>The 35-page report claims that, as ideas of gender and boyhood are changing to be more fluid, traditional notions of masculinity such as physical, sexual and intellectual prowess – as well as heterosexuality – still dominate.
You’re not going to convince me that anything that is a prowess is a bad thing. If you want to convince me then offer a better alternative because weak, asexual, dumb aren’t it.
[deleted]
I mean there not wrong, but if that’s what their focusing on then they’ve got it backwards.
Everyone’s natural state is to want to talk about their feelings. The trouble is boys learn from a certain age that people simply aren’t interested in your feelings, you need to button it all down and focus on pushing ahead.
Encouraging boys and men to talk about feelings will do jack shit until people actually start to *listen*.
This is large scale concern trolling, the report recommends encouraging our boys to be open sure but the media take ends up being boys have to do X y and z or they’re shitbags
‘Boys should be more like girls’ says another useless report.
The commentary even frames the changes are needed in boys/men only to make things better for girls/women.
FFS when will some people get some common sense?
Ok, but it feels like everytime I try people ignore what I am actually saying, and repsond repeating some standard talking points while completely ignoring my own individual thoughts and experiences.
I’m 35 years old and currently in the middle of an extremely painful/taxing therapy regime trying to help me to stop suffering from PTSD I gained from the upbringing I experienced.
I remember at 12 telling teachers/support workers in school that I was suicidal; my home life was too much, and I just couldn’t handle it anymore… got told “Be the man your mum is raising you to be and smile through it.” Had someone given me support then, perhaps I’d be a little more well-rounded and not crumble at the sound a pencil snapping.
We need to re-educate ourselves from child to elderly man that it’s ok to be vulnerable, to be hurt, to cry and to be scared – but most importantly… that men suffer as much as women and should be just as intently listened to as a woman would be.
How many men have spoken out to a person you trust then had it thrown back at you in an argument ?
The second you show any kind of weakness they will remember and use it against you.
Men set up men’s groups then get shouted down for being sexist for excluding women.
You like typically masculine things it’s “toxic masculinity.”
You don’t like typically feminine things yup same again.
You cant win.
I hate this ‘just talk about it’ shit.
I suffered through nearly two decades of MH issues, going to therapy/CBT/counselling, taking SSRI/SNRIs. Talking treatments didn’t help me a single bit, talking to my friends and family didn’t make me feel any better. This section of the article I find particularly galling:
>But it flagged organised sport and physical education as areas with an urgent need to tackle gender and equality issues, with popularity often the reward for those “good” at sports and exclusion and humiliation as “girly” for those who do not measure up to masculine athletic ideals.
Being involved in sport, and competitive sport at that, did more for my mental health than any talking therapy. Belonging to the communities that grow around participating in sport gave me a sense of belonging and purpose that was otherwise missing in my life and that wasn’t being filled by anything else.
I think the whole notion of ‘teach boys to or not to do X Y or Z’ is flawed.
Would love to see what might happen if we had reports prescribing what girls should do.
More BS.
I flat out think a lot of this is dangerous indoctrination, the same that caused me a lot of harm and it’s made me so determined to make sure I’m always there for my boy to teach him it’s ok to be a man. A 7 year old child doesn’t need to be told he’s responsible for a pay gap and that physical education is bad. The next generation of boys need strong fathers more than ever.
I was told at a young age, boys don’t cry. Wrap your emotions in a ball and sink them so deep that they never see the light of day.
My dad died and I felt nothing
When men open up about their feelings they are ostracized at best and punished at worst
Toxic Masculinity is not an affliction that men catch like a cold. It is a set of behaviours exhibited as a result of generations of societal conditioning. It afflicts a *society* not an individual alone.
Everyone has a responsibility to work on and improve themselves, but perhaps toxic masculinity would be less common if societies expectations for men were less toxic.
I feel like this has all the nuance of saying something like “Pay gap? Women just need to earn more!”
When my mum was diagnosed with cancer when I was in my mid 20s I fell into a depression, barely left the flat for months. My flatmate never asked me if I was okay. My friends knew there was something wrong but none of them did anything. When I finally came out of that pit 6 months later I chatted to my friends about it. They figured I just needed space. I needed someone to drag me out of the house for a pint.
