Raising the American boy

photos by sky stockton

The problem with the way we socialize boys

Since the 1990s, there has been an increasingly thorough effort to tear down traditional gender roles for young girls. Girls in America now have plenty of opportunities in sports, STEM subjects, and other subjects considered traditionally “masculine.” Now, you’re just as likely to see a girl wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans as a pink dress. Though we certainly have progress to make in this regard, we have come a long way as a society toward allowing girls to become whoever they want to be. 

The same does not hold true of the American boy, however. He is told that wearing dresses or playing with dolls makes him weak. Worse, this all wells up inside of him. He is forced to bottle up his emotions. And sometimes, far more often than he should, he grows from an emotionally repressed boy into a violent and emotionally unstable man. 

It’s great that we have broadened our American definition of femininity to include almost anything a girl wants to be, but boys have often been neglected in this regard. 

We tend to think that men have everything: power, control, wealth, etc. What rights do men not have? After all, men control society. In actuality, patriarchal systems are just as oppressive to their own sex than of the opposite, if not more. 

Though girls can like engineering or sports and still be feminine, modern masculinity has, if anything, become stricter as time goes on. Boys report pressure to be athletic, strong, and unemotional, often to a dangerous degree. 

Due to this societally-imposed inability to communicate their emotions, young men are at a higher risk than young women for suicide, substance abuse, and the perpetration of violent acts, according to a 2017 study published by the Journal of Adolescent Health.

So, how is this rigid system of masculinity enforced? To a certain extent, it can be attributed to the little things. Toys given to boys often include action figures, miniature soldiers, violent video games, and other products which promote an inaccurate and aggressive view of masculinity.

“You grow up and you’d see movies like The Terminator and you’d see people like Arnold Schwarzeneggar being the model man and running around with his shirt off and [looking] jacked. There’s not a ton of depictions of a stereotypical male in media where it’s not like that,” Will Christy, 12, said.

Children are influenced by the world around them, and they often emulate what they see in popular culture. These impressions are developed at a young age. According to a study by Common Sense Media, the time when kids are first exposed to popular culture happens to fall around the same time that media is most likely to influence their impressions of the world, around four years old. 

Popular culture is often full of exaggerated gender stereotypes, and being exposed to these stereotypes at an early age can have lasting impressions on a child. 

If you start watching violent action movies when you’re five, even though you’ll probably know it’s fake, you may think the movies show a realistic depiction of adult masculinity. Even though this impression might later be countered by awareness of the real world, to some extent what you learned when you were five still remains and still affects your worldview. later be countered by awareness of the real world, to some extent what you learned when you were five still remains and still affects your worldview. 

Additionally, studies have found that parents often expect their boys to contain their emotions and restrain from doing anything “girly.” The idea that “boys don’t cry,” while deteriorating, is still a widely held belief. 

But, more significant than even parents, is the influence of peers. Boys teach other boys how to be boys, often the hard way: bullying. How did they learn how to be boys? Older boys. And the cycle goes on. Boys will avoid anything even remotely non-masculine in order to avoid being labeled as “girly” or “gay.”

“I played football up until freshman year and then I switched to tennis and I remember a lot of the football players being like ‘Oh my god, you’re gay! Why would you play such a non-manly sport?’” Will said. 

Arguably the biggest problem here is that these labels are seen as insults in the first place. The reason we are okay with girls indulging in “boys things” but not the other way around is ultimately rooted in sexism. When girls act “masculine,” they act in a way typically associated with superiority and strength, and are seen as taking a step up. When boys act “feminine,” they act in a way typically associated with weakness and inferiority, and are seen as taking a step down. 

When girls act “masculine,” they act in a way typically associated with superiority and strength, and are seen as taking a step up. When boys act “feminine,” they act in a way typically associated with weakness and inferiority, and are seen as taking a step down.

This is simply untrue, but is built on years of misogyny. This same perception is perhaps why, although homosexual people face harsh discrimination regardless of gender, gay men, especially young gay men, often report much harsher discrimination than lesbians. Lesbianism is still a social taboo, but male homosexuality is quite possibly America’s most common playground insult. 

A possible theory as to why this is the case specifically is that masculinity is associated with superiority. Thus, in order to be truly masculine, you must be more masculine than everyone else. This means that anything not traditionally masculine is a sign of inferiority, and not allowed into the brand of masculinity. And thus, rather than expanding, our definition of masculinity grows ever narrower. 

Still, there are rays of hope, especially among parents. More and more parents are learning from the mistakes of their own parents and are making conscious efforts to engage in emotional dialogue with their sons as well as their daughters. 

More and more mothers and fathers are supportive of boys crying, wearing pink, playing with dolls, or even wearing dresses to school. Sure, peer pressure eventually overcomes parental influence. But cultures can change. 

We’ve spent three decades watching countless movies showing women in the same positions as men: warriors, scientists, athletes, superheroes. What about a movie about a male nurse that isn’t a comedy? What about a movie about a stay at home dad who’s actually good at what he does? What about a movie about a boy who plays with dolls and doesn’t throw them away as he grows up? 

Emotion isn’t a weakness. Compassion isn’t a weakness. Nor is respect, nor is nurturing, nor sensitivity nor empathy. They are strengths, strengths that we as men have prevented ourselves from attaining for far too long. It’s time to broaden our definition of masculinity.