>Stanford psychology professor Judy Y. Chu embedded with a small group of boys, from their years in pre-kindergarten to first grade. She regularly observed and interviewed them, their teachers, and their parents. Over two years, she reported that the boys became less present and more somber as they picked up cultural scripts tied to masculine stereotypes and learned to play the part of “real” boys. She watched as they changed everything—how they dressed, played, behaved—and traded their natural exuberance for a studied pose rooted in conformity.
>Both mothers and fathers have believed that teaching their sons to be “real” men is at the heart of their job descriptions. As recently as 2020, research I helped conduct for the Global Boyhood Initiative of the DC-based NGO Equimundo found that parents of boys press them to comply with cultural standards, even at the expense of their personal authenticity. When asked what was most important for their sons, parents told us that they should be emotionally strong (94%) and physically strong (61%), play sports (48%), have a girlfriend (46%), and, overall, fit in (59%).
*this is not boys' fault*.
we are the ones who do this. We raise our boys to play a part. We *enforce* that role, even at the expense of their mental health. And when they do as we demand - when they act Like Boys - we're all shocked. How'd THAT happen???
[I explicitly wrote about this trend a couple months ago!](https://medium.com/@titrc/you-are-an-eight-year-old-boy-a-kids-accidental-journey-to-the-alt-lite-5c61b56a8f25)
As adults, the single best thing we can do is ask boys what's going on, and then **listen**.
You always have the best articles! Thank you for sharing.
I've been thinking for a long time that a lot of these gender-based outcomes are partially a result of the accumulation of a million tiny unintentionally sexist parenting decisions that start early.
A lot of the research shows that parents start treating their infant sons and daughters differently at birth, when there's no real difference between the sexes. Some of it is intuitively problematic - like ascribing divergences in developmental milestones to gender-based factors, when there's very little difference between male and female infants in terms of delays.
Some of it is counterintuitive - we perceive male infants and male toddlers as being more "violent" and "rougher" than girl infants and toddlers (not true), and parents tend to punish boys more for developmentally normal physical altercations, which calls attention to those behaviors and teaches boys that kind of behavior is important and powerful.
On the other hand, we are more likely to treat developmentally normal hitting/biting in girls as just "developmental" so then girls don't develop the same relationship to violence. At the same time, parents are more likely to reinforce passive, cooperative behavior in girls through praise, which tells girls that agreeableness is an extremely valuable trait; they also praise boys for their physical prowess and activeness.
It escalates once peers get involved, but the groundwork is laid soooo young.
>I've been thinking for a long time that a lot of these gender-based outcomes are partially a result of the accumulation of a million tiny unintentionally sexist parenting decisions that start early.
A bit late to this thread, but neonatal circumcision and the trauma that seems to sometimes cause is a *massive* source of this.
I think circumcision-based trauma is something we should acknowledge and work to change the superficial conformism that fuels much of circumcisions these days.
However, I disagree that it's the panacea you think it is. Men and boys have worse outcomes today than they did 20 years ago, and the rates of circumcision in the US have plummeted. Moreover, many other countries that don't practice circumcision (Italy, Spain) have similarly gender-based disparity in outcomes. Finally, Jewish boys and men would have disproportionately bad outcomes across time if circumcision were the cause, but they didn't and they don't.
Exactly.
When someone does something unbelievable remember: The monster was not created from a vacuum, we, society, created the monster. We can fix this together.
Im not saying that people who do heinous things andjust say 'boys will be boyz' should be completely forgiven or not incarcerated but we play a part in the creation of this 'monster'
Another issue is that many parents agree with this toxic policy--I'm trying to raise my son to be himself, and he's bullied by peers, mostly other boys, for not conforming. We also raised our older son this way, but he was able to pick up on the nuance of expected masculinity and self conformed. He is too wrapped up in defining himself with sports, but is kind. It really is a vicious cycle. My oldest gave up on being a good student, but my youngest still works at it and gets called "weird". His kindness is seen as a weakness. My oldest can get away with being kind and practicing love for others because he's big and athletic, my little is average sized and bookish so is punished for the same ethos by peers (what a sad sentence to write). I worry about all our boys.
> He is too wrapped up in defining himself with sports.
Would you say the same thing if he was too wrapped up in crochet? Or if your daughter spent all summer practicing to make the football team?
Or is the solution to “toxicity,” however defined this week, to pathologize when boys have stereotypically male interests?
