There is a particular kind of power that has dominated the modern corporate world for decades.

It is confident. Aggressive. Competitive. Relentless.

It works late. It takes risks. It does not apologize. It wants to win.

And historically, we have called that power masculine.

So when Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg argued in January 2025 that corporate America needed more “masculine energy,” the statement was about more than gender. It reopened a much older question:

What does society actually expect a powerful person to look like?

Zuckerberg made the remarks during an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience. He criticized what he described as an excessively “culturally neutered” corporate environment, argued that aggression can have positive qualities and suggested that businesses had moved too far away from traditionally masculine characteristics.

The reaction was immediate.

Some interpreted his comments as a defense of ambition, competitiveness and risk-taking. Others saw them as evidence of something more troubling: the return of an old corporate philosophy in which dominance is confused with leadership.

But perhaps the most interesting question is not whether Zuckerberg is right or wrong.

It is why this argument is resurfacing now.

A Corporate World Built Around Men

For much of modern economic history, the corporate workplace was designed around men.

Women were excluded from many professions, denied educational opportunities, restricted from owning property in many societies and expected to occupy domestic roles.

When women entered professional environments in larger numbers, they were entering institutions whose rules, expectations and leadership models had largely been established without them.

The result is still visible today.

Leadership is frequently associated with characteristics such as confidence, assertiveness, competitiveness, decisiveness and authority.

None of these characteristics are biologically male.

Yet culturally, they have often been coded as masculine.

Women remain underrepresented in corporate leadership. According to McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org’s Women in the Workplace 2024 report, women continue to lose ground at several stages of the corporate pipeline, particularly at the first promotion into management. The report found that for every 100 men promoted from entry level to manager, only 81 women were promoted.

And this creates a strange contradiction.

A man who aggressively negotiates may be described as ambitious.

A woman doing the same thing may be described as difficult.

A man who speaks forcefully may be perceived as authoritative.

A woman using the same tone can be perceived as abrasive.

The behavior is identical.

The interpretation isn’t.

Research on gender and leadership has documented this tension for decades. A widely cited meta-analysis by Alice H. Eagly, Steven J. Karau and Mary L. Makhijani found that women and men were generally similarly effective as leaders, but women could be evaluated less favorably in roles culturally associated with masculine traits. See “Gender and the Effectiveness of Leaders: A Meta-Analysis,” Psychological Bulletin.

The Double Bind

This is where the debate becomes particularly uncomfortable.

Women have historically been encouraged to be collaborative, empathetic and emotionally intelligent.

But when leadership is associated with dominance and aggression, these characteristics can be interpreted as weakness.

Women therefore face a double bind.

If they conform to traditionally feminine expectations, they can be perceived as insufficiently authoritative.

If they adopt traditionally masculine behaviors, they can be criticized for violating expectations of femininity.

It creates an impossible equation:

Be feminine enough to be likable.
Be masculine enough to be respected.

A related body of research describes this as a “backlash effect”: women who behave in ways associated with leadership may face social and professional penalties because those behaviors conflict with gender expectations. See Madeline E. Heilman and Michelle C. Haynes, “No Credit Where Credit Is Due: Attributional Rationalization of Women’s Success in Male-Female Teams,” Journal of Applied Psychology.

And women aren’t the only ones affected.

Men who are empathetic, collaborative or emotionally vulnerable can also be punished by workplaces that equate masculinity with toughness.

This is why the debate surrounding Zuckerberg’s comments extends beyond womenp.

It is fundamentally about the social construction of power.

Enter: “Masculinity Contest Culture”

Researchers have a name for workplaces where employees are pressured to prove their toughness, dominance and commitment:

masculinity contest culture.

In a foundational article, organizational scholars James R. VanderVelde, Jennifer L. Berdahl and Peter Glick described masculinity contests as workplace environments organized around four recurring norms: showing strength, putting work first, pursuing status and winning at all costs. See “Work as a Masculinity Contest,” Journal of Social Issues.

In these environments, employees may feel pressure to work excessive hours, compete aggressively, suppress emotions, demonstrate toughness and prioritize professional success above personal well-being.

On the surface, this can look like a high-performance culture.

But underneath, it can create serious problems.