We need to work out gender roles. We have built new gender roles for everyone – except young men and boys. They cannot use their fathers and grandfathers as models. They have no idea what to do.
Men aren’t the provider anymore. Not the bread winner. So what are we? What makes a man a man now?
We have erased millenia of social structure, and to be clear I am happy about it, but so far we have only erased. Boys know what they shouldn’t be…what should they be?
Because right now they are floating with no clue, and the far right is snapping them all up. A boys purpose in life can’t be just to make sure women and minorities aren’t treated poorly.
As a guy in a relationship if you show your emotions or shed a tear ,The countdown on that relationship has begun . As much as toxic masculinity is to be blamed there is also the fact women don’t like to see men being sensitive. Everyone talks a big game of being supportive and have emotionally open boyfriend/so , the shelf life of those relationships is short .
It would help if men could call the Free National Abuse Helpline, which is 24/7, but the NATIONAL helpline is women only.
Men have the Men Advice Line which is only up for 2 hours a day from Wednesday to Fridays.
There’s also Mankind thats open Mon to Fri but thats still 6 hours a day.
I’d also like to say, I did call the Mens Advice Line and was asked, “What did you do to her?” So I won’t be doing that again.
My old cat passed away. Although she was living with someone else because my family had moved abroad, it was still sad – we’d had her for almost a decade. When I told my ex, she couldn’t understand why I was sad since it wasn’t “my cat” anymore. Yet, she got angry at me for confronting her for literally sobbing uncontrollably over “Muggy Mike” from Love Island taking his own life. Someone she’d never met or even talked about, even in passing. This is why men don’t talk about their feelings with women. Because what they feel is dismissed and devalued relative to what most women feel in their lives.
People in general need to be more comfortable with a man sharing their emotions.
Any relationship that I’ve shared any kind of negative emotional feeling has caused pushback, comparison, one-upping or replying ‘go see a doctor’. Occasionally there has been some initial support but it has also usually visibly caused them to respect me less and in some cases acted as a catalyst for the end of the relationship.
People talk about toxic masculinity but for many men other men give them more support than the females in their lives. I’ve been fortunate to receive an equal amount of support from male and female friends, but have deferred support to my friends or dealing with things myself rather than my partners based on experience.
I’m a guy who’s always been happily open about how I feel, whether I’m happy, sad, stressed, angry, and I always find it sad to hear about men being told to stay quiet and bottle their feelings up, I hope we can get to a point where everyone, with what ever issues they face can be more open and be accepted more it isn’t a men or women thing, it’s a humanity thing, we just all need to work on the way we treat each other
Personally I’ll only open up to my male friends, and only a select few at that.
In my experience women are quite persistent about getting me to open up, but then if I do they literally do not want to hear it. It’s met with either “that’s nothing, I have to deal with x” or some other way of minimising whatever was going on.
Wonder if some people just like the idea of their partner being open and honest with them, rather than the reality of what that means.
What a useless fucking report. The last time I talked to someone about my genuine feelings was years ago I was laughed at.
Boys don’t need to talk about their feelings more, society just needs to listen more.
While also being told that we need to man up or that the way we act is toxic masculinity?
Young men : “I dont wanna date a women who sells pics of her body online and sleeps around”
Feminist ideologue: “MYSOGYNIST!!”
This is the problem. Honesty is not allowed
“traditional notions of masculinity such as physical, sexual and intellectual prowess – as well as heterosexuality – still dominate.”
As they fucking should. Why would you not want your son to possess these eminently desirable qualities?
“You’d feel much better if you talk about your feelings. Now toddle off back to your shitty minimum wage job for your awful, incompetent bosses who won’t even pay you enough to rent a bedroom in a flophouse, there’s a good chap.”
“Traditional notions of masculinity such as physical, sexual and intellectual prowess – as well as heterosexuality – still dominate.”
Yes, because most heterosexual women want – physical, sexual and intellectual prowess – from their man. Who can blame them, most of the time they are not the outliers that are writing these articles.
These articles are an untested social experiment.
Builing physical, sexual and intellectual prowess is a tried and test method of male success – in no way are any of the above qualities toxic in of themself.
I yearn for true gender equality. I have no patience for one who talks about female privilege when it suits them and then complains about someone “not being a man” when it’s convenient!
