Doing more for boys and young men does not require us to abandon our ideal of gender equality, rather it extends it.
When we started our project on boys and young men, we had just come to the end of one that examined the role of inspirational women. But what of the inspirational men? Where were the positive role models that exemplified a positive version of masculinity? Why was it that the advocates of harmful versions of masculinity were so prevalent on social media? Why was violence so overwhelmingly a male activity? Why were suicide rates so high, mental health rates so poor, and grades so low? In essence, were the boys okay?
To find out, we asked young people what it was like to be a boy or a young man in Scotland in the here and now. And it turns out that actually the boys were ‘mostly’ doing fine. But importantly, some were not doing so well, particularly those where masculinity intersected with poverty. Young people had heard of and understood what ‘toxic’ masculinity was but had never heard of ‘positive’ masculinity and they struggled to identify positive role models.
Young people really needed and wanted to talk about masculinity. They desperately wanted to explore what is to be male in today’s society. They required space to have difficult and challenging conversations with each other and with trusted practitioners. They wanted to talk about damaging and harmful stereotypes and how those impacted on relationships.
As a result of participating in the project Imagine a Man young people developed a better understanding of themselves and others through respectful and transformative dialogue. The results are interpreted, compiled and shared here.
This resource is our contribution towards developing a continuing understanding of what constitutes positive masculinity. It is important because it attempts to define the role of men in society in a way that we believe to be aspirational. Above all we want boys and young men to be optimistic for the future and to flourish.