'd be nowhere in life without the many, many women who helped me and encouraged me from a young age, continuing through college, and into employment. Men have also sometimes helped me, but not nearly as often as women.
I think internet feminism has created a separatist mentality in women, where they see helping women & girls as paramount, and generally avoid helping men & boys. I don't think this is healthy or normal. Men and women are deeply interdependent at every level, and separatism is making everyone unhappy.
> Meanwhile, men remain trapped in toxic productivity cycles—expected to perform harder, faster, and with more relentless output to prove their worth
Yeah, this is true. But what I'm seeing is women coveting these positions, which is to say, women are leaning into their own economic exploitation in a way we haven't seen in the past. You question the idea that women want flexibility in work, but I think they do, and they're smart to do so. It would be better if men valued flexibility more but instead we're seeing women give up flexibility. We're moving in the wrong direction.
Something I'll note is that women have always been better readers than men. The conventional wisdom was that women read men & women and men only read men. Now we're seeing women only read women, and few men read at all. Again, moving in the wrong direction.
Finally, I'd ask you to think about how you are lecturing men on which writers are writing men well, and how arrogant that is, how it erases the male perspective.
Alright, that's totally warranted. I'll keep it snappy.
If men are struggling in creative fields, the question isn’t ‘Who took our place?’ but ‘Why weren’t we prepared to compete without structural default?’ If women are leaning into solidarity, why weren’t men encouraged to do the same?
If you want to talk about that—the real conditions shaping opportunity—I’m here, but if this is just the other side of identity politics and Schrodinger's Discourse, I'm afraid I'm going to have to tap out.
The binary-back-and-forth chat is why I left the gender equity charity I founded (for everyone, mind you), and why I'll only ever talk about gender from a structural level, so people stop fighting one another in threads, and out in the world.
I hope you take care—these conversations are frustrating, and I get that.
But I really do believe there are people who want to approach this with encouragement for all sides (such as myself).
You can't succeed creatively if people aren't consuming your work. Women have always been the primary consumers of creative work, and they are no longer consuming the things men produce. I see this as a result of artificial separatism.
I think gender solidarity can be good in small amounts, but when it's too intense it leads to separatism. I think we should frankly acknowledge that men & women need each other and ought to help each other.
also THANK you dms, I fucking loved that intellectual workout, and I appreciate your response as it is always an opportunity to frame these relentless, reactive essays we see everywhere, that prompt one another (like you, like me) to respond in a way that genuinely hurts our emotions. If you want to talk further or elsewhere please feel free to, otherwise, I hope you are well, and I will read some of your writing on your page as a thank you x
This review has me scared of my own shadow! I have three stories in my short story manuscript that feature women as the protagonist—and other stories feature non-Native Americans as the protagonists. I'm re-reading my MS with this essay in mind.
This was a. no holds barred essay. I’m 63 and have been married for almost forty years. I kept thinking as I was reading this that to know yourself as a man and as a man to know a woman it’s a huge advantage to have been in a long and successful marriage. You can’t create that level of intimate observation without putting in the time
Broad in scope, good in noticing, as James Wood would say. Nailed Rooney and Lerner (and others), I would have nailed harder, but, hey...poor Fuccboi must be feeling the heat these days after this and the Sam Kriss essay in The Point. Nice work.
This piece contains an astonishing amount of zingers, mic drops, and scathing critiques about contemporary literature. It's also a damning reminder of why, despite being a contemporary novelist, I have little interest in reading most contemporary fiction coming out of the USA. When the specific gender of a novelist becomes the be-all-end-all of the story, well shit, say sayonara to good storytelling.
I agree with your assessment of Rooney’s characters, except that I strongly disagree it’s a question of gender. “Aestheticized reduction” is precisely how I’d describe her female characters who feel empty, underdeveloped, and not at all recognizable to me. Or as you say, re Nick, they irritate me because their misery makes them pretty.
I like Rooney’s novels, but only in spite of how she writes female characters. That you or other men read Rooney with the same feeling about her male characters suggests…both that Rooney’s characters are unrealistic and yet the novels work somehow anyway. But also that readers might always be more attuned to the representation of their own gender, which is why you are able to write about the representation of men in such detail. Does this really amount to a crisis in representation in fiction or is it just a logical outcome of being limited by our own gendered perspectives? I’m not sure I feel the same male representation panic you do but then again, well, of course I don’t.