-A certain inspirational man
I love how it’s us boys and men who have to do everything. Why isn’t there a call for women to treat men better, like there is a constant call for men to treat women better?
Most of the sexiest behaviour/ stereotypes Iv been subjected to have come from women. I know my mates have my back and while some of them aren’t emotionally literate they still listen even if they can’t help. I can count on one hand the women in my life that have been anything like that.
They are trying to fix a problem with boys and Men from the angle of a woman’s point of view it is not going to work they are not the same no matter how hard you try and make it so
Maybe this is overly pessimistic but men and boys know they can talk about their feelings. The problem is most people do not care or an unable to actually have a conversation about it. Worse in some cases I have seen men demonised for their struggles. Issues such as lack of identity or lack of value is labeled as toxic masculinity. Male suicide and homelessness is grossly ignored by the wider population, the only time male homeless figures are brought up is in reference to female homelessness. Like how men need to do more to support female equality, women must do more to support men. This cannot become an argument over who has it worse.
Having spoke honestly about my struggles with depression, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, suicide ideation, porn addiction and a whole host of other problems to so called close friends or ex partners, only to be met with hostility has ensured my silence. As mostly I feel like if I express myself as a man about my woes, I’ve been told to just get on with it. All of that bottling up and public beratement when finally opening up has ensured I’ll be silent mostly, as what I’m going through as a man or a father doesn’t matter to much. Then they wonder why men commit suicide far more often than women. We don’t have the same encouragement to speak about sexual abuse, physical abuse, coming from a broken home, surviving bullying, being LGBT or whatever else problem(s).
Boys need to do exactly what they want, how they want and grow up into whatever kind of man they wish to be. Other peoples agendas or bs be damned.
That’s freedom and that’s choice.
It’s up to society to engage with them rather than paint them into a corner; it’s not on the boys to shoulder the blame for the shortcomings of society it’s on the collective to include them.
I’m seeing this play out in my family at the moment.
My mum died unexpectedly last week and every single man in the family is absolutely fucking stone-faced. Myself included.
Nobody’s talking about it beyond absolute facts. My brother and I have just gone in to admin mode – filling out forms, making arrangements, just dealing with the situation as if it’s a leaky pipe or a squeaky door hinge – fix it and carry on with your day.
You can see the signs that we’re hurting. Things people do when they’re not being watched, lack of communication, all that shit. Nobody’s willing to address it though.
I haven’t even told some of my closest friends it happened because it’s easier to just carry on as usual. This is probably the most I’ve said about it since it happened and there’s a decent chance I’ll just delete the fucking comment anyway.
They seem to want this to happen for the benefit of women.
One of the report authors and fellow of Equimundo, David Bartlett, said: “How boys and men behave makes an enormous difference to the lives of girls and women, and individuals of all gender identities, in all areas of their lives.
In order to effectively combat violence against women and girls, it is essential to address the origins of this violence.
Maybe if you want boys to open up about their feelings and fight inequality, you should start by actually giving a fuck about boys. Maybe ask how they are feeling, because you care about THEM, not because you have the ulterior motive of helping women.
On average, Males need comradeship (for lack of a better term), also a place to positively channel aggression and energy. Thats not precisely the same as what females need. It would be a mistake to ignore that difference.
By all means talk about something if its really bothering you, but i think expecting males to adopt the same expression standards as women is counter productive.
We are just not wired the exactly same. (on average)
Also “wage gap”… who even says that anymore without qualifying it.
Man, being a boy right now is going to be a fucking nightmare. If you’re male, social media fucking hates you.
There’s never a focus on boys and men for their own sake, as humans that have their own problems. It’s *always* in the context of how women are affected. The whole emphasis is on women, completely female-centric. The problems that men have are *only* a problem because they effect women, male flourishing is *only* good because women can also flourish thereby.
How is it that even when talking about helping boys be more open, the main focus is STILL on the benefits it has for girls and people of other gender identities?
Who seriously thinks it’s a good idea to talk to a journalist about this or write an article like this? They’re basically saying we should help the boys because ultimately it will benefit the girls rather than helping the boys to help the boys.
43 comments
>The 35-page report claims that, as ideas of gender and boyhood are changing to be more fluid, traditional notions of masculinity such as physical, sexual and intellectual prowess – as well as heterosexuality – still dominate.
