How Boys Suffer: The Boy Code and Toxic Masculinity

[Behind the Aegis]

Here's why the documentary 'The Mask You Live In' is critical for parents, tweens and teens

---snip---

Feelings guide us. They steer us to seek help and consultation. They motivate problem-solving and informed decision-making. And most importantly, they drive connection with others.

What happens to this pent-up frustration when boys inevitably come up short in the manhood-code department? It can lead to depression, conduct disorders, isolation, problematic relationships and even violence.

Problems abound with toxic masculinity just as they do with the gender-typed pressures on girls. Girls are supposed to be pretty, skinny, perfect, accommodating, and never aggressive or angry. Gender straightjackets on both males and females can strangle, and try a gender identity that isn’t binary and you’re really in a bind.

What are the solutions? Busting out of those gendered straightjackets is a start. We need to validate boys’ feelings when they experience negative emotions. We need to trust that if we show compassion for boys’ tender sides, it won’t make them fragile; it will enhance self-acceptance.

more...

[radicalliberal]

1. Uh-oh, now you've done it. You've incurred the wrath of the MRAs!

They hate this documentary.

More tomorrow when I have time. . . .

[TrogL]

2. MRA?

[jtuck004]

3. The men's rights movement (MRM) is a part of the larger men's movement. It branched off from the men

The men's rights movement (MRM) is a part of the larger men's movement. It branched off from the men's liberation movement in the early 1970s. The men's rights movement is made up of a variety of groups and individuals who focus on numerous social issues (including family law, parenting, reproduction, domestic violence) and government services (including education, compulsory military service, social safety nets, and health policies), which men's rights advocates say discriminate against men."

This sounds like the spoon is being dipped in the pot for unnecessary stirring...

[jtuck004]

4. "We need to...We need to..." < In other words the adults need to fix themselves so they

can raise children who are not broken.

From a book review, in 1954:

"Evidently Joseph Hart's*hopes for adult education have not yet been realized. We still face the challenge to produce an adult generation that, having been liberated from provincial mindedness, will not be content to perpetuate in its successors its own ignorance and prejudice. "

Kenneth Winetrout
Education Department, American International College

* Joseph K. Hart, Adult Education, New York: Thomas Crowell 1927. All quotations are from Hart's book unless otherwise indicated.

Still doing the same things, expecting something different...

[Behind the Aegis]

5. So what is YOUR solution?

Or do you think things are going swimmingly?

[jtuck004]

6. Mine is the same as it has always been. Adult education. From industrial unions to

Chautauqua, we influence adult behavior in a billion ways. Been doing that for a long time, even after the government and private foundations moved on to making the wealthy more comfortable.

Too many ass clowns these days, of all kinds.

[Behind the Aegis]

7. It can be both.

Education doesn't have to be limited to children OR adults. The education can be for all. I do agree there are too many ass clowns, and they are the ones who usually put their collective heads in the ground and dismiss anything they don't find to fit their narrow perspectives, much like those of the MRA variety.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

8. Looks like a good movie. Saving to check out later.

Toxic masculinity is hurting us all.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. Boys develop a template of positive masculinity through their fathers.

The core problem is fatherlessness.

[Gravitycollapse]

11. The core problem is not fatherlessness. It's toxic masculinity.

You can have every single father present and still churn out a generation of emotionally stunted boys who view women as property.

[He loved Big Brother]

12. More like bad fathers.

Wilfully absent fathers would be included under this, I suppose.