“But also that readers might always be more attuned to the representation of their own gender, which is why you are able to write about the representation of men in such detail. Does this really amount to a crisis in representation in fiction or is it just a logical outcome of being limited by our own gendered perspectives?”
In this particular case, the latter. But now that the genders have been reversed in this discussion, can I now suggest that the expectation for the love interest of every protagonist to be “fully realized” was actually ridiculous from the start? When does any love interest one has in real life become a fully realized person? Only after they stop being a “love interest” and have become a long term partner. Every new romance involves some sort of aestheticized reduction. It only makes for bad fiction when that reduction makes that character unrealistic.
Rooney is an excellent writer, she has nailed her schtick.
It's almost irrelevant if her characters or plot might be vapid. Although I appreciate most of her readers see depth, that's the gift of her dreamy writing skills. Readers can project whatever they will, as with any fiction.
I'm actually pumped that TMR published a piece like this because I'm pretty sure most mags would be afraid to do so based on the topic alone (which I think only supports your point here, Django). I appreciate that this piece makes space to critique misogynistic writing, too, instead of simply criticizing contemporary female authors, and I personally really liked the vast number of examples of how both men and women fall short in showing us real and complex human beings (which I used to hope was the goal of literary fiction compared to, say, commercial fiction). I found the voice incredibly playful in its intensity (definitely going to start using Rigged for Her Pleasure lol). I hope TMR will publish more pieces like this that make people uncomfortable, especially if readers here disagree with the author, because in the literary sphere, it can sort of feel like everyone is tiptoeing to the same side, and that's rather dull.
I kept a screenshot of a note a still famous musician posted (then later quietly deleted) from their Tumblr in 2014. (I know, very 2014). It reads:
Don't flinch.
This day and age won't last forever.
It will come back to the real deal
And when it does
Everyone will look around
To take stock of who flinched
And who just kept to the art.
That achievement will be more high-tech
than any high technology.
I recently read Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan (a good novel, btw) over a weekend and felt that part of what made it so easy to read was that it was immediately relatable, even though I'm not a woman. So even I can find it a compelling read despite being very different from the protagonist and author, how much more compelling would it be if I were?
We always ask why there's such a growing gender disparity these days when it comes to reading, let alone writing. One obvious answer is that it's very fun and flattering to always read about yourself. I've re-read Loner and The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. numerous times because in many ways (not all of them a source of pride), I identify with the protagonists. While it's great to see things through other perspectives, it's also great to have your own experiences reflected back at you, letting you process them from a more removed position.
In shorts, young guys won't read more until there are more genuine young male characters being written.
"Loner" and "Affairs" are the two counterexamples to this trend I was waiting for, though it seems like Ellenhorn wants something even harsher than those? I'd defend both of them as just plainly engrossing while also refusing to flinch from the ugliness of characters of both genders, but yes, as you point out, they're only going to seem relatable if you went to a pretty elite college or are part of a social milieu where at least a few people went to one of those places.
I kind of feel like the horse is out of the barn, what with the video games and all. But you're right.
This was wild.
Settling in for the comments section 🍿👀
This is genuinely a great piece on the dilemma of men in literary fiction, and pretty damn important if anyone wants a snowball's chance in hell of addressing the issue of young men in modern culture (especially in the West, especially after this past November). It's easy to curl up and get comfy in an echo chamber; it's much harder when reality comes a-knocking and you find yourself with comparatively paltry cultural offerings to the subject. A fantastic work of invigorating criticism, regardless of wherever you fall on the sociopolitical spectrum.
But they don't want a snowball's chance in hell. They'd have to give something up, and they don't want that.
Really compelling. Also, and this is a bit adrift of your main point, but you're the only writer I've seen acknowledge something that I have been praising Rooney for all along (though I recognize you're not praising it, just pointing to it). She writes about what it's like to be a young woman, seeking love in the shadow of pornography -- and what love between men and women might look like in spite of it.
