The Return of ‘Man At His Best’

Hearst Owned2 min readWhen my daughters, who are eight and eleven, tell me stories about the annoying behavior of the boys in their class, I like to roll my eyes and say, “Boys are the worst.”“But Dad,” they scream, “you’re a boy!”I tell them: “No, I’m a man.”Then they roll their eyes at me.That may be my own personal crisis. But did you know the American man is in crisis too? Of course you did.For at least a decade, the media hasn’t let up: Men are lonely, friendless, and angry; falling behind in the workplace; dying deaths of despair. Outlets like The New York Times, The Atlantic, and, yes, Esquire have been dutifully diagnosing the problem for years.Starting now, it’s time to offer solutions.To do that, we’re restoring an Esquire franchise that began in the early 1980s—another time of crisis for American men. The male-dominated manufacturing industry was collapsing, women were entering the workplace and public life in larger numbers, divorce was on the rise, and men were expected to be more enlightened beings. It was all very confusing for guys, and it inspired melodramatic reactions.Reactions like this, from Sam Keen’s New York Times best seller Fire in the Belly, which compared manhood to a night battle in the jungle: “Voices from the surrounding darkness shout hostile challenges: ‘Men are too aggressive. Too soft. . . . Too much like little boys.’ . . . Exactly what we are supposed to become is not clear.”War is hell. So was being a man.At the dawn of that decade, Esquire introduced a new slogan: Man at His Best. Two years later, it became a section in the magazine that would be a “reader’s resource for finding quality in everyday life.” That section was last seen in 2017, but to deliver those solutions, we’re reintroducing the franchise on Esquire.com, across our social channels, and in every print issue of Esquire. You’ll find a range of dispatches from multiple points of view—some of them from women—on both what it means to be a man in the 2020s and how to steadily improve your life emotionally, intellectually, and physically. We will publish at least one story a day on the topic; it will appear on the right side of our homepage, in our daily newsletter, and on the Man At His Best page.Of course, the newly renovated Man at His Best is more than just eight pages in a print magazine. Here on Esquire.com, and you’ll see Man at His Best on the right side of the home page, with a new story every day. And you’ll see Man at His Best topics sprinkled across our social-media channels.I try to be at my best when I’m with my daughters, and if the striving has taught me anything, it’s that this crisis will not resolve overnight. Growth takes time, at least eight or eleven years. But I’m certain Esquire can help. Don’t roll your eyes.