You’re not going to convince me that anything that is a prowess is a bad thing. If you want to convince me then offer a better alternative because weak, asexual, dumb aren’t it.
[deleted]
I mean there not wrong, but if that’s what their focusing on then they’ve got it backwards.
Everyone’s natural state is to want to talk about their feelings. The trouble is boys learn from a certain age that people simply aren’t interested in your feelings, you need to button it all down and focus on pushing ahead.
Encouraging boys and men to talk about feelings will do jack shit until people actually start to *listen*.
This is large scale concern trolling, the report recommends encouraging our boys to be open sure but the media take ends up being boys have to do X y and z or they’re shitbags
‘Boys should be more like girls’ says another useless report.
The commentary even frames the changes are needed in boys/men only to make things better for girls/women.
FFS when will some people get some common sense?
Ok, but it feels like everytime I try people ignore what I am actually saying, and repsond repeating some standard talking points while completely ignoring my own individual thoughts and experiences.
I’m 35 years old and currently in the middle of an extremely painful/taxing therapy regime trying to help me to stop suffering from PTSD I gained from the upbringing I experienced.
I remember at 12 telling teachers/support workers in school that I was suicidal; my home life was too much, and I just couldn’t handle it anymore… got told “Be the man your mum is raising you to be and smile through it.” Had someone given me support then, perhaps I’d be a little more well-rounded and not crumble at the sound a pencil snapping.
We need to re-educate ourselves from child to elderly man that it’s ok to be vulnerable, to be hurt, to cry and to be scared – but most importantly… that men suffer as much as women and should be just as intently listened to as a woman would be.
How many men have spoken out to a person you trust then had it thrown back at you in an argument ?
The second you show any kind of weakness they will remember and use it against you.
Men set up men’s groups then get shouted down for being sexist for excluding women.
You like typically masculine things it’s “toxic masculinity.”
You don’t like typically feminine things yup same again.
You cant win.
I hate this ‘just talk about it’ shit.
I suffered through nearly two decades of MH issues, going to therapy/CBT/counselling, taking SSRI/SNRIs. Talking treatments didn’t help me a single bit, talking to my friends and family didn’t make me feel any better. This section of the article I find particularly galling:
>But it flagged organised sport and physical education as areas with an urgent need to tackle gender and equality issues, with popularity often the reward for those “good” at sports and exclusion and humiliation as “girly” for those who do not measure up to masculine athletic ideals.
Being involved in sport, and competitive sport at that, did more for my mental health than any talking therapy. Belonging to the communities that grow around participating in sport gave me a sense of belonging and purpose that was otherwise missing in my life and that wasn’t being filled by anything else.
I think the whole notion of ‘teach boys to or not to do X Y or Z’ is flawed.
Would love to see what might happen if we had reports prescribing what girls should do.
More BS.
I flat out think a lot of this is dangerous indoctrination, the same that caused me a lot of harm and it’s made me so determined to make sure I’m always there for my boy to teach him it’s ok to be a man. A 7 year old child doesn’t need to be told he’s responsible for a pay gap and that physical education is bad. The next generation of boys need strong fathers more than ever.
I was told at a young age, boys don’t cry. Wrap your emotions in a ball and sink them so deep that they never see the light of day.
My dad died and I felt nothing
When men open up about their feelings they are ostracized at best and punished at worst
Toxic Masculinity is not an affliction that men catch like a cold. It is a set of behaviours exhibited as a result of generations of societal conditioning. It afflicts a *society* not an individual alone.
Everyone has a responsibility to work on and improve themselves, but perhaps toxic masculinity would be less common if societies expectations for men were less toxic.
I feel like this has all the nuance of saying something like “Pay gap? Women just need to earn more!”
When my mum was diagnosed with cancer when I was in my mid 20s I fell into a depression, barely left the flat for months. My flatmate never asked me if I was okay. My friends knew there was something wrong but none of them did anything. When I finally came out of that pit 6 months later I chatted to my friends about it. They figured I just needed space. I needed someone to drag me out of the house for a pint.
We need to work out gender roles. We have built new gender roles for everyone – except young men and boys. They cannot use their fathers and grandfathers as models. They have no idea what to do.
