When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on the January 10, 2025 episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” he lamented that corporate culture had become too “female ization”, suppressing their “masculine energy” and giving up supposedly valuable traits such as aggression.

The workplace, he concluded, had been "emasculated."

Perhaps not surprisingly, Zuckerberg also pursues typically masculine pursuits in his personal life. He has become a mixed martial arts enthusiast and shares his love for bacon. He even started hunting pigs with a bow and arrow on his vast Hawaiian compound.

He has shed the eccentric image of his youth.

But is Zuckerberg right? Do American workplaces need to embrace a more diesel-fueled, street-fighting, meat-eating mentality?

As a social psychologist who studies masculinity and aggression, I think it's important to evaluate what the science says about Zuckerberg's claims and consider what this means for the future of American workplace culture

Don't show weakness

In 2018, sociologist Jennifer Berdahl and her colleagues coined the term “masculinity contest culture” to describe workplaces rife with cutthroat competition, toxic leadership, bullying, and harassment.

Integrating decades of research on workplace masculinity, Berdahl and her collaborators were able to map out how masculinity contest cultures operate and show how they impact organizations and individual workers.

In her experiment, she asked participants to agree or disagree with statements such as "Expressing any emotion other than anger or pride is seen as weakness." Using advanced statistical techniques, Berdahl's team was able to distill the culture of masculinity competition into four components: "Don't show weakness," "Strength and endurance," "Work first," and "Dog eat dog."

They were then able to show how these cultures are linked to a range of negative outcomes for workers and companies, such as burnout, turnover and poor well-being. At the organizational level, they can create dysfunctional office environments, toxic leadership, and even bullying and harassment.

imaginary grievance

Well, according to this study, promoting rigid masculinity in the workplace doesn't seem to be the best solution for the already troubled Meta.

So what leads Zuckerberg to claim that the workplace has been neutralized and must be infused with masculine energy? Has the American office really turned into "Legally Blonde"?

Zuckerberg's own company isn't exactly a paragon of equality: As of 2022, nearly two-thirds of its workforce were male, and three-quarters of its tech staff were male. Moreover, according to psychologists Sapna Cheryan and Hazel Markus, American workplaces still reflect what they call the "male default"—rewards that often A culture of traits or behaviors associated with men.

This can range from how a company describes itself—for example, a place that is “aggressive” and “no-fuss”—to hosting events that cater to traditionally male pursuits, such as golf outings.

While Cherian and Marcus' analysis focuses on how male default behaviors make it harder for women to carve out their own career paths, they can harm everyone, including men.

For example, my research shows that when men feel pressured to live up to certain masculine expectations, they may develop a fragile masculine identity, which is associated with aggression and anxiety.

While pervasive masculinity norms can give men the upper hand in the workplace, I wonder if men are contorting themselves to fit outdated models of success at work. In fact, research shows that successful organizations promote a healthy mix of quintessential masculinity and femininity.

In other words, it would be best if people of all genders could easily demonstrate traits like cooperation and agency that don't necessarily fall into one gender camp.

The rise of the fragile billionaire

If a culture of competition and celebration of masculinity still exists in many workplaces—but with clearly poor results—you might wonder why billionaire corporate leaders would promote such practices.

The most generous explanation is ignorance. Zuckerberg may simply not realize that most offices in America still have playing fields and characteristics associated with traditional masculinity.

While this may be the case, I think there may be two other explanations for Zuckerberg's promotion of strict masculinity norms.

There may be a financial motive. Perhaps Zuckerberg believes that shaping his company into an arena of high-stakes competition and aggression is the best way to attract talent and spur innovation in a field already dominated by men. Competition is often thought to drive innovation. So "Meta needs to be more masculine" may actually be "Meta needs to foster more internal competition, which will spur innovation and turnaround". This assumption is also wrong: recent research shows that internal competition may actually stifle innovation.

There may also be psychological motivations. I’ve found in my research that men are most likely to cling to rigid ideas of masculinity when they feel pressure to be “masculine” and feel insecure about themselves.

Perhaps Zuckerberg sees diversity efforts as a challenge to his power. Perhaps he believes that aligning with President Donald Trump's masculinity will help him gain and retain power, especially as he faces challenges from other tech giants. So he promotes a progressive workplace and cuts policies that might make him look "weak," all in an effort to solidify his standing as a leader, an innovator and a man.

That’s not to say that activities like hunting and MMA are inherently bad or even inherently masculine: there are plenty of female hunters and UFC fighters. This is also not to say that certain masculine traits in the workplace are inherently bad.

But when I see middle-aged billionaires — and Zuckerberg isn’t the only one — displaying the fragile masculinity I’ve observed among young adult men and adolescent boys, I can’t help but wonder what the future holds for this country .