Boys, men, masculinity and role models

I am a feminist. I am a man who owes everything he has to the women who have played critical roles in his life. I am a father to a daughter who is growing up in an increasingly equal, but still grossly unequal world. I am the husband to a wife who deals every day with casual sexism and is too often the only women on a panel, in a meeting, in power. I am a man who knows that his gender gives him power and privilege denied to the girls and women around him - by simply being a man.

I am a man who cried in sorrow and yet rejoiced in the MeToo movement and supported Everyone's Invited. I am a man who celebrates International Women's Day, but bemoans its still obvious need. I am a male therapist who hears - day after day - the brutal impact that inequality, sexism, sexual assault and abuse of power has on the lives of my female clients. I am a man who supports trans women, some of whom are my clients, as they fight the vilest prejudice, which seeks not just to hold them back, but to deny their very existence. In my work, and around me every day, I see how far we have to travel to reach true gender equality.

Never met your heroes? I met one of mine: a role model.

But I am also very worried about boys and men. 

I am worried about the things I hear in my counselling room every day from boys as young as 11 and men over sixty years their senior. I am worried about the sort of masculinity I hear about and the role models that my male clients are embracing. I am worried every time I hear Andrew Tate's name mentioned approvingly (as I do each week) or Joe Rogan or, sometimes, Jordan Peterson. 

I am worried about the messages that boys and men are hearing about consent; sex; relationships; the sort of self-improvement work they should be doing; the importance of being big and strong; the expectations of men in 2024, and the lessons they have taken from the porn they watch and the fallout from MeToo and Everyone's Invited, which has left many boys and men terrified to speak to a girl or women, and often leads them to feel they should record their conversations, especially about sexual consent. I am worried too, about my clients who have faced false sexual assault allegations, which do extraordinary damage to their mental health, reputations and confidence. The 'banter' that follows these false allegations - even after they are withdrawn or entirely disproven - often continues, as if calling someone a 'rapist' is harmless or funny. 

There is no doubt, I am worried about boys and men.

Like all things in life, it is a complicated story, with few simply solutions. I recently listened to an excellent podcast series on BBC Sounds, made by Catherine Carr, a mother to teenage boys. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001ypz1. Catherine highlights many of the issues I encounter with my clients and I see every week in the schools I work, but also shines a light on some fantastic initiatives in schools, community groups and sports teams to try to offer young boys and men different messages and options on what it means to be a man. 

One of the biggest issues is the availability of positive role models and the vacuum that is filled by extremely unhelpful (aka fucked up) advice from many self-appointed influencers online. And sadly, they are influencers. They are influencing many young men (not just boys in school but men in their twenties, thirties and beyond) to see the role of a man as being the protector and the provider, with emphasis on physical strength, sexual prowess (which is unrealistically described), the acquisition of wealth and power (including over "their women), and necessity to use cruelty (often verbal), aggression and violence to show they are real men. 

I hear this sort of model being outlined regularly: often by boys and men who feel they are falling below the standard that they feel they should be reaching, and sometimes from clients who know it isn't working (as often their relationship has ended or is in trouble) but are lost on how to replace it. 

There was a moving passage in the podcast in which an older teenage boy reflected on how and when it goes wrong for boys. He wistfully said that "you can be anything you want in primary school", with nobody judging you or pressuring you to have to fit a mode of perfect boy/man. That all changed, he said, in secondary school. At this time boys feel under huge pressure to conform to a model of masculinity which is deeply damaging to them and to those around them, including other boys. At this time, boys become more and more dependant on online sources of advice and role models. Some of the hours they spend online is unconsciously downloading these messages about what it takes to be a "real man". 

We have to do better than this. We have to continue the fight for equality for girls and women to create a world in which everyone can live in safety and thrive, but we must do more to help boys and men navigate this world.

At the moment, the volume has been turned up on outdated, outrageous and destructive voices who are advocating a masculinity that is more aligned to the dark ages and Mad Men than to 2024. Alongside MeToo, which has opened up a much-needed conversation across the world about male abuse of power, we need a new movement and conversation about what it means to be a healthy, happy and fulfilled boy and man - and what it doesn’t mean.

Until we do, I am going to keep worrying. A lot.