The endorsement of traditional gender role norms poses a significant threat to individuals' well-being and is thus a crucial consideration in promoting a sustainable future. While research on women's well-being has yielded a wealth of empirical knowledge, particularly in the areas of violence prevention and increasing motivation for gender equality, it is essential to investigate potential motivators behind men's low well-being with a critical lens.

The Gender Role Strain Paradigm (GRSP) states that traditional gender norms (TGN) sustain unequal practices where men socialize in a world that subordinates women. In that manner, any imagined or real violation of these norms results in negative consequences ranging from depression to violence against women. Compatible with the assumptions of GRSP, the current research aims to unveil the potential motivators of men’s decreasing well-being regarding TGN, masculine gender role stress, and anxiety in Turkey.

This study utilizes a correlational method to examine masculine gender role stress as a mediator between the endorsement of TGN and anxiety. As the gap between the idealized and the real status of men creates gender role stress, this would result in anxiety, which in turn would result in, decreased well-being.

403 men (Mage = 22) from Turkey participated in the study. Different mediation models consistently show the negative indirect effect of belief in TGN on men’s well-being through masculine gender role stress and anxiety. Belief in TGN (especially the ones related to heterosexual marriage) predicts the masculine gender role stress that may stem from the idea of subordination to women, emotional inexpressiveness, intellectual inferiority, and physical inadequacy, respectively. The stress and discomfort, in turn, lowers men’s well-being with the mediation of state anxiety. The findings entail that (predominantly young) Turkish men see TGN as an unseen barrier to their well-being, especially the responsibilities of unequal marital relations.