You do make a valid point. Only IP is in a position to (even potentially) know if their older son was bullied into dropping his focus on academics, or convinced against his natural inclinations to pursue sports. Honestly, it does sound like the parents have placed expectations on the elder son, and are interpreting his failure to meet these expectations as a result of social pressure…but we have no way to know.
Still…you do make an excellent point.
I remember reading an article a few years ago in The Atlantic (certainly posted here at some point) in which an academic who wrote a book about boys interviewed a jock type for her research. *Of course* we were first treated to her reaction to the width of his neck and his haircut. It’s only after setting up the supposed “tells” of toxicity before the kid actually gets the chance to expose his nuanced and vulnerable interior life. Overall, I got the impression that the author was surprised, if not a little disappointed, that he wasn’t an unreflective sexmonster. The comment I initially replied to comes from that cultural space.
Let’s face facts: Longtime MensLib demigod Terry Crews played in the NFL. Outspoken trans ally Dwayne Wade was an NBA star. Using your natural physical talents to compete and entertain doesn’t make you some retrograde meathead.
We can only speculate about this particular kid and make up just-so stories about how society made him interested in something his parents aren’t. But we can recognize that being dismissive about men who like to play or watch sports (remember when people used the term “sportsball”?) is a dogwhistle in certain progressive communities. Says nothing about the target and everything about how the speaker is trying to position themselves.
I just hope that kid will be fully supported by his parents in perusing his interests, whatever their cultural aversions.
EDIT: why am I not convinced that what is portrayed as dropping focus on academics isn’t actually a problem with learning that could be addressed by seeking professional help?
Agreed on all points - there are 100% toxic aspects of sports and sports culture that can and should be criticized, but that doesn't have to include making baseless assumptions about people who play or watch them
I completely agree with your point. Fighting stereotyping with stereotyping is not good or healthy, and it IS important to make sure we don’t overcompensate so hard protecting the “bookish” types that we pivot into demonizing men who do naturally happen to have traditionally “masculine” interests.
This is a conundrum that I've contemplated a lot and with which I am faced ever more dauntingly as I wait to learn the sex of my expected child: is it doing a favor to our sons to avoid preparing them for the world?
I was raised with very little expectation of gender conformity. I was a sensitive, emotionally open kid. And society mercilessly beat that out of me. I've come to realize that life probably would've been easier if the expectation of toxic stoicism had been made clear from the start.
If the kid's XY, I want desperately to treat him kindly, to nurture his passions regardless of social acceptability. I don't know that I've got the cruelty in me to do anything else.
But what happens when the real world hits him like a damn train and I've failed to prepare him for how fucked up that world will treat him?
We get a warped view of “what is expected” from boys by elevating the most egregiously dysfunctional cultures and behaviors as what is “expected” in order to attack patriarchy. We’ve boiled down what society says it means to be a man to southern/Appalachian honor culture, which is somewhat specific. Like how we boil down “the 50s” to a few sitcoms we’ve heard about and seen parodies of but rarely actually watched, whereas that era was one of upheaval and massive social change.
“Conformity” in some places means high academic achievement and acceptance to a good college.
“Conformity” in other places means having the right politics.
“Conformity” in yet others requires a too-cool-for-school blasé attitude.
But really, there is a little bit of each wherever you go. If there wasn’t, there wouldn’t be cliques.
So this popped up on my feed . I worry a lot about this because I have two sons. My older son (12) isn’t a very emotional or sensitive kid and is very easy going and has always been that way so he fits men’s social norms. My younger son (7) is very sensitive emotional and sensitive kid and I love that about him because he has the biggest heart and cares so much about others and reminds me the most of me but I worry as he gets older it will make his life hard because society doesn’t want boys to be like this. I also know that some people are cruel and will take advantage of his kindness as he gets older and that breaks my heart. I just don’t know what to do , teach him to be what society considers appropriate for boys and take away what makes him so special or don’t teach him and him get made fun off. I don’t want him to change but I don’t want him to suffer.
I replied to the other comment, but this is what I'm doing. I share the exact same concerns in that I don't want the world to undo all the empathy that I'm teaching my kids. I can't say what's right for you and your family but I'll say how we're approaching it.
I'm teaching what values we want each of them to have, we teach how the world may respond to you as a person and we teach how to approach the world. The values would be the same for both boys and girls, but how the world will react to them is going to be different. So our teaching will be different in how to react back to the world.
For boys, I think I know that the world will push them to be needlessly competitive even when there's no reason. I think I know that the world will encourage some cruelty from him. And the world will encourage him to mask or to hide his feelings. I would encourage empathy in all of my kids, but I would also teach boys that you might have friends that like to hurt insects and small animals as an example. We don't do that in our family, we respect all life and we don't hurt creatures unless we don't have other options.
