This is a written version of the opening to today’s Call with the Publisher, which are held every Friday. Want to join? Become a member, or just sign up for our email list here.
I’m Lisa Hickey, Publisher of The Good Men Project. We have been holding LIVE phone calls with our community every week for almost 10 years. As I often say — these are one of my favorite hours of my week. On last week’s call, we were asked to focus on men. So today, that’s what we are doing. I’ll speak for about 15 minutes, to frame the topic, and then we’ll open it up to everyone.
#1) I love men.
As individuals and as a category of humans. I love them the way I do everyone — I care about them, I want to be friends with them, I want them to succeed, I want to connect on a deep level.
#2) As a women, I also want to be seen as an equal to men.
But I still, even in 2020, am not always treated equally. I quoted a NYtimes article last week which said that 80% of the top positions in the US are held by men, mostly white men. So — we’re going to talk about education in a minute — how girls are doing better in education than boys, across almost every metric.
If you are a man in power, you could do one of 3 things: 1) Accept that women might become the majority of people in power. 2) Try to solve the problem of WHY boys are not doing as well (which i will talk about shortly or 3) The men in power can make it seems as if education is no longer as important as it once was. that facts are no longer as important. Science is no longer as important. Doctors are no longer as important. A few years ago — that would have seemed like a pretty crazy strategy, right? but look at what the most powerful person in the US — a white man — is doing, and you have to agree — that is their strategy. Girls are doing better when it comes to education, so the solution is — make education less important, less relevant — and take power away from those who are educated.
#3) I can’t see the positive values in the terms “masculinity” and “femininity”.
I know some people think these words are still relevant, but I’m not so sure. And I personally hate the terms “masculine energy” and “feminine energy” even more — because it implies some magical, unseeable ‘essence’ that gives someone power. I think it is harmful. On the other hand — I DO believe in fully supporting whatever way anyone chooses to express their gender. My daughter has a 1 year old girl. She just learned to walk, and cannot talk yet. But when you say “let’s get dressed”, she runs into her room on her wobbly little legs and chooses the most girly clothes she can find. (a leopard skin onesie with a frilly blouse over it is her favorite). She will then run at full speed and try to climb the nearest climbable object, using all her upper body strength to get into as much trouble as she can. Her older brother chooses his spiderman shirt and then tucks his doll into bed. All of that is good and can be celebrated. But as for which one is “more masculine” or which one “feminine”? Don’t know, don’t care. I have NO cognitive dissonance about thinking masculinity and femininity are outdated concepts and yet celebrating whatever way an individual wants to express their own gender. It is the separation that is the problem. It’s like saying someone can’t be intelligent if they play sports, or can’t be artistic and also be a brilliant mathematician. It’s outdated and harmful.
4) I googled “How are men doing?” Here’s what I found.
One of the first things that showed up was an article by fivethirtyeight.
In a 2018 poll, they had found that feeling masculine or manly is part of a majority of men’s identities. When asked how masculine or “manly” they generally feel, 83 percent of men said they felt “very” or “somewhat” masculine. 53 percent, said it was very or somewhat important that others see them that way.
A majority of men, 64 percent, said their father or a father figure was a source of their ideas about what it means to be a good man. At 41 percent, mothers came in second. Many also cited religion—but there were generational differences: Pop culture was a source of inspiration for an understanding of manhood for younger men (42 percent of those age 18 to 34), while only 17 percent of men 35 to 64 and 12 percent of men 65 and over said the same.
After reading this, the idea of ‘masculinity’ doesn’t seem any more relevant to me.
Getting back to point #1 — I love men, I don’t care how “masculine” they are. So what is the point of attaching the two?
5) But OK, so how are BOYS doing then?
Colorado State University talks about men and masculinity as socially constructed identities. “Boys and men learn “appropriate” gender roles in accordance to the masculine expectations of their given society. This means that from very early on boys get messages on what it means to be a boy. To illustrate how pervasive the “gendering” process is, we can take a look at how toys are marketed differently for boys and girls. The graphics below are word clouds that display the words used to market toys to girls and boys respectively. The bigger the text, the more frequently it appears in toy marketing material.”
Is that a good thing that boys are receiving one set of marketing messages — that are really all about fighting, domination, competitivenss and war — and girls are getting another?
Is this good? And yet — where are the messages that girls can do anything and boys can do nothing? They are getting messages that they should fight, be dominant, and be the ones with power — as toddlers.
6) But … how are boys doing when it comes to education. Aren’t girls pulling ahead?
Research from the UK from 2019 found exactly that. Girls outperform boys at almost every educational stage from ages 5 to 16. And a girl born in the UK today is 75% more likely to go to university than a boy.
According to the former chief executive of UCAS, Mary Curnock-Cook, the underachievement of boys in comparison to girls can be explained by the following two factors. Firstly, two-thirds of school boys suffer from special education needs such as mental health issues, speech impediments, communication and expression issues and autistic spectrum disorders. Secondly, the parents and caregivers of boys and girls tend to demand and expect higher education from girls. And there are differences between boys and girls that we never talk about, never adjust for. For example, 1 out of every 12 men are color blind (8%) — (as opposed to 1 out of every 200 women) — and yet that is never seen as a problem even though it actually holds boys back from learning.
Also, an article in The Atlantic, adds the concept of conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is uniformly considered by social scientists to be an inborn personality trait that is not evenly distributed across all humans. In fact, a host of cross-cultural studies show that females tend to be more conscientious than males. They are more apt to plan ahead, set academic goals, and put effort into achieving those goals.
7) There are also clear differences in health between men and women.
Men’s life expectancy is 4 years lower than women’s and men die at higher rates from all top 10 causes of death. Men are half as likely to visit a doctor when they are between the ages of 20 and 40 as women. When men do go, Medical doctors provide men with less service, less advice, and spend less time with men than they do with women per medical encounter. Men are 50% more likely to have smoking related health problems — and similarly, alcohol-specific deaths among males are more than double those observed among females.
This is where we open the call up to our community. Listen to our ConvoCast below to hear the entire conversation. And next time, we hope it will be you that joins in!
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This post is republished on Medium.
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Image credits: featured: iStock | inset, word clouds: Colorado State University