Men aren’t the provider anymore. Not the bread winner. So what are we? What makes a man a man now?
We have erased millenia of social structure, and to be clear I am happy about it, but so far we have only erased. Boys know what they shouldn’t be…what should they be?
Because right now they are floating with no clue, and the far right is snapping them all up. A boys purpose in life can’t be just to make sure women and minorities aren’t treated poorly.
As a guy in a relationship if you show your emotions or shed a tear ,The countdown on that relationship has begun . As much as toxic masculinity is to be blamed there is also the fact women don’t like to see men being sensitive. Everyone talks a big game of being supportive and have emotionally open boyfriend/so , the shelf life of those relationships is short .
It would help if men could call the Free National Abuse Helpline, which is 24/7, but the NATIONAL helpline is women only.
Men have the Men Advice Line which is only up for 2 hours a day from Wednesday to Fridays.
There’s also Mankind thats open Mon to Fri but thats still 6 hours a day.
Neither of those are Free. [Here is the link to that source.](https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/getting-help-for-domestic-violence/)
I’d also like to say, I did call the Mens Advice Line and was asked, “What did you do to her?” So I won’t be doing that again.
My old cat passed away. Although she was living with someone else because my family had moved abroad, it was still sad – we’d had her for almost a decade. When I told my ex, she couldn’t understand why I was sad since it wasn’t “my cat” anymore. Yet, she got angry at me for confronting her for literally sobbing uncontrollably over “Muggy Mike” from Love Island taking his own life. Someone she’d never met or even talked about, even in passing. This is why men don’t talk about their feelings with women. Because what they feel is dismissed and devalued relative to what most women feel in their lives.
People in general need to be more comfortable with a man sharing their emotions.
Any relationship that I’ve shared any kind of negative emotional feeling has caused pushback, comparison, one-upping or replying ‘go see a doctor’. Occasionally there has been some initial support but it has also usually visibly caused them to respect me less and in some cases acted as a catalyst for the end of the relationship.
People talk about toxic masculinity but for many men other men give them more support than the females in their lives. I’ve been fortunate to receive an equal amount of support from male and female friends, but have deferred support to my friends or dealing with things myself rather than my partners based on experience.
I’m a guy who’s always been happily open about how I feel, whether I’m happy, sad, stressed, angry, and I always find it sad to hear about men being told to stay quiet and bottle their feelings up, I hope we can get to a point where everyone, with what ever issues they face can be more open and be accepted more it isn’t a men or women thing, it’s a humanity thing, we just all need to work on the way we treat each other
Personally I’ll only open up to my male friends, and only a select few at that.
In my experience women are quite persistent about getting me to open up, but then if I do they literally do not want to hear it. It’s met with either “that’s nothing, I have to deal with x” or some other way of minimising whatever was going on.
Wonder if some people just like the idea of their partner being open and honest with them, rather than the reality of what that means.
What a useless fucking report. The last time I talked to someone about my genuine feelings was years ago I was laughed at.
Boys don’t need to talk about their feelings more, society just needs to listen more.
While also being told that we need to man up or that the way we act is toxic masculinity?
Young men : “I dont wanna date a women who sells pics of her body online and sleeps around”
Feminist ideologue: “MYSOGYNIST!!”
This is the problem. Honesty is not allowed
“traditional notions of masculinity such as physical, sexual and intellectual prowess – as well as heterosexuality – still dominate.”
As they fucking should. Why would you not want your son to possess these eminently desirable qualities?
“You’d feel much better if you talk about your feelings. Now toddle off back to your shitty minimum wage job for your awful, incompetent bosses who won’t even pay you enough to rent a bedroom in a flophouse, there’s a good chap.”
“Traditional notions of masculinity such as physical, sexual and intellectual prowess – as well as heterosexuality – still dominate.”
Yes, because most heterosexual women want – physical, sexual and intellectual prowess – from their man. Who can blame them, most of the time they are not the outliers that are writing these articles.
These articles are an untested social experiment.
Builing physical, sexual and intellectual prowess is a tried and test method of male success – in no way are any of the above qualities toxic in of themself.
I yearn for true gender equality. I have no patience for one who talks about female privilege when it suits them and then complains about someone “not being a man” when it’s convenient!
