Photo: Flickr / A. Kaiser
Our idea of “boyhood” is a relatively new phenomenon, but it already belongs in our past, not in our future.
For over a century, boys have been faced with a virtually unopposed ideal of masculinity. It has defined generations. It has driven the economy and pop culture. It has perpetuated rape culture and male suicide and plummeting education performance among boys.
It’s time we challenged it.
The concept of boyhood as a distinct identity emerged in the early 20th century. Young boys became part of an inchoate grouping; distinct from their younger androgynous counterparts, distant from girls and not yet men. In this liminal space, 20th-century boys laid the foundations of a unique subculture, defending their independence with reckless delight.
Boy culture was playful and cruel. The uncertainty of masculine identity meant that boys built respect through physical competition and conflict. Strength and daring were the currency of admiration.
What about the ‘sissy’ who didn’t want to fight?
Effeminate boys didn’t fit. They needed to be fixed. They were unambiguously associated with homosexuality and feminine inferiority. Parents panicked. Newspaper columns pressured conformity. Sociologists inculcated masculinized ideals. Politicians exhorted organized sports and boys’ clubs.
Boy culture was separate from and in many ways set against the constraints of the outside world—but it was also enforced by adult authority. If we’re going to discuss the reality of boy culture today, we need to understand where it began.
The struggle for identity
Boys became masculine. Patriarchal society demanded it of them; femininity was too great a risk. And so, with one eye on a boy’s fists and another on the man they hoped he would become, adult figures reinforced characteristics like temerity and reticence. They built up a male ideal.
As Julia Grant wrote, it was then that “boys will be boys” became less of a description than an injunction. It was then that boys began buckling under the pressures of social authority: “Don’t cry.” “Toughen up.” “Be a man.”
That is where we went wrong. Boys are not men. By demanding conformity to a gender-based stereotype, we deprived boys of their fragility. We let the tears evaporate on their cheeks. We left the right words unsaid.
It was all for the best.
Most boys you know probably seem happy enough. They probably are happy enough. But often we do not see the full story. For every fist, there is heartbreak; for every failed test, there is uncertainty. We have established an expectation for male strength and self-reliance, leaving boys to fend for themselves.
The reality is that almost every boy that steps away from the standards of masculinity in order to be true to himself is doing it alone—and standing against huge odds.
According to social scientists like Michael Kimmel, the pressures of masculinity are at the core of the ‘boy crisis.’ Most researchers agree that they are formidable and self-perpetuating. If you disagree, fine; maybe it’s not a conversation you need to have with everyone. It is, however, a conversation you could have with your son.
Does the ‘boy crisis’ matter?
Ask the eleven-year-old boy who cut himself because he blamed himself for his parents break-up and had no outlet for his grief and guilt. Ask the thirteen-year-old who kissed another boy and got in a fight for calling a kid a fag in the same day. Ask the fourteen-year-old who cut his hair short and started lifting weights because he was sick of getting beat up.
Yes, boys wrestle and roar and throw rocks. Boys also hurt.
At age ten, Michael was bullied for the intimacy of his friendship with another boy. There was absolutely nobody he could go to. “Sometimes I just want to end it all,” he said, “When something good happens in school I don’t think about it, but most other days I come home from school and I picture it in my head.”
“I don’t cry, though.”
Challenging the values and expectations we place on boys is not about “re-engineering masculinity” or “males-are-toxic ideology,” as Christina Hoff Sommers wrote in an article criticizing Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s new documentary, The Mask You Live In. It’s about making space for new possibilities of masculine identity and empowering boys to break down socialized concepts of who they are supposed to be.
It’s about listening to boys like Michael, allowing him to express his emotions and keep his wrists free of scars.
It’s time.
