A lot of people want to discuss masculinity in MDZS without understanding what an ideal man would be in ancient China, which is heavily impacted by Confucian ideals of a gentleman. In this ideal view a person should have virtue and wisdom, which includes pursuit of the arts

Western ideals of masculinity focuses a lot more on physical prowess but the ideal gentleman in Confucian views also should have literary excellence, filial piety, and know the arts. Music and art is very much also a masculine pursuit and true gentlemen should be well versed

I don't like people shoving wangxian into masculine and feminine roles because being physically stronger has really very little to do with how much an ideal man the either of them would be in that society

There's a reason NMJ is a total beefcake but not in the top 5 in the list for young men. He's a warrior, but not too great in terms of being an ideal gentleman since he sucks at the arts (and his lack of musical knowledge is what gets him killed)

I also feel there's a reason the literary exams for government officials in ancient China was held to a higher reverence than military exams, which, in comparison, is a lot less philosophical and featured less literary texts

Also I'm not telling people to go read the analects of Confucius, but just Understand even in modern day China ideal men are often guys that are educated, do well in their studies, and studious for a reason

But also this is a very simplified version of presenting what a junzi is in Confucian ideals, but I'm trying my best to make this easy to understand, and I highly encourage you to do more reading