Life & Wisdom Quote by Andrew Cohen

Cohen’s move here is to smuggle a spiritual diagnosis into the language of gender. He starts with what sounds like a blunt sociological observation - people cling to masculinity or femininity - then pivots to the real target: identification itself. The repeated phrasing (“very attached,” “very identified,” “fear and insecurity”) isn’t just emphasis; it’s a leveling device. Men don’t get to monopolize fragility. Women don’t get cast as naturally more “fluid.” Everyone is, in his framing, guarding an identity that feels both essential and easily threatened.

The intent is less to comment on gender politics than to critique ego-maintenance: gender as a socially reinforced costume that starts to feel like skin. “Being male” and “being a man” are tellingly separated, as if biology is one thing and the performance is another - and it’s the performance that produces anxiety. The subtext is spiritual: when identity is built on an idea, it demands constant policing. You have to keep proving you’re real.

Context matters because Andrew Cohen writes from a modern, Western, post-therapy culture where “fear and insecurity” is the default explanatory language for behavior. That makes the line persuasive and slightly slippery. It invites recognition (yes, people are defensive about gender) while dodging particulars: power, history, and material stakes get compressed into a single inner drama. The quote works because it offers a clean, universalizing mirror. Its weakness is the same: by making everyone equally insecure, it risks flattening why those insecurities are rewarded in some bodies and punished in others.