Okay, my algorithm must be taking the absolute piss out of me, because it silver-serves me pieces (and I’m sorry, Metropolitan Review, this is 100% not personal, it’s the algorithm, not me) and so, here I am. I hope you read, because I'd love a good, rigorous—guns-sheathed but still present—conversation about this.
This essay isn’t about how men are written in contemporary literature—it’s a performance of cultural anxiety disguised as critique. The claim to analyse gender representation in fiction is, at its core, a reaction to perceived displacement. What’s wild is that the argument hinges on a misrepresentation of the literary landscape, tracing back to what I’m sure was an intellectual, career-motivated crossroads.
Django, aren’t you writing this essay, sharing it with an audience, and holding editorial power over what gets published? From that chair, you’re just telling the world their efforts are beneath you. Instead of engaging with the full spectrum of contemporary portrayals, you cherry-pick books that confirm your bias—ones that either demonise men or reduce them to props.
Lol. Welcome to commercial fiction.
Or, if this is just an attempt to birth an over-cooked foetus of resentment, congrats, it’s out there. Now, clean it up—it's not a boy or girl though, are you going to be okay?
What you fail to acknowledge is that many female writers explore masculinity with depth and care—not for male validation, but because it’s interesting. You’re clearly reading within the class bracket that soothes your ideology. You've picked works from sides to reference that clearly endorse whatever point you're trying to make. I almost kicked myself I didn't at the beginning by a lottery ticket, two paragraphs in when I thought - alright, how far along til Rooney and American Psycho? Damn.
My advice? Read Stone Work by John Jerome, then Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature, then Bushra al-Maqtari’s What Have You Left Behind. Then re-enter the chat with a clearer vantage point.
The problem isn’t that men are being erased—it’s that they’re no longer the unquestioned default. This isn’t just about men; any group previously wielding disproportionate power is facing recalibration. This shift isn’t exile—it’s expansion. Your essay treats it like banishment.
And I think you can see in the comments section exactly what kind of discourse this piece invites. Most of it is reductive, but then there’s that one guy—very publicly entangled in the world of sexual assault—saying, “Oh, I should think about the people I’m writing about,” as if that’s some fresh insight. Do you reckon he might’ve had that thought sooner if it weren’t for the fact that your argument now lets him reframe his position as intellectual?
This isn’t a radical take—it’s just shouting. It’s the illusion of an anti-establishment argument while reinforcing the same binary it claims to critique. Welcome to the same fence, just a few pickets along.
If men feel unrepresented, it’s not because they’re barred from entry—it’s because they’re no longer the unchallenged centre of the conversation. The most interesting portrayals of masculinity today are being written by those unafraid to question it.
Read some queer lit, or someone outside the US/UK, and get back to me.
Here if you need. x
> performance of cultural anxiety disguised as critique / over-cooked foetus of resentment / it’s just shouting
I think that's fair, and I criticized the form and tone of this essay in my own comments. It's very defensive.
> The problem isn’t that men are being erased—it’s that they’re no longer the unquestioned default.
This is the standard feminist response. And I agreed in the past, but I don't anymore. I think male artists are being discouraged. Negative depictions of men in contemporary culture emphasize rapacity or incompetence, and positive depictions emphasize servility. I kind of avoided seeing it for a long time by sticking to high-brow art, but it's true.
When you say that female writers are better at writing men, that's really indicative of how far afield internet feminism has gone. The story we're told is that men have nothing to say about femininity and nothing to say about masculinity. But women have lots to say about both. It's just silly. I think that men & women should be writing about everything.
Finally, I'd ask you to consider that American men have a 10% lower enrollment at four year colleges. That's crazy. And those young men aren't responsible for whatever social ills internet feminists think they're correcting.
Django argues that contemporary depictions of men fall into two reductive categories: rapacious incompetents or servile nothings. It’s a catchy claim, but it crumbles under even the lightest scrutiny.
If men are being flattened into caricature, why do contemporary novels abound with richly drawn, complicated male characters?
Ben Lerner’s performative intellectuals.
Brandon Taylor’s emotionally hollow men.
Percival Everett’s fractured seekers.
Hernan Diaz’s pragmatic yet yearning figures.
