Masculine culture has traditionally, and currently, favored conformance and lack of individuality over basically everything else. It’s one of the more toxic parts of masculinity as portrayed by the patriarchy.
There are many ways to be a woman. There are many ways to be a gay man. There’s really only one way to be a straight man, if you want to be valuable in the eyes of the patriarchy. It’s all about conformity, conformity, conformity. No deviancy, no thoughts, just a blank slate of a man ready for work, family, and an early death, be it at war or doing stupid things.
How you dress, how you speak, how you walk, who you are friends with, what shows you watch, who you respect, how you show that respect, what you do, how you earn a living, how you have sex, how you obtain relationships. Everything, from life until death.
The perfect man is the perfect cog. He works, he doesn’t think too much, he walks and talks right, he makes moral love to his wife, and he raises his kids in a standard American family hand-picked for him by his forefathers. Any deviance from that is marks-off.
I think a lot of men need to believe that their life just so happens to perfectly fit the mold, but you see, it’s by choice. If that’s what they need to believe to be happy, then okay. I’m fine with that.
And they are not courageous. They are so scared they will be seen as unmanly or outsiders, that they will do, enable and tolerate pretty much anything.