Unpacking Positive Masculinity
© Next Gen Men 2020
By Jonathon Reed
In May, a longtime friend messaged me on Instagram. “This is a thought I have pondered and I expect you to have written about,” he said. “Is there positive masculinity? Or should we drop it altogether?”
‘Toxic’ masculinity is easy to identify, and it’s become even easier since 2016. Yet beyond the familiar landscape of ‘grab ‘em by the p***y’ locker room talk, suspended pro athletes and hand-wringing media headlines, positive masculinity is relatively uncharted territory. We can clearly define what it is that we’re against, but what is it that we’re for?
This matters because boys and men cannot be what they cannot see.
“Young men who work to end sexism and violence typically can easily identify themselves in terms of what they do not want to be, but they may be less practised at imagining what they do want to be. We need visible, public models of the forms of masculinities or selfhoods we desire.”
I think part of what makes identifying positive masculinity more challenging is that it requires vulnerability—revealing what one hopes they could be opens their aspirations to negativity. But conversations with that longtime friend and some of the people around NGM have inspired me to delve deeper into positive masculinity. This week, I put on Ray LaMontagne’s new album MONOVISION and started unpacking what positive masculinity means to me.
Resilience — To be strong in ourselves
I started out with strength, but it felt inherently adversarial in the context of masculinity. Resilience is about recovering from setbacks, such as asking for help or sharing failure and trying again, rather than strictly being tough enough to overcome them.
Dependability — To use that strength to support others
I tried out steadiness and nearly landed on protectiveness, but I decided that I can’t shield those that I care about from every possible harm. I can, however, be someone they rely on.
Compassion — To make that support a source of comfort
I originally wrote down empathy for a sensitive emotional presence in caring relationships. But empathy is a response to others, while compassion is a choice I make myself. Compassion means actively reaching out.
Courage — To manifest these qualities even when it is scary
I was stuck between courage and bravery, but I found out that courage means feeling fear and doing something anyway. These qualities require a lot of vulnerability and openness, and that is scary.
To be clear, I don’t believe that these traits are uniquely accessible to certain gender expressions over others. But knowing that these are my qualities of positive masculinity means that I can reflect them back to the boys that I work with, and use them as a touchstone in challenging conversations. When boys talk about being a bystander, for example, I can ask them what courage looks like. When they struggle with mental health, I can help them build resilience rather than try to stay tough.
“As a boy,” that friend on Instagram wrote to me, “I wanted to know what made a man, when I could call myself one, and what type of man I should aspire to be.”
This, for now, is my answer.
ICYMI This Week
The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Escalated Domestic Violence Worldwide (Forbes)
Four-year-old lands book deal for his ‘astonishing’ poetry (The Guardian)
A Quarantine Benefit: Lowering the Flame on Tween Drama (The New York Times)
Written by Next Gen Men Program Manager Jonathon Reed as part of Learnings & Unlearnings, a weekly newsletter reflecting on our experiences working with boys and young men. Subscribe to get Learnings & Unlearnings delivered to your email inbox.