Socialism

I can’t reconcile the idea that every group except boys benefit from positive role models that help young people see their potential.

The article isn't arguing against having role models; it's questioning why they have to be masculine specifically when desirable characteristics among people are largely gender neutral. To quote a relevant portion:

To which I’d answer: why the hell do you need specifically masculine role models? My personal “role models” (to the extent I have any, which I actually try not to) are Emma Goldman (whom I’ve been told I resemble), Thomas Paine, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Murray Bookchin, Hubert Harrison, Eugene Debs, Vera Brittain, A. Philip Randolph, Rose Pesotta, Dorothy Day, Paul Robeson, Aneurin Bevan, Shirley Chisholm, George Orwell, Martin Luther King Jr., Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ella Baker. These people all share traits I respect: courage, moral integrity, perceptiveness, commitment, strength in the face of hostility. Brittain was a pacifist horrified by war who nevertheless devoted herself in World War I to tending to men gruesomely wounded on the battlefield. Bevan rose from working in Welsh coal mines to become Minister of Health in the postwar British Labour government, where he started the National Health Service. This week I’ve been admiring Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinian-American congresswoman who had the guts to stand up against most of the members of her party and tell the truth about the apartheid in Palestine. Emba and Reeves worry that young boys don’t have good examples of people they should try to be like. I say let them admire Rashida.

I just can’t imagine thinking about masculinity or femininity in deciding whom to look up to. What kind of young man fears having a female role model, except a boy irrationally terrified of appearing unmanly? Why do stereotypically male traits matter in the slightest? Some of the people on my list might be more “masculine,” others more “feminine.” When we try to organize people this way, we quickly run into confusion. Paul Robeson was a football player, but he also performed musical theater. Is the former “masculine” and the latter not? (Robeson was also a Stalinist. People are complicated, and it’s best not to admire anyone uncritically!)

And the author is correct. Especially as we gain more success in destigmatizing men doing traditionally feminine activities, qualifiers such as masculine and feminine make less sense. After all, if every gender wears makeup, then why is it feminine? If every gender likes sports, then why is it masculine? Because that's how it was traditionally? We changed the tradition because it sucked, so we don't need to continue being beholden to it.