People become afraid to admit mistakes.

Asking for help becomes a sign of weakness.

Taking parental leave can be interpreted as a lack of ambition.

Collaboration can become political.

And when dominance becomes a measure of status, harassment can become easier to normalize.

A 2021 study by Berdahl and colleagues found that masculinity contest cultures were associated with burnout, lower job satisfaction, work-family conflict and intentions to leave. See “Work as a Masculinity Contest,” Journal of Social Issues.

This is where Zuckerberg’s comments intersect with a much larger corporate story.

From Silicon Valley to the Courtroom

Over the past decade, some of the world’s most powerful industries have faced allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination and misogynistic workplace cultures.

Technology.

Gaming.

Entertainment.

Finance.

Mining.

Luxury goods.

The details differ dramatically from case to case, and allegations should never be treated as proven simply because they appear in a lawsuit.

But the recurring structural questions are remarkably similar:

Who has power?

Who controls promotions?

Who controls careers?

Who is believed when something goes wrong?

And perhaps most importantly:

What happens when the person being accused has more institutional power than the person making the accusation?

These questions have appeared repeatedly in lawsuits and investigations involving major corporations and public figures.

The controversy surrounding Activision Blizzard, for example, brought allegations of sexual harassment and a “frat boy” workplace culture into the center of the gaming industry’s public debate. California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit in 2021 alleging widespread discrimination and harassment; the case later settled, with Activision Blizzard agreeing to pay $54 million and take other measures. See the California Civil Rights Department’s case materials.

Mining companies have faced similar scrutiny. Rio Tinto commissioned an independent review led by former Australian Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick, which found that sexual harassment, racism and bullying were widespread across the company’s global operations. Read the review and Rio Tinto’s response.

BHP has also published reports and policies addressing sexual harassment, discrimination and workplace culture, particularly in the context of remote and traditionally male-dominated work sites. See BHP’s workplace inclusion and sexual harassment resources.

In entertainment, the #MeToo movement exposed how professional dependency can become a mechanism of control: when one person can influence another person’s career, saying “no” can have consequences far beyond an uncomfortable interaction. The movement’s origins are commonly traced to activist Tarana Burke, while the 2017 reporting by The New York Times and The New Yorker helped bring allegations against Harvey Weinstein into global public view. See the National Women’s History Museum’s overview of Tarana Burke and #MeToo.

These cases are different.

But they reveal the same underlying issue:

Workplace culture is inseparable from workplace power.

The Zuckerberg Paradox

There is an uncomfortable paradox at the center of the debate.

The technology industry already has a masculinity problem.

Women remain underrepresented in many technical and leadership positions. The National Center for Women & Information Technology’s 2024 report documents women’s continued underrepresentation in computing and technical roles in the United States.

Yet one of the industry’s most powerful executives is arguing that corporate culture needs more masculine energy.

That raises an obvious question:

More masculine for whom?

If an industry is already disproportionately male, increasing the cultural value placed on traditionally masculine traits may not simply create “balance.”

It could reinforce the existing balance.

And that distinction matters.

There is nothing inherently wrong with aggression.

There is nothing inherently wrong with competitiveness.

There is nothing inherently wrong with ambition.

The problem is turning those characteristics into a cultural hierarchy where they are considered inherently superior to collaboration, empathy, patience or emotional intelligence.

Because then the question isn’t:

“What makes a good leader?”

It becomes:

“Which personality type are we rewarding?”

The Return of the “Alpha CEO”

Zuckerberg’s comments also arrived during a broader cultural moment.

Across Silicon Valley and corporate America, a particular image of the CEO has become increasingly visible.

The billionaire founder.

The extreme risk-taker.

The unconventional genius.

The man who ignores conventional rules.

The CEO who works relentlessly and expects everyone around him to do the same.

The “alpha” entrepreneur.

It is an extraordinarily powerful cultural archetype.

And it is overwhelmingly male.

This does not mean that successful male CEOs are inherently misogynistic.

They aren’t.

Nor does it mean ambition is masculine.

It isn’t.

But cultural archetypes matter because young people absorb them.

A teenager watching billionaire entrepreneurs may unconsciously learn that success looks like dominance.

That being emotional is weakness.

