Richard Reeves made it clear in 2022: being male in America has a dark side that goes beyond the power and privilege of toxic masculinity. Lack of school success, heightened mental health issues, poor physical prognoses for longevity, and a general spiritual emptiness are benchmarks for many men today. Boys lack male role models who are emotionally competent and turn to women for guidance, only to find that males need males to help them to fully thrive. Gangs and guns and running the streets are violent ways for young men to find the sense of belonging they need, a belonging that must be informed through a positive sense of masculinity and not in spite of a toxic sense of masculinity.
Reeves offers lots of good research, and he tries his best to incorporate the experience of men and boys of color. He suggests that men can be feminists and masculinists (my term) at the same time. This is a “both/and” approach to raising boys rather than the “either/or” mentality that informs our current political and culture conflicts.
We have work to do here – work that might include:
· Empower women through gender equity and sensitize men through nurture based upon loving strength, all at the same time.
· Move away from the stereotypes of men as competent in the workplace and useless at home.
· Make elementary schools safe environments for “boys who are just boys” rather than pathologizing “boy behavior” as needing diagnoses and medication.
· Go beyond “positive masculinity” to “loving kindness for all” in our lives, as the Dalai Lama suggests. (Can you imagine using the phrase “positive femininity”?!)
· Embrace a sense of humanity that is enhanced by gender expression appreciation rather than defined by rigid and dehumanizing rules.
Let’s do this, yes?
Comments