-A certain inspirational man
I love how it’s us boys and men who have to do everything. Why isn’t there a call for women to treat men better, like there is a constant call for men to treat women better?
Most of the sexiest behaviour/ stereotypes Iv been subjected to have come from women. I know my mates have my back and while some of them aren’t emotionally literate they still listen even if they can’t help. I can count on one hand the women in my life that have been anything like that.
They are trying to fix a problem with boys and Men from the angle of a woman’s point of view it is not going to work they are not the same no matter how hard you try and make it so
Maybe this is overly pessimistic but men and boys know they can talk about their feelings. The problem is most people do not care or an unable to actually have a conversation about it. Worse in some cases I have seen men demonised for their struggles. Issues such as lack of identity or lack of value is labeled as toxic masculinity. Male suicide and homelessness is grossly ignored by the wider population, the only time male homeless figures are brought up is in reference to female homelessness. Like how men need to do more to support female equality, women must do more to support men. This cannot become an argument over who has it worse.
Having spoke honestly about my struggles with depression, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, suicide ideation, porn addiction and a whole host of other problems to so called close friends or ex partners, only to be met with hostility has ensured my silence. As mostly I feel like if I express myself as a man about my woes, I’ve been told to just get on with it. All of that bottling up and public beratement when finally opening up has ensured I’ll be silent mostly, as what I’m going through as a man or a father doesn’t matter to much. Then they wonder why men commit suicide far more often than women. We don’t have the same encouragement to speak about sexual abuse, physical abuse, coming from a broken home, surviving bullying, being LGBT or whatever else problem(s).
Boys need to do exactly what they want, how they want and grow up into whatever kind of man they wish to be. Other peoples agendas or bs be damned.
That’s freedom and that’s choice.
It’s up to society to engage with them rather than paint them into a corner; it’s not on the boys to shoulder the blame for the shortcomings of society it’s on the collective to include them.
I’m seeing this play out in my family at the moment.
My mum died unexpectedly last week and every single man in the family is absolutely fucking stone-faced. Myself included.
Nobody’s talking about it beyond absolute facts. My brother and I have just gone in to admin mode – filling out forms, making arrangements, just dealing with the situation as if it’s a leaky pipe or a squeaky door hinge – fix it and carry on with your day.
You can see the signs that we’re hurting. Things people do when they’re not being watched, lack of communication, all that shit. Nobody’s willing to address it though.
I haven’t even told some of my closest friends it happened because it’s easier to just carry on as usual. This is probably the most I’ve said about it since it happened and there’s a decent chance I’ll just delete the fucking comment anyway.
Ally Fogg, who has done a lot of journalism/charity/work on men’s gender issues, has some criticisms of this report: https://twitter.com/AllyFogg/status/1589988748473032705
They seem to want this to happen for the benefit of women.
One of the report authors and fellow of Equimundo, David Bartlett, said: “How boys and men behave makes an enormous difference to the lives of girls and women, and individuals of all gender identities, in all areas of their lives.
In order to effectively combat violence against women and girls, it is essential to address the origins of this violence.
Maybe if you want boys to open up about their feelings and fight inequality, you should start by actually giving a fuck about boys. Maybe ask how they are feeling, because you care about THEM, not because you have the ulterior motive of helping women.
On average, Males need comradeship (for lack of a better term), also a place to positively channel aggression and energy. Thats not precisely the same as what females need. It would be a mistake to ignore that difference.
By all means talk about something if its really bothering you, but i think expecting males to adopt the same expression standards as women is counter productive.
We are just not wired the exactly same. (on average)
Also “wage gap”… who even says that anymore without qualifying it.
Man, being a boy right now is going to be a fucking nightmare. If you’re male, social media fucking hates you.
There’s never a focus on boys and men for their own sake, as humans that have their own problems. It’s *always* in the context of how women are affected. The whole emphasis is on women, completely female-centric. The problems that men have are *only* a problem because they effect women, male flourishing is *only* good because women can also flourish thereby.
How is it that even when talking about helping boys be more open, the main focus is STILL on the benefits it has for girls and people of other gender identities?
Who seriously thinks it’s a good idea to talk to a journalist about this or write an article like this? They’re basically saying we should help the boys because ultimately it will benefit the girls rather than helping the boys to help the boys.