{"id":510821,"date":"2026-05-30T20:43:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/510821\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T20:43:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:43:17","slug":"weve-lost-something-there-sting-shares-1-theory-behind-rise-of-male-toxicity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/510821\/","title":{"rendered":"‘We’ve Lost Something There’: Sting Shares 1 Theory Behind Rise Of Male ‘Toxicity’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sting<\/a> shared his theory behind the apparent rise of \u201ctoxic masculinity<\/a>,\u201d a term coined by a men\u2019s movement<\/a> in the 1980s in reaction to second-wave feminism. That theory? It could be a result of one historic shift: the sharp decline of manual labor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work with my hands every day as a musician, and I\u2019m lucky,\u201d Sting told The Guardian in an interview published Thursday<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s a rare thing for modern men to actually use their hands and use their strengths to do anything. We\u2019ve lost something there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The singer, born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner,<\/a> continued, \u201cI don\u2019t have any answers, but maybe the toxicity in society at the moment is [a result of the fact] that we\u2019ve lost that direction for our energy, that male strength. It\u2019s rare we have to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A 2020 report<\/a> from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a> notes a 35% decline in the domestic manufacturing sector from 1979 to 2019 alone. The U.S. economy has also lost 77,000 manufacturing jobs<\/a> since President Donald Trump<\/a> was elected in 2024.<\/p>\n

A study shared earlier this year<\/a> in Psychology Today noted \u201cthere is not much psychological research\u201d on \u201ctoxic masculinity,\u201d which is associated with traits such as narcissism and hostile sexism, but that 10.8% of the 15,000 study subjects showed \u201cclear signs\u201d of it.<\/p>\n

\"Sting,Sting, seen here performing in 2023 at Jones Beach Theater in New York.<\/p>\n

Scott Roth\/Invision\/Associated Press<\/p>\n

Sting is currently preparing for the London premiere of his musical, \u201cThe Last Ship,\u201d which is inspired by the Englishman\u2019s childhood memories and relationship with his late father Ernest Sumner, who worked in Wallsend as an engineer when shipbuilding was a booming industry. <\/p>\n

Sting fondly recalled the \u201ccivic pride\u201d and \u201ccommunity\u201d in his hometown that sprang from these jobs. One of the male characters in his musical reportedly ponders losing his identity as a manual laborer: \u201cFor what are we men without a ship to complete?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBritain\u2019s wealth was created in the coalfields and the steel towns and the mill towns and the shipyards,\u201d Sting told The Guardian. \u201cAll of those skills were thrown on the scrapheap \u2026 for [former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret] Thatcher\u2019s dream of a service economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Billionaire tech leaders such as Elon Musk<\/a> and Sam Altman<\/a> have frequently suggested<\/a> that their work in artificial intelligence could create a modern utopia<\/a>. Critics argue that the exorbitant cost of data centers<\/a> and their harm to the environment<\/a> already suggest otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sting shared his theory behind the apparent rise of \u201ctoxic masculinity,\u201d a term coined by a men\u2019s movement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[264],"tags":[18,117,19,17,6045,337,18797,44500],"class_list":["post-510821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-labor","tag-music","tag-sting","tag-toxic-masculinity"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116665477817107722","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}