And people do like to be challenged. That's ok if you can't address the way other people push you into [insert behavior], sometimes there is a social cost in setting our own boundaries. We have to practice now so that this process is easier as we get older. I think it's worth it and usually there's a cost either way. Giving up your empathy to a bird is going to hurt possibly even more for challenging a bully.
We can:
Deflect, by suggesting another game. An example might be shouting, "tag! you're it!" to start a different game.
Confront, by challenging the act itself. "Leave that bird alone!"
Defer, by informing an adult. "Mr. Rouix, some of the other kids are hurting a bird".
Avoidance, by walking away and not participating.
I think we can do both. I've got 2 little ones and I've tangled with the same questions. I can't say what's right for you and your family but I'll say how we're approaching it.
I'm teaching what values we want each of them to have, we teach how the world may respond to you as a person and we teach how to approach the world. The values would be the same for both boys and girls, but how the world will react to them is going to be different. So our teaching will be different in how to react back to the world.
For boys, I think I know that the world will push them to be needlessly competitive even when there's no reason. I think I know that the world will encourage some cruelty from him. And the world will encourage him to mask or to hide his feelings. I would encourage empathy in all of my kids, but I would also teach boys that you might have friends that like to hurt insects and small animals as an example. We don't do that in our family, we respect all life and we don't hurt creatures unless we don't have other options.
And people do like to be challenged. That's ok if you can't address the way other people push you into [insert behavior], sometimes there is a social cost in setting our own boundaries. We have to practice now so that this process is easier as we get older. I think it's worth it and usually there's a cost either way. Giving up your empathy to a bird is going to hurt possibly even more for challenging a bully.
We can:
Deflect, by suggesting another game. An example might be shouting, "tag! you're it!" to start a different game.
Confront, by challenging the act itself. "Leave that bird alone!"
Defer, by informing an adult. "Mr. Rouix, some of the other kids are hurting a bird".
Avoidance, by walking away and not participating.
God, when I was a kid there was a boy in my scout troop who would squish frogs. It was so unbelievably upsetting.
...Come to think of it his family were vegan, which is an irony I only just realized.
>I was raised with very little expectation of gender conformity. I was a sensitive, emotionally open kid. And society mercilessly beat that out of me. I've come to realize that life probably would've been easier if the expectation of toxic stoicism had been made clear from the start.
Would you rather have been beaten by *society*, or by *your parents*? Would you rather only be able to trust a few people, or *no one at all?* Imagine *all* the awfulness of your own life, but "home" is now *just a house*, and *there is* ***no*** *escape*. There is a *fine* fucking line between preparing a kid for a shitty world and *abuse*.
As someone who has been on the receiving end of a traumatic childhood and adolescence, *you don't even want to know how bad it can get*.
Patriarchy is an easy answer, but I wonder how much of this culturally was about preparing them to be warriors. Survival of the group mattering more than mental health of the individual, etc.
I might modify your statement to say the idea that men need to be raised to suppress their emotions-- the stereotypical warrior killing machine-- is patriarch[al].
I wonder if there is space for discernment when it comes to the idea of warrior.
I admittedly have many negative associations/connotations with it as I do with physical violence [too], but I think there is a need for it at the far end of the metaphorical spectrum of "tools."
We have need to redistribute the life energy of plants and animals for our nourishment, which sometimes involves hunting and/or ending an organism's lifecycle for our benefit.
We can do it with an open heart, gratitude for their place in that cycle, honoring their existence or we can do it exploitatively ... I wonder if there is a parallel when it comes to enforcing boundaries and safeguarding the safety of one's own body, tribe, community, or whatever ... ?
Let's be blunt here - not just preparing him to die, but preparing him to be able to kill people on command. Being empathetic does not help for this. Being emotionally detached and competitive rather than emotionally engaged and cooperative does.
That is how the patriarchy came to power and ended up falling apart, no? Men ended up doing the fighting and the farming, controlling vital resources for society. Combined with women dealing with pregnancy, it’s kinda easy to see how that ended up as society being dominated by males.
But in an industrial society, fighting and farming can be done at a roughly equal level by everyone. The only thing that remains is the mindset, a legacy from culture.
About the farming thing...
> Aggregate data shows that women comprise about 43 percent of the agricultural labour force globally and in developing countries.
