May 27, 2020
Beyond the locker room: Coronavirus isolation is an opportunity to teach boys about toxic masculinity
鈥淏oys being boys鈥 is a tired narrative, but one that is still dominant in sport culture.
The latest example: The Washington Capitals released Brendan Leipsic with some other hockey players.
And it鈥檚 not just professional athletes. A Canadian boy鈥檚 hockey team was recently suspended for Before that, the football team at a Toronto school that highlighted systemic bullying and a culture of 鈥.鈥
High school boys routinely face that reflect a culture of masculinity underscored by stereotypes that boys just need to 鈥渕an up.鈥 The pressure to prove your sexual prowess as a man and your power over other men does not stop at high school. As many men know, it carries on well into adulthood.
As a and a father of a son and a daughter, I believe the extended social isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic is an opportunity for parents to challenge the very notion of 鈥溾
Locker room banter
Several things can be different for boys while at home.
With schools not in session because of the pandemic, boys aren鈥檛 currently being confronted with or fearful of the day-to-day .
This is significant for those who quietly struggle navigating , as well as those who are bullied. The daily competitions, the posturing to fit in and the fear of being perceived as unmasculine because, for example, they weighs heavily for many boys in school.
Most boys are no longer immersed in a school teen culture where being 鈥渙ne of the boys鈥 requires maintaining and perpetuating steeped in toughness, silence and, at all costs, .
Coronavirus distancing may have removed some of that fear by removing that physical context. Parents have an opportunity to support boys acting and being different. At home, they should not have to 鈥減rove鈥 themselves to be a man so they can be loved, accepted or 鈥渇it in.鈥
AP Photo/Karl B DeBlaker
鈥 as well as an array of emotions that are often guarded, shielded or repressed because of external social pressures to be accepted within male peer groups and among sports teams.
At the same time, many gender non-conforming youth face intense pressure to live up to parental expectations. School at home can be a time to re-examine the ways we seamlessly enforce children to adhere to rigid, unforgiving gender regulations.
A new role for fathers
Parents 鈥 and fathers in particular 鈥 have a chance to support boys . Isolated from male peer groups, boys are left to chart paths without looking for approval from within the pecking order among boys.
While some boys struggle with having no friends with whom they may measure their own masculinity 鈥 their ruggedness, their strength 鈥 parents can choose to affirm and confirm . Boys may seek comfort and assurance 鈥 both about current times, but also about how they and their vulnerabilities.
How will they be judged to be real men? Can boys learn different lessons of masculinity while at home? And shouldn鈥檛 we just let boys do what boys do?
We can embrace shifting masculinities marked by uncertainty and vulnerability and instead promote greater empathy and compassion. Many boys don鈥檛 experience this at school as they try desperately either to go unnoticed or simply be accepted as one of the boys. Now is a time to watch and listen more closely how and where boys seek validation as boys.
Boys are not just being boys
鈥,鈥 and the codes for passing as one of the boys is part of the normalization of a damaging and restrictive masculinity that schools struggle to disrupt or challenge. Testosterone and hormones become explanations for misogyny, violence, transphobia and homophobia.
Shutterstock
Boys know the rules, so do their fathers. But can parents change the rules and instead work on a new project of masculinity during and after the pandemic?
While historically 鈥 particularly as it applies to childcare and housework 鈥 there is some evidence in recent years that men have been increasingly involved in that is .
Shifting relationships and economic conditions have prompted shifting understandings of gender arrangements in which 鈥溾 are not seen as a threat to normative masculinities, but rather a renegotiation of what it means to be a man who cares for others and who supports gender equality.
We can support boys to be different, act differently and . Parents have choices about the lessons their sons learn at home. We do not need to maintain the rules and that boys routinely learn in schools.
The insularity and the isolation of the pandemic might provide an opportunity, and the space, to re-envision sons, boys as richly diverse and uniquely complicated rather than as simply 鈥渙ne of the boys.鈥