Jeff and Terry are foils, with Van occupying a happy medium between their two extremes (or so he believes). Van first describes the contrast between the two men in Chapter 1:
Jeff’s ideas and Terry’s were so far apart that sometimes it was all I could do to keep the peace between them. Jeff idealized women in the best Southern style. He was full of chivalry and sentiment, and all that. And he was a good boy; he lived up to his ideals.
Jeff at first appears to be well-intentioned and mostly respectful toward women. But as the book goes on, this description bears out in some troubling ways. There turns out to be a difference between "respect" and "idealization." Jeff thinks of women as weak, almost childlike creatures in need of men's protection. Gilman objects to this attitude toward women, as it implies that women cannot help or protect themselves.
Terry, on the other hand, represents the version of masculinity that Jeff purports to protect women from:
You might say Terry did, too, if you can call his views about women anything so polite as ideals. I always liked Terry. He was a man’s man, very much so, generous and brave and clever; but I don’t think any of us in college days was quite pleased to have him with our sisters. We weren’t very stringent, heavens no! But Terry was “the limit.” Later on—why, of course a man’s life is his own, we held, and asked no questions.
Terry takes what he wants from women. Van all but states that Terry has sexually assaulted women and that he and Jeff have ignored his behavior because "a man's life is his own." Jeff and Terry have each taken a stand at different ends of a troubling masculine spectrum, from paternal to predatory.
As for himself, Van portrays himself as a detached anthropologist interested in studying women more than having any intimate relationship with them. Later on in the book, the women do tell him that he seems more human than the other two because he is not such a caricature of masculinity as either of them. Nonetheless, Van is not as immune to harmful notions of masculinity as he seems to think. He lets his two friends get away with their different forms of misogyny because to him, such behavior is normal. Gilman presents Van as the least disturbing masculine figure in the book. Nonetheless, by the end, it is clear that none of the men have figured out a version of masculinity that does not harm women.