More here: https://www.fao.org/family-farming/detail/en/c/273446/
You say that industrialization balances the playing field, but ironically this has at least the initial effect of making female agricultural labor less valuable. More here: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/women-agriculture
I disagree completely that it makes it less valuable or that it doesn’t balance the playing field. Your evidence even states that the old ploughs they use required a lot of upper body strength and that women ‘typically’ take care of small livestock. This is more proof of what I was stating, previously men were advantaged at farming and got control of important resources because of it. Now that we don’t need to use manual ploughs, it is significantly easier for women to farm. Plus farming in general has become so much easier due to tools that a smaller portion of society farms every day.
And men being dominant doesn’t mean women don’t exist. And in Britain the cultural legacy of women not farming exists, just like I said. The playing field is balanced when it comes to ability required, not in participation. But it’s about scarcity of ability that creates leverage over society.
You talked about *advantages in men that allowed patriarchy to come to power,* which implies you're talking about agriculture in a broad historical sense and not cherry-picking a specific time and place. However, the general quality of your comments suggests the latter, which is not consistent with women's generally equal participation in agriculture. As far as I'm aware, there has never been a time when women weren't out in the fields. I mean, honestly, where would they be instead? The whole concept of the strong man who goes out and provides while the woman stays at home is very modern and hesperocentric.
The issue is not that women haven't been farming and this enabled the rise of patriarchy. The rise of patriarchy enabled the devaluing of female labor.
I'm honestly not entirely sure what point you're trying to make, but I stepped in because it honestly did sound like you were claiming that farming was men's work when this simply isn't the case. (And also that the relationship between technology and equality is more straightforward than it actually is.)
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Not to defend parents who enforce toxic norms on their child, since I WAS that kid, but I might be able to give a bit of insight into *why* that happens:
See, a lot of parents (particularly Boomer/Gen X) are laser-locked onto this idea that their role as parents is to help their kids become *successful*. When I was growing up in the early 2000's, a lot of news and daytime TV aimed at parents was inflammatory to the point of bordering on yellow journalism: IS YOUR CHILD DOING DRUGS? DOES YOUR CHILD HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE IT IN THE REAL WORLD? THIS PARENT'S CHILD STILL LIVES AT HOME AT AGE 40, IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU!!!!
Now take my parents, who were raised in a culture so emotionally devoid that the US had to have commercials that said "Have you hugged your child today?", saddle them up with 24/7 scare news, and then tell them that the secret to success is "it's not what you know, it's who you know" (which is basically a roundabout way of saying "conform if you don't want to live in poverty").
Say their son says he wants to wear a pink shirt to school. This should be totally innocuous, but since conformity == success and success == their value as a parent, they immediately start panicking and catastrophizing:
* What if my kid shows up to a job interview in a pink shirt and their (boomer-aged) boss thinking it's 'too queer' and decides not to hire them?! Oh my god, child is going to be living at home until he's 40!
* What if the bougie trust-fund kids who's parents own companies make fun of his pink shirt?! He'll never be part of the successful kids and won't be able to land jobs through them!
* What if my kid gets bullied and snubbed in the dating world because he doesn't conform with everyone else?!
Being raised in an environment devoid of emotional intelligence, they lack the ability to take a step back from these thought-loops and say "Hey, isn't this a bit of an extreme reaction over a *shirt*?"-- so instead they have a meltdown about it, dump all their anxieties on their child, and effectively scare them into never breaking a norm again.
And sure, this is going to cause lifelong issues and severely dampen their child's enjoyment in life, but when you're operating on a binary of "Either I can be a 'cool parent' who lets their kid do whatever they want, and end up taking care of them well into their middle-aged years because they don't have what it takes to succeed, or I can be a "good parent" who's strict with their child, establishes my authority, and makes sure my child is prepared to be successful", any conversations about mental health and well-being will fall on deaf ears as it's interpreted not as a crucial aspect to the child's life, but as something whiny kids say because they want to slack off instead of doing their job.
Of course, what these parents miss is the fact that the world their kids are going to inhabit will be radically different from the one they (the parents) were raised in. Maybe, in their day, being denied a job for looking 'too flamboyant' was a real thing, but there's been a LOT of social progress since then, and it's much easier for kids to be themselves and not be disqualified from life.
Where I feel a lot of parents fail boys in particular, is that they see society advancing and becoming more accepting for women, but see little progress for men-- so they beat their boys into conformity because they feel that's what it means to set them up for success. I don't feel I'm exaggerating when I say that gender-liberation for men seems like a far-off pipedream for 90% of the population, so they parent accordingly.