Even within commercial fiction, we have McCarthy’s weary patriarchs, Colson Whitehead’s haunted wanderers, and Richard Powers’ cerebral loners.
The problem isn’t a lack of male interiority in fiction. If anything, it's one of the first times in the HISTORY of creative expression, that interiority that doesn't look like the stock-standard expectations of masculinity, is actually welcomed. What falls into the old news hat, is this kind of peace - woe is me. Reminds me of Hemingway, a most gifted writer, but ultimately sounds sad, deeply sad, about what he is expected to be - a caricature of a man, not a self.
The problem I think, as Django and others frame it, is that this interiority is no longer granted automatic authority.
You cite declining male university enrolment as if it signals a crisis of exclusion, but enrolment is not a gendered issue—it’s an economic and structural one.
Enrolment in all institutions is down. Universities aren’t rejecting men in favour of women; they are struggling to take in students at all because they can’t keep up with digital education models, economic constraints, and shifting generational priorities.
Younger men are disproportionately isolated, economically strained, and disillusioned with traditional education—not because they are being discouraged from attending university, but because the industries that once provided stable post-education pathways no longer exist in the same way.
It’s not that men are opting out of education; it’s that education is no longer the guarantee of security it once was.
[continued in comments (I know, but this is essay territory for me) ]
Django writes this essay on a platform that overwhelmingly favours men.
I’ve conducted a data analysis of every major Substack account(I know, but this is something that ties with my skillset, not like, being an internet psycho), their historical engagement, and audience distribution. I also analysed three days worth of social feeds under Fiction, Literature and General.
69% of Substack’s dominant voices are men.
22% are women.
The rest do not explicitly state gender.
So where is this supposed “erasure”? If anything, men have created an entirely new media ecosystem that they overwhelmingly dominate—and yet Django still frames his place in it as exile rather than adaptation.
He’s not being silenced. He’s not being excluded. He’s simply no longer the default.
And the reason takes us back to economics, not ideology.
Django’s frustration isn’t that male writers are disappearing—it’s that they aren’t automatically revered in the way they once were. Publishing no longer functions as a linear gatekeeping force; digital platforms have shifted literary power toward engagement over pedigree.
The result? The men who once dominated through institutional prestige now have to compete on the open market—alongside women, alongside marginalised voices, alongside anyone willing to engage deeply.
And some, instead of rising to the challenge, write long-form grievances about how the world is against them.
That’s not literature. That’s just professional stagnation.
And the drumroooooollllllll...
University enrolment is not a gender crisis—it’s an economic one and societal one.
Men are not being shut out of creative industries—they are still overrepresented in high-performing literary spaces like Substack.
The problem isn’t erasure—it’s that institutional prestige no longer guarantees literary dominance.
Django’s argument isn’t about literature—it’s about his refusal to adapt to an industry that no longer centres him by default.
If he truly wanted to engage with these issues, he wouldn’t be talking about gender hierarchies at all. He’d be talking about how economic instability, digital disruption, and social fragmentation are reshaping what it means to be a writer in 2025.
But that would require a deeper critique—one that doesn’t let him claim victimhood as a shortcut for relevance.
And that, ultimately, is the real failure of his essay.
It’s not a critique.
It’s an excuse.
And that is why, it is also, boring.
The creative economy is no longer a pipeline.
Publishing, media, and the arts have fragmented into gig work, digital-first platforms, and unstable freelance models. Entry-level employment has eroded. Jobs that once allowed young men to support themselves while pursuing creative work are shrinking due to automation, globalisation, and cost-of-living pressures.
Universities are no longer obvious investments. With rising debt and diminishing career security, many young people—regardless of gender—are questioning whether a degree is worth it.
Institutional distrust is rising. Universities have failed to adapt to digital shifts, leaving many young men and women looking elsewhere for knowledge and career-building.
But here’s the real issue: where people go after they enrol.
Historically, enrolment has skewed toward women in many fields, but career placement does not.
Women are funnelled into marketing, PR, admin, HR—adjacent roles that support but do not define creative industries.
Men are prioritised for technical, analytical, and creative leadership roles.
