I don't know anything about Chinese culture, but from the American context, you can see men going back to the start of the industrial age worried about declining manhood or men being soft or men expressing themselves outside of this idea of masculinity. It just brings to mind that a lot of what we think is natural about human nature is really just socialization and performance that has to be policed constantly by social norms.
At the root of this stuff is the foolish idea that if this group of human beings doesn't behave in this pre ordained or natural way, your society will be destroyed either internally or externally because your society will lose favor with GOD by going against nature.