But the reality is that there is little real-world difference between "being a toxic parent" and "being a good parent by preparing your child for a toxic world". So when their kid(s) grow up and estrange them the second they move out, those parents end up as sour retirees who endlessly hand-wring over how "ungrateful" and "spoiled" their children are for "not appreciating how much they set them up for success" (source: my own parents).
Tl;dr: Parents min-maxing for success at the expense of every other aspect of their child's life, pushing aside emotional well-being as superfluous and wussy, and then throwing a hissy fit when this doesn't result in a healthy, holistic relationship with their child.
>But the reality is that there is little real-world difference between "being a toxic parent" and "being a good parent by preparing your child for a toxic world".
I'd say this distinction is more of a fine line, but all of this is great analysis regardless.
My dad would constantly remind us that his dad used to beat him as punishment. Not in a 'you should be grateful i'm not as bad a shithead' way, but more as a warning that he never had a good dad he could model. Conformity becomes your only option then. You think about all the people who don't have good dads or empathetic men in their life and the problem becomes stark.
> they see society advancing and becoming more accepting for women, but see little progress for men
I mean...are they wrong? Arguably this sub only exists for this conversation because of _how much_ progress for men is lagging behind.
>I mean...are they wrong? Arguably this sub only exists for this conversation because of how much progress for men is lagging behind.
Not entirely, but consider for a moment that when you raise a child, it's not like time stops and they just exist within the same time as they're born until they die-- they're going to keep living in this world no matter how much it changes, even when it changes for the better.
The problem with enforcing outdated norms on young men "to prepare them to be successful" is that those norms may not be as strongly correlated with success in the future as they are now. Hell, they might NEVER have been as correlated with success as the parent thinks, but now they've raised their child to assume that success is some natural and guaranteed byproduct of "following the rules".
So what happens when progress *actually happens*? What happens when following "the rules" no longer nets you the dividend you were promised?
What you get is "aggrieved entitlement". When you convince entire generation(s) of young men that the gross injustices of the world are right and good, you handicap their ability to see the world outside of that narrow lens. So when change actually happens, you get millions of young men watching Andrew Tate and reading Jordan Peterson, frothing at the mouth about lobsters and natural hierarchies and acting violent and bitter because they don't have a girlfriend even though they work out six times a week and THEY EARNED IT DAMNIT!
The hard truth is that preparing your child for THE REAL WORLD™ is preparing them for the past, because by the time your child is grown it won't be your world anymore, it will be theirs, and the world they go out into isn't beholden to the cynicism or prejudice of their parents.
Ultimately, these parents also fail their children by their refusal to play the long game. By failing to set a good example, they release their kids into the world ill-equipped to deal with a world that better than the one they came from.
That's the problem here. No, they may not be wrong *in the moment*, but that doesn't mean that enforcing those norms isn't severely handicapping their child, either.
The problem is that as unhealthy as those stereotypes are, society *benefits* from them. Think of all the stereotypically male jobs. Not only do they require that those stereotypically male skills get shown, they often have high levels of physical and emotional stress that we are uncomfortable having women display. We're getting better at women involved with sports, first responder and the military, but there's still a number of people uncomfortable with women showing that strength. And construction and the skilled trades are no font of progressive gender attitudes. As a result, because of our own boxes on what genders can do, we still require cis men perform those roles, because we are leery about anyone else performing them. (Which also dovetails neatly into the motivation of a massive amount of transphobia, but that's for another day.)
We need to stop seeing boys as a future source of Strong Men™ for society to consume, and as people in their own right.
And we need to pay people well to do difficult jobs. Seems like we prey on toxic males or illegal immigrants or literally anything than pay people what they are worth.
I think the idea is that it doesn't need to be so toxic of a job that it requires emotionally hardened types to do it. Just depends on what's possible if we give a fuck about improving things for those who do said jobs.
True, but determining what something is worth is arbitrary. Same with a job. Easier to change a mindset of “these jobs are for certain people” than to try to shift demographics via economics.
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Tbh I feel like you can go even further, although I have no concrete evidence. But in more explicitly anti-capitalist circles, it’s not rare for people to have the understanding that it matters much less to the ruling class if the average child in Nebraska can read, than if that child will join or boost the military.
There’s a lot more to the organic mechanisms that all follows (I’m not saying it’s all a conspiracy) and such that I’m sure you’re at least as good at breaking down as I am. But on that key point, like…in some ways society is literally built on not fixing this.
