These are systematic issues — to fix them would require coordinated response from record labels, publishing companies, radio and video outlets, and more. But the rise of the gentleman — the gentlebro? — is a reluctant, #NotAllMen solution. It dilutes the toxic levels of masculinity in the genre without offering women songs of their own to sing, instead plying them with ones that place them on a pedestal.

Michael Ray released his debut in 2015 but didn’t get much traction until late last year, when its slow-burning come-on “Think a Little Less” began its climb to country radio ubiquity. For the country gentlemen, the song is slightly on the sexual side — most of their proclamations of love prioritize the heart, not the flesh — but he sings it with restraint and dignity: “In case you were wondering, you’ve never looked hotter/So why even bother looking at the reasons not to?/Maybe we ought to.”

Chris Lane’s hair is frozen into a wheat field on the cover of his self-titled 2016 debut, which is full of courtly proclamations of dedication, including a cover of Mario’s sweet R&B plea “Let Me Love You.” His signature song is the genteel ballad “For Her,” an almost Disney-saccharine tribute to a woman: “She’s got a smile that makes your worst day feel like it’s your birthday/She’s got a laugh like confetti/Would change her name if she’d let me.”

There are several more of this sort — Ryan Follese’s “Put a Label On It,” Jon Langston’s “Right Girl Wrong Time,” Russell Dickerson’s “Yours,” Devin Dawson’s “I Don’t Care Who Sees,” LANCO’s “Greatest Love Story,” Dylan Scott’s “My Girl.” They rack up YouTube plays and, at their most successful, choke up the Billboard country charts, particularly the one that tracks airplay. These songs seem to overindex at country radio, which appears to have made little effort to remedy the gender imbalance that led to the “tomato” fiasco.

In many cases, these feel like copycats. But Brett Young has established himself as gentleman country’s heir apparent. He went to No. 2 on the Billboard country chart this year with “In Case You Didn’t Know,” a wedding anthem in the making, and one of this year’s most impressive pop songs (even if it shares DNA with Chicago’s resentful ballad “Look Away”). Mr. Young has a scratchy voice, but he bolsters it with tons of melodic ballast, turning a song that’s desperate at its core into something majestic: