6 Things Educators Should Know About Positive Masculinity
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Even years later, my initial work in Next Gen Men’s after-school program remains a touchpoint for educators’ deep impact on boys’ engagement in the movement for gender justice.
Next Gen Men’s entire school program revolved around the idea of transformation—expanding the realm of possibility for manhood as preteen boys started to envision themselves as young men. Over three months, we would talk about gender stereotypes, mental health, peer relationships and gender equality and other topics at the roots of who they were growing up to be.
I still remember an afternoon when a Grade 8 student who was normally highly engaged threw his backpack over his shoulder, and left early without saying a word.
As the group transitioned from the staff room to the gym, I found him sitting by the office, his backpack still unzipped and over one shoulder. He wasn’t talking with friends, or playing on his phone. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, so I knelt beside him.
Before I could think of what to say, he took a breath.
“You have no idea how much my teacher yelled at me today,” he whispered.
Masculinity isn’t toxic.
The phrase ‘toxic masculinity’ originated in the mythopoetic men’s movement in the 1980s and 1990s, and gained popularity with the rise of the #MeToo movement. I usually tell educators it’s an ill-defined phrase that makes for a catchy hashtag and leads to polarization rather than thoughtful discussion.
It also doesn’t resonate with boys and young men.
As a young man myself, I can say that I never felt toxic growing up. I did, however, know intimately that my identity and status as a young man could be called into question at any time—which meant that I had to be ready to prove myself.
Paying attention to this pressure—which researchers like Joseph Vandello and Judy Chu refer to as ‘precarious masculinity’—means that educators can encourage boys to prove themselves in ways that lead to healthy and positive outcomes for themselves and the people around them, rather than harm.
Boys might prove that they’re strong by dominating someone else, but they can also prove that they’re strong by lifting someone up. That takes strength too.
“Given that not all masculine norms are inherently problematic, it is important to consider when and how they become problematic.”
Read more: We tackled toxic masculinity in schools in a three-part blog series that concluded with How to Address Toxic Masculinity With Boys.
They want to know how to be masculine without being toxic. As educators, our calling is to envision that alongside them.
Boys fall behind because of relational disengagement.
Before educators can build up positive masculinity within and among male students, we have to build relationship.
When boys aren’t held in positive, trusting relationships, they fall through the cracks. We know what that looks like. But let’s be clear: the devil-may-care student who is at best indifferent, and at worst disruptive or disrespectful, is not a ‘problematic’ boy or an example of ‘toxic’ masculinity. He’s disconnected.
One of the ways I demonstrate this in professional development sessions with educators is with a text conversation I had with a seventh grader who was undiagnosed with dyslexia.
So whether we’re talking about engaging boys in literacy or in the movement for gender justice, relationship is the key. Before we do anything else, we have to recognize that boys are deeply emotional, effortlessly observant, highly aware and inherently relational people.
Even the ones who are struggling. Especially the ones who are struggling.
Read more: We unpack the multifaceted nature of boys’ relational engagement in school in past Learnings & Unlearnings, Why Relationship is the Key to Boys Succeeding at School.
The best way to safeguard boys from anti-feminist influences is to meet their core needs.
One of the ways I introduce Andrew Tate in professional development sessions with educators is by talking about Charly Mazuel, a young self-described entrepreneur. He’s creative, ambitious and driven, and some of his content is clearly adjacent to the narrative of rise-and-grind grifters like Andrew Tate.
We usually bring the conversation to the Circle of Courage framework, which identifies the core needs of belonging, mastery, independence and generosity in the lives of young people.
When their needs aren’t being met, boys gravitate to successful role models who act as an entry point to anti-feminist online spaces that offer a veneer of support as a cover for exploitation. Among grifters like Andrew Tate, Hamza Ahmed and Adin Ross is the implicit message: “Success comes from power, and I can teach you how to get it—just buy into my ideological beliefs…or pay to join my online community.”
But it costs even more than that, because anti-feminist influencers aren’t actually dedicated to boys’ well-being, and implicitly call on boys to give up one or more core needs.
I was checking on Charly Mazuel’s TikTok feed the other day and I came across a day-in-the-life compilation.
@charly.mazuel Day in the Life of a 14 Year Old Entrepreneur. Huge problem with my theme page gmail. #motivation #entrepreneur #success #mentality #reels #lifestyle ♬ original sound - Charly Mazuel
“I realized whilst going to school that I’ve been acting, since the past six months, from a position of fear and stress.”
He’s been holding onto a lot of stress, he says, “since I started my entrepreneurship journey around a year and a bit ago, especially since for the first year or so I didn’t see any success. And I’ve been acting from a position in which I’m like, if this doesn’t work, what am I going to do? It hasn’t worked for like a year.”
He describes being at school and struggling with himself. “I was really doubting my abilities to do what I wanted to do,” he says.
“Then I just came back home.”
No one has his back. His online persona appears to be parentless, school clearly doesn’t resonate with where he’s at, and his online audience largely alternates between praising him for grinding or making fun of his failures.
Belonging—not just being part of an ‘in’ group but being held in authentic trusting relationships—is a core need. It’s a crucial part of how a young man like him stays afloat through the rough waters of adolescence. For boys to access one core need at the cost of another is like giving up oxygen to drink water. It might as well cost everything.
As dominant as he has been, Andrew Tate doesn’t fit with boys’ core needs. That’s educators’ entry point.
Read more: Build your understanding of how to engage boys in conversations about anti-feminism online in a deep dive, The Influence of Influencers: How to Tackle Andrew Tate in Schools.
We can support boys’ mental health by nurturing their close friendships.
For decades, suicide has been second only to ‘accidents’ as the leading cause of death for teenage boys. This is due in no small part to the fact that young adolescent boys think they’re expected to toughen up when they feel sad or scared, and they know boys will be made fun of if they cry.
Part of how we can support boys’ well-being is to challenge those beliefs.
But Judy Chu points out that it is only when combined with having a close friendship that a boy’s resistance to masculine norms can be protective—and we know that something else happens at the exact same time as the rise in male suicide in mid-adolescence.
Boys disconnect from their friends.
Developmental psychologist Niobe Way has documented this firsthand with countless young adolescent boys. Time and time again, the same boys who were once so articulate about their close friendships close themselves off.
Most schools are neutral towards boys’ friendships, if not actively discouraging of peer connection. How many boys can you think of who weren’t allowed to sit next to their closest friends in class, or work together on assignments, because they would be ‘distracting’?
Sure, we want boys to be able to focus in class. But a boy who’s struggling with mental health or disconnection isn’t going to be able to focus anyway. I’ll say it again: relationship comes first.
“There are pretty much only one or two people that I would tell private stuff to, and it definitely isn’t any of the teachers.”
Read more: I wrote about boys’ friendships and mental well-being in a piece for Voice Male Magazine, The Tragic Tale of Boys’ Closeness.
Boys are feeling incredibly high stakes with regard to consent.
If we’re prioritizing relationships, we can’t ignore effective consent education. While I recognize that schools are doing their best to engage in harm prevention, I’ve come to realize that consent education is often not as realistic, relevant or resonant with young teenage boys as it could or should be.
We need to be talking about creating consent culture.
Read more: Ever wondered what The Fast and the Furious has to do with porn literacy? Read the latest Learnings & Unlearnings, How Driver’s Ed Can Inspire the Way We Teach Consent to Middle School Boys.
The sticking point for many boys and young men is that they feel caught between two contradictory messages. On one hand, they’re supposed to fit within the stereotypical expectations of masculinity if they want to be taken seriously by girls. Representations of dating and relationships still largely revolve around guys ‘getting the girl.’
On the other hand, they’re not supposed to get it wrong. Most teenage boys have witnessed ‘cancel culture’ firsthand, with no shortage of firsthand accounts of playboys getting ostracized by their peers for both intended and accidental sexual harassment or assault.
When the stakes are that high—err too far to the left and you’re a joke, too far to the right and you’re a predator—you’re more likely to simply follow the path of least resistance.
What does that lead to? “At a young age,” says the narrator in Michael Roghbaugh’s short film American Male, “I began to closely observe the people around me. What they said, where it got them.”
“Now, I am no longer a person but a set of social cues. Not a person, but a path of least resistance.”
We already know that the status quo with regard to masculinity and dating violence needs to change in this country. It’s time to rethink the way we teach and role model consent culture with adolescent boys.
We can’t engage boys in gender-based violence prevention without restorative justice.
Consent educators Marcia Baczynski and Erica Scott have thought a lot about consent culture among young people, and one of the clear messages in their work is that a restorative approach is the only approach to ending gender-based violence.
Many boys feel a double-standard that girls aren’t held to the same one-strike-and-you’re-out level of accountability as they are.
Part of the problem is that our legal structures were largely built using the same tools that caused the inequity we’re struggling against in the first place—an inherently imbalanced system where there are winners and losers, that prioritizes punishment over repair, and accountability for certain behaviours over accountability to one’s community.
If this system effectively nurtured boys’ empathy and growth, it would have already. It doesn’t.
That’s how we ended up with Brett Kavanaugh lashing out against allegations of sexual assault, with Johnny Depp claiming that “no one is safe” from cancel culture and Will Smith getting banned from the Academy.
The result is that we’re ostracizing the very young people we most want to engage in gender justice.
Read more: I got some backlash myself for writing this, but for a past Future of Masculinity Summit, I explored this further: How Do Boys Fit Into Cancel Culture, Feminism and #MeToo?
It might feel like we’re talking about small steps.
Whether we’re challenging stereotypes or getting to know our boys better, finding different ways to engage them in consent culture or restorative practices, it might feel like just little changes to the everyday ways we see and respond to the boys in our classrooms.
Let me be clear: we’re talking about a revolution.
It’s not for no reason that we dedicate ourselves to the next generation of men—and we don’t take the educators in their lives for granted. You are their champions, their stewards and their witness.
For every time I’m invited to be part of a professional development opportunity, for every time that Next Gen Men’s resources are downloaded and used in schools, and for each and every thing that you, who are reading this, do to engage boys in the movement for gender justice, thank you.
This is what we do.