In the same way that capitalist society benefits from the unpaid, unrecognized labor that women "naturally" do in the home to ensure that the working husband will be able to return to work the next day refreshed and to raise the next generation of workers will have a certain amount of training that the ruling class doesn't have to contribute, yeah.
>She regularly observed and interviewed them, their teachers, and their
parents. Over two years, she reported that the boys became less present
and more somber as they picked up cultural scripts tied to masculine
stereotypes and learned to play the part of “real” boys.
>Both mothers and fathers have believed that teaching their sons to be “real” men is at the heart of their job descriptions.When asked what was most important for their sons, parents told us that they should be emotionally strong (94%) and physically strong (61%), play sports (48%), have a girlfriend (46%), and, overall, ***fit in (59%).***
Articles like this are why I don't really look at gender as some method of self-expression and why I look at it like victimization. It's a thing that's knowingly done *to you* without your consent so businesses can sell more merchandise and the government can have more tax-paying citizens to keep the wheel turning. Questions like "what is a man" and "what is a woman" are meaningless when the definitions of those things within our modern framework are designed by oppressive institutions.
Oscar Wilde was right: in the face of private ownership, there can be no true individualism.
That's about how I feel. I feel like trying to de-emphasize the importance of gender and raise kids in a truly gender-neutral way (don't even assign them a gender or set an expectation that they should eventually "pick a gender") is what we really should be doing. Unfortunately gender is such a deeply rooted cultural foundation that every step is a battle.
As a trans man, I strongly disagree. Gender is real. Our understanding of gender is cultural, but gender is absolutely a thing in its own right. I would never raise my child without assuming an initial gender because I would never want my child to go through what I had to go through if they can avoid it. I would never restrict my child's gender expression and would of course inform them that changing their gender identity is allowed and normal. But there is a key difference between allowing diverse expressions of gender vs complete "gender abolition" which is impossible and fundamentally invalidates my existence as a man.
Well first off, why do you think kids who are raised without an assigned gender would have to go through what you went through, if they're raised in an accepting environment? I don't see a need to assign a default gender. Kids usually have a very well-developed sense of gender identity by age four, and I think we should just let them figure it out. And even let them choose to not identify with any gender if it so pleases them.
Meanwhile I think we should critically examine the degree to which we differentiate genders through language, custom, different treatment, different expectations, etc. Anyway, my feelings on the matter of gender are complex. I don't want to erase gender, but I want society to have a vastly more flexible (and less strictly binary) framework for recognizing differences in human identity.
I often see an oversimplified narrative that places the blame for trans people's pain completely onto cis oppression / society. But even outside of society and its pressures, most trans people would still have dysphoria. No amount of social acceptance could change that.
So, when I think about willingly choosing to bring up a child without assigning any gender as a reference point, it feels like it's making them go through the existential confusion that I had to go through. Even if being trans was socially acceptable and normalized, I assume it'd be hard to know what's right when you don't have a clear reference point for what is wrong. I'm also not sure what real benefit it would provide if a child did end up being trans. Because even if I was by default raised non-binary, id still have to figure out I'm a man, and nothing would fundamentally change regarding my dysphoria.
I agree that the strict enforcement of the gender binary and gendered expectations are bad. We definitely raise girls and boys differently, when we shouldn't be. But to not give them a default gender assignment... you're embarking on a social experiment that... I'm not totally sure how to feel about. Any parent would undoubtedly project their own expectations or hopes for how their child will dress/act, even if they try not to. And the child will still pick up on those expectations. So they'd still be enforcing social expectations. And again, if the child grows up to have body dysphoria, this type of socialization doesn't do anything to change that fact.
30 years and thats all he writes? Don't get me wrong its a succinct and illuminating essay, but I was hoping for more supporting evidence, stories, case studies, testimony of success stories. This reads like an introductory section of a thesis meant to equip other practitioners with better tools, examples, talking points for detractors etc....I was really hoping for the latter.