These placements aren’t choices so much as outcomes of systemic expectation.
Employers assume women will prioritise flexibility, so they are shunted into roles with lower promotion ceilings and less direct decision-making power.
Meanwhile, men remain trapped in toxic productivity cycles—expected to perform harder, faster, and with more relentless output to prove their worth in an economy that increasingly commodifies intellect at the expense of humanity.
This is what’s fuelling the real male frustration—not some imagined purge from literary spaces, but an economic model that offers no refuge.
Which brings us to Django’s own space: Substack.
[continued in comments (I promise it's the last one...) ]
First, let’s start with where we agree.
Yes, Django’s piece is defensive. Yes, it performs anxiety more than it engages with literature. But the problem isn’t just that it’s defensive—it’s circling a drain of self-inflicted victimhood while masquerading as literary critique. He’s not interrogating why the books he criticises exist, what cultural moment they respond to, or how they function within a broader literary ecosystem. Instead, he frames them as punishment, a kind of aesthetic revenge against men. That’s not criticism. That’s paranoia.
But let’s move to where we disagree, because your response takes the bait on an assumption that needs to be questioned:
You frame this as an issue of male discouragement. I’d ask: discouraged from what?
Discouraged from writing books? No. Publishing remains largely white, largely male, and entrenched in power networks that still prioritise certain intellectual lineages. Django himself—MFA-credentialled, editorially positioned, and published on a platform that skews male—has not been shut out. His real complaint isn’t that men can’t write; it’s that they can’t write without friction.
What you’re calling discouragement isn’t a system shutting men out—it’s a recalibration of expectation. Male perspectives are no longer assumed to be default. They are being asked to articulate themselves within a wider intellectual conversation rather than preside over it unchallenged. The fact that this feels like discouragement speaks to how much literary culture previously prioritised their voices without question.
Django himself reveals this dynamic when he derides male novelists who “pander” to feminist sensibilities. But what he calls pandering is simply adaptation—writers responding to an audience that now includes people who expect to be engaged as equals, not as passive observers of male interiority. Instead of asking why literature is shifting, Django frames it as submission. But good literature has never come from unchecked authority; it thrives on contradiction, limitation, and friction.
[[Continued in next comment...]]
It's frustrating to me that you've replied to my single brief comment with four very long comments. If you reply, could please keep it in one comment? You make many assertions, many of which I disagree with. For example, you state:
> Publishing remains largely white, largely male
It is largely white, but it's a completely female dominated industry.
> Universities aren’t rejecting men in favour of women; they are struggling to take in students at all
Universities aren't struggling to take in students! And I did not claim that universities are rejecting men in favor of women, I actually think universities (at this point) are desperately trying to increase male enrollment.
What I think is happening culturally is that women are no longer helping men. I'd be nowhere in life without the many, many women who helped me and encouraged me from a young age, continuing through college, and into employment. Men have also sometimes helped me, but not nearly as often as women.
I think internet feminism has created a separatist mentality in women, where they see helping women & girls as paramount, and generally avoid helping men & boys. I don't think this is healthy or normal. Men and women are deeply interdependent at every level, and separatism is making everyone unhappy.
> Meanwhile, men remain trapped in toxic productivity cycles—expected to perform harder, faster, and with more relentless output to prove their worth
Yeah, this is true. But what I'm seeing is women coveting these positions, which is to say, women are leaning into their own economic exploitation in a way we haven't seen in the past. You question the idea that women want flexibility in work, but I think they do, and they're smart to do so. It would be better if men valued flexibility more but instead we're seeing women give up flexibility. We're moving in the wrong direction.
Something I'll note is that women have always been better readers than men. The conventional wisdom was that women read men & women and men only read men. Now we're seeing women only read women, and few men read at all. Again, moving in the wrong direction.
Finally, I'd ask you to think about how you are lecturing men on which writers are writing men well, and how arrogant that is, how it erases the male perspective.
Alright, that's totally warranted. I'll keep it snappy.
If men are struggling in creative fields, the question isn’t ‘Who took our place?’ but ‘Why weren’t we prepared to compete without structural default?’ If women are leaning into solidarity, why weren’t men encouraged to do the same?
