"The case of a man seriously split off from his masculine side and identity was at one time a pathological rarity, a condition to be met with only now and then. Men, affirmed as men by their fathers and the men of the community were by and large free to mature as husbands, fathers, and leaders. In secure possession of their gender identity, the great majority of men moved from the chest, as it were, out of hearts freed from legalisms of childhood, the narcissisms of adolescence, of the perfectionisms of an adulthood spent futiley seeking self-acceptance (or the affirmation of parents). Now, however, what was once the exceptional psychogenic factor, has become, unhappily, a ruling feature of the culture at large. Very few men indeed are adequately affirmed AS MEN (author's emphasis) today, and many are pathologically split off from their masculine side altogether."

Leanne Payne, Crisis In Masculinity, p. 12-13