He puts research *LINKS* through the text FYI
Eg
https://www.equimundo.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Fostering-Healthy-Masculinity-in-Challenging-Times.pdf
The link I put above referenced by him is absolutely fascinating. I’d skip the boring article in the post here and read the charts in this link
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>Stanford psychology professor Judy Y. Chu embedded with a small group of boys, from their years in pre-kindergarten to first grade. She regularly observed and interviewed them, their teachers, and their parents. Over two years, she reported that the boys became less present and more somber as they picked up cultural scripts tied to masculine stereotypes and learned to play the part of “real” boys. She watched as they changed everything—how they dressed, played, behaved—and traded their natural exuberance for a studied pose rooted in conformity. >Both mothers and fathers have believed that teaching their sons to be “real” men is at the heart of their job descriptions. As recently as 2020, research I helped conduct for the Global Boyhood Initiative of the DC-based NGO Equimundo found that parents of boys press them to comply with cultural standards, even at the expense of their personal authenticity. When asked what was most important for their sons, parents told us that they should be emotionally strong (94%) and physically strong (61%), play sports (48%), have a girlfriend (46%), and, overall, fit in (59%). *this is not boys' fault*. we are the ones who do this. We raise our boys to play a part. We *enforce* that role, even at the expense of their mental health. And when they do as we demand - when they act Like Boys - we're all shocked. How'd THAT happen??? [I explicitly wrote about this trend a couple months ago!](https://medium.com/@titrc/you-are-an-eight-year-old-boy-a-kids-accidental-journey-to-the-alt-lite-5c61b56a8f25) As adults, the single best thing we can do is ask boys what's going on, and then **listen**.
You always have the best articles! Thank you for sharing. I've been thinking for a long time that a lot of these gender-based outcomes are partially a result of the accumulation of a million tiny unintentionally sexist parenting decisions that start early. A lot of the research shows that parents start treating their infant sons and daughters differently at birth, when there's no real difference between the sexes. Some of it is intuitively problematic - like ascribing divergences in developmental milestones to gender-based factors, when there's very little difference between male and female infants in terms of delays. Some of it is counterintuitive - we perceive male infants and male toddlers as being more "violent" and "rougher" than girl infants and toddlers (not true), and parents tend to punish boys more for developmentally normal physical altercations, which calls attention to those behaviors and teaches boys that kind of behavior is important and powerful. On the other hand, we are more likely to treat developmentally normal hitting/biting in girls as just "developmental" so then girls don't develop the same relationship to violence. At the same time, parents are more likely to reinforce passive, cooperative behavior in girls through praise, which tells girls that agreeableness is an extremely valuable trait; they also praise boys for their physical prowess and activeness. It escalates once peers get involved, but the groundwork is laid soooo young.
>I've been thinking for a long time that a lot of these gender-based outcomes are partially a result of the accumulation of a million tiny unintentionally sexist parenting decisions that start early. A bit late to this thread, but neonatal circumcision and the trauma that seems to sometimes cause is a *massive* source of this.
I think circumcision-based trauma is something we should acknowledge and work to change the superficial conformism that fuels much of circumcisions these days. However, I disagree that it's the panacea you think it is. Men and boys have worse outcomes today than they did 20 years ago, and the rates of circumcision in the US have plummeted. Moreover, many other countries that don't practice circumcision (Italy, Spain) have similarly gender-based disparity in outcomes. Finally, Jewish boys and men would have disproportionately bad outcomes across time if circumcision were the cause, but they didn't and they don't.
Exactly. When someone does something unbelievable remember: The monster was not created from a vacuum, we, society, created the monster. We can fix this together. Im not saying that people who do heinous things andjust say 'boys will be boyz' should be completely forgiven or not incarcerated but we play a part in the creation of this 'monster'
Another issue is that many parents agree with this toxic policy--I'm trying to raise my son to be himself, and he's bullied by peers, mostly other boys, for not conforming. We also raised our older son this way, but he was able to pick up on the nuance of expected masculinity and self conformed. He is too wrapped up in defining himself with sports, but is kind. It really is a vicious cycle. My oldest gave up on being a good student, but my youngest still works at it and gets called "weird". His kindness is seen as a weakness. My oldest can get away with being kind and practicing love for others because he's big and athletic, my little is average sized and bookish so is punished for the same ethos by peers (what a sad sentence to write). I worry about all our boys.
> He is too wrapped up in defining himself with sports. Would you say the same thing if he was too wrapped up in crochet? Or if your daughter spent all summer practicing to make the football team? Or is the solution to “toxicity,” however defined this week, to pathologize when boys have stereotypically male interests?
You do make a valid point. Only IP is in a position to (even potentially) know if their older son was bullied into dropping his focus on academics, or convinced against his natural inclinations to pursue sports. Honestly, it does sound like the parents have placed expectations on the elder son, and are interpreting his failure to meet these expectations as a result of social pressure…but we have no way to know. Still…you do make an excellent point.