That being aggressive is leadership.

That winning is more important than collaboration.

And that power has a gender.

The leadership gap is visible at the highest levels. According to Catalyst’s global statistics on women in management and leadership, women remain a minority among chief executives and board chairs in many major economies. In the United States, Fortune’s 2024 Fortune 500 analysis reported a record number of women leading Fortune 500 companies, but women still represented only a small fraction of the total.

Progress is real.

So is the imbalance.

What Happens to Women?

The consequences may not be dramatic or immediate.

No company announces: “Women are no longer welcome here.”

Modern discrimination is often much more subtle.

It can happen during recruitment.

During salary negotiations.

During performance reviews.

When someone is considered “leadership material.”

When an employee complains about inappropriate behavior.

When a woman asks for flexibility after having children.

Or when two employees behave identically but receive completely different judgments.

The cumulative effect can be enormous.

Women don’t necessarily need to be explicitly excluded.

They can simply encounter more friction on the way up.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission identifies sex discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation as forms of unlawful workplace discrimination. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau also tracks women’s labor-force participation, earnings and occupational representation.

These statistics do not prove that every workplace operates according to the same pattern.

They do show that unequal outcomes remain measurable—and that workplace culture can affect who is recruited, promoted, retained and heard.

But Is Masculinity Actually the Enemy?

No.

And this is where the conversation needs more nuance.

Masculinity itself is not the problem.

Ambition isn’t the problem.

Competition isn’t the problem.

Strength isn’t the problem.

Aggression can even be useful in certain circumstances.

The problem is the assumption that these qualities belong naturally to men—and that organizations become stronger when they prioritize them.

A modern company needs different kinds of people.

The person who takes the risk.

The person who notices the unintended consequences.

The person who negotiates.

The person who challenges the CEO.

The person who builds relationships.

The person who knows when to stop.

The person who says, “Something is wrong here.”

A company dominated by one personality type may become incredibly powerful.

It can also become incredibly fragile.

Research on psychological safety supports this broader view of organizational effectiveness. Harvard Business School professor Amy C. Edmondson defines psychological safety as a shared belief that a team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking, including speaking up, asking questions and acknowledging mistakes. See Edmondson’s original study in the Administrative Science Quarterly.

That kind of environment is not the opposite of high performance.

It can be one of the conditions that makes high performance sustainable.

The Bigger Investigation

Perhaps Zuckerberg’s comments matter because they expose something deeper than one man’s opinion.

They reveal that the definition of leadership is still being negotiated.

For decades, corporations were built around a relatively narrow model of power.

Now women are demanding access to that power.

Younger generations are questioning traditional gender roles.

Companies are reconsidering DEI.

And some of the world’s richest and most influential men are pushing back against what they perceive as an overly cautious corporate culture.

The result is a cultural collision.

On one side:

competition, aggression, hierarchy, risk and traditional masculinity.

On the other:

inclusion, psychological safety, collaboration, equality and a broader definition of leadership.

But perhaps the future doesn’t have to choose one.

The real revolution would be to stop treating leadership as masculine or feminine at all.

Because the strongest leader may be aggressive when necessary and empathetic when necessary.

Competitive but collaborative. Confident but willing to admit mistakes. Ambitious without humiliating others. Strong without needing to dominate.

The Question We Should Be Asking

Mark Zuckerberg’s statement will probably not change corporate America by itself.

But it is revealing.

Because when one of the world’s most powerful CEOs publicly argues for more “masculine energy,” it forces us to examine the culture surrounding the people who already hold enormous economic power.

And perhaps the question isn’t whether corporations need more masculinity.

Maybe it is much more uncomfortable:

Why has masculinity been associated with power for so long in the first place?

And if our definition of leadership was historically created in a world where women were largely excluded from the boardroom, shouldn’t we be questioning the definition itself?

The future of work does not have to become feminine.

It does not have to become masculine.

Perhaps it simply needs to become less gendered.

Because leadership is not a sex.

Power is not a gender.

And neither ambition nor empathy belongs exclusively to men or women.

The real measure of a successful workplace should therefore be much simpler:

Who gets to succeed—and what does everyone have to become in order to get there?

That is the question worth investigating.