If you want to talk about that—the real conditions shaping opportunity—I’m here, but if this is just the other side of identity politics and Schrodinger's Discourse, I'm afraid I'm going to have to tap out.
The binary-back-and-forth chat is why I left the gender equity charity I founded (for everyone, mind you), and why I'll only ever talk about gender from a structural level, so people stop fighting one another in threads, and out in the world.
I hope you take care—these conversations are frustrating, and I get that.
But I really do believe there are people who want to approach this with encouragement for all sides (such as myself).
E.
You can't succeed creatively if people aren't consuming your work. Women have always been the primary consumers of creative work, and they are no longer consuming the things men produce. I see this as a result of artificial separatism.
I think gender solidarity can be good in small amounts, but when it's too intense it leads to separatism. I think we should frankly acknowledge that men & women need each other and ought to help each other.
yah that last line I agree and I will say, people need each other and ought to help one another. take care x
also THANK you dms, I fucking loved that intellectual workout, and I appreciate your response as it is always an opportunity to frame these relentless, reactive essays we see everywhere, that prompt one another (like you, like me) to respond in a way that genuinely hurts our emotions. If you want to talk further or elsewhere please feel free to, otherwise, I hope you are well, and I will read some of your writing on your page as a thank you x
Thorough, thoughtful, and brutal.
This review has me scared of my own shadow! I have three stories in my short story manuscript that feature women as the protagonist—and other stories feature non-Native Americans as the protagonists. I'm re-reading my MS with this essay in mind.
Holy SHIT I love this Substack. Keep it coming. Don’t shorten any of the pieces
This was a. no holds barred essay. I’m 63 and have been married for almost forty years. I kept thinking as I was reading this that to know yourself as a man and as a man to know a woman it’s a huge advantage to have been in a long and successful marriage. You can’t create that level of intimate observation without putting in the time
Broad in scope, good in noticing, as James Wood would say. Nailed Rooney and Lerner (and others), I would have nailed harder, but, hey...poor Fuccboi must be feeling the heat these days after this and the Sam Kriss essay in The Point. Nice work.
1) Wow
2) Have you read any recent Jonathan Lethem, esp. The Arrest? I think this is what happened to him
This piece contains an astonishing amount of zingers, mic drops, and scathing critiques about contemporary literature. It's also a damning reminder of why, despite being a contemporary novelist, I have little interest in reading most contemporary fiction coming out of the USA. When the specific gender of a novelist becomes the be-all-end-all of the story, well shit, say sayonara to good storytelling.
I agree with your assessment of Rooney’s characters, except that I strongly disagree it’s a question of gender. “Aestheticized reduction” is precisely how I’d describe her female characters who feel empty, underdeveloped, and not at all recognizable to me. Or as you say, re Nick, they irritate me because their misery makes them pretty.
I like Rooney’s novels, but only in spite of how she writes female characters. That you or other men read Rooney with the same feeling about her male characters suggests…both that Rooney’s characters are unrealistic and yet the novels work somehow anyway. But also that readers might always be more attuned to the representation of their own gender, which is why you are able to write about the representation of men in such detail. Does this really amount to a crisis in representation in fiction or is it just a logical outcome of being limited by our own gendered perspectives? I’m not sure I feel the same male representation panic you do but then again, well, of course I don’t.
“But also that readers might always be more attuned to the representation of their own gender, which is why you are able to write about the representation of men in such detail. Does this really amount to a crisis in representation in fiction or is it just a logical outcome of being limited by our own gendered perspectives?”
In this particular case, the latter. But now that the genders have been reversed in this discussion, can I now suggest that the expectation for the love interest of every protagonist to be “fully realized” was actually ridiculous from the start? When does any love interest one has in real life become a fully realized person? Only after they stop being a “love interest” and have become a long term partner. Every new romance involves some sort of aestheticized reduction. It only makes for bad fiction when that reduction makes that character unrealistic.
Rooney is an excellent writer, she has nailed her schtick.
It's almost irrelevant if her characters or plot might be vapid. Although I appreciate most of her readers see depth, that's the gift of her dreamy writing skills. Readers can project whatever they will, as with any fiction.
Holy Christ this was good.