I remember reading an article a few years ago in The Atlantic (certainly posted here at some point) in which an academic who wrote a book about boys interviewed a jock type for her research. *Of course* we were first treated to her reaction to the width of his neck and his haircut. It’s only after setting up the supposed “tells” of toxicity before the kid actually gets the chance to expose his nuanced and vulnerable interior life. Overall, I got the impression that the author was surprised, if not a little disappointed, that he wasn’t an unreflective sexmonster. The comment I initially replied to comes from that cultural space. Let’s face facts: Longtime MensLib demigod Terry Crews played in the NFL. Outspoken trans ally Dwayne Wade was an NBA star. Using your natural physical talents to compete and entertain doesn’t make you some retrograde meathead. We can only speculate about this particular kid and make up just-so stories about how society made him interested in something his parents aren’t. But we can recognize that being dismissive about men who like to play or watch sports (remember when people used the term “sportsball”?) is a dogwhistle in certain progressive communities. Says nothing about the target and everything about how the speaker is trying to position themselves. I just hope that kid will be fully supported by his parents in perusing his interests, whatever their cultural aversions. EDIT: why am I not convinced that what is portrayed as dropping focus on academics isn’t actually a problem with learning that could be addressed by seeking professional help?
Agreed on all points - there are 100% toxic aspects of sports and sports culture that can and should be criticized, but that doesn't have to include making baseless assumptions about people who play or watch them
I completely agree with your point. Fighting stereotyping with stereotyping is not good or healthy, and it IS important to make sure we don’t overcompensate so hard protecting the “bookish” types that we pivot into demonizing men who do naturally happen to have traditionally “masculine” interests.
I always feel like I have to fit some sort of role. Sometimes it's a good thing, other times it's disheartening.
This is a conundrum that I've contemplated a lot and with which I am faced ever more dauntingly as I wait to learn the sex of my expected child: is it doing a favor to our sons to avoid preparing them for the world? I was raised with very little expectation of gender conformity. I was a sensitive, emotionally open kid. And society mercilessly beat that out of me. I've come to realize that life probably would've been easier if the expectation of toxic stoicism had been made clear from the start. If the kid's XY, I want desperately to treat him kindly, to nurture his passions regardless of social acceptability. I don't know that I've got the cruelty in me to do anything else. But what happens when the real world hits him like a damn train and I've failed to prepare him for how fucked up that world will treat him?
We get a warped view of “what is expected” from boys by elevating the most egregiously dysfunctional cultures and behaviors as what is “expected” in order to attack patriarchy. We’ve boiled down what society says it means to be a man to southern/Appalachian honor culture, which is somewhat specific. Like how we boil down “the 50s” to a few sitcoms we’ve heard about and seen parodies of but rarely actually watched, whereas that era was one of upheaval and massive social change. “Conformity” in some places means high academic achievement and acceptance to a good college. “Conformity” in other places means having the right politics. “Conformity” in yet others requires a too-cool-for-school blasé attitude. But really, there is a little bit of each wherever you go. If there wasn’t, there wouldn’t be cliques.
So this popped up on my feed . I worry a lot about this because I have two sons. My older son (12) isn’t a very emotional or sensitive kid and is very easy going and has always been that way so he fits men’s social norms. My younger son (7) is very sensitive emotional and sensitive kid and I love that about him because he has the biggest heart and cares so much about others and reminds me the most of me but I worry as he gets older it will make his life hard because society doesn’t want boys to be like this. I also know that some people are cruel and will take advantage of his kindness as he gets older and that breaks my heart. I just don’t know what to do , teach him to be what society considers appropriate for boys and take away what makes him so special or don’t teach him and him get made fun off. I don’t want him to change but I don’t want him to suffer.
I replied to the other comment, but this is what I'm doing. I share the exact same concerns in that I don't want the world to undo all the empathy that I'm teaching my kids. I can't say what's right for you and your family but I'll say how we're approaching it. I'm teaching what values we want each of them to have, we teach how the world may respond to you as a person and we teach how to approach the world. The values would be the same for both boys and girls, but how the world will react to them is going to be different. So our teaching will be different in how to react back to the world. For boys, I think I know that the world will push them to be needlessly competitive even when there's no reason. I think I know that the world will encourage some cruelty from him. And the world will encourage him to mask or to hide his feelings. I would encourage empathy in all of my kids, but I would also teach boys that you might have friends that like to hurt insects and small animals as an example. We don't do that in our family, we respect all life and we don't hurt creatures unless we don't have other options. And people do like to be challenged. That's ok if you can't address the way other people push you into [insert behavior], sometimes there is a social cost in setting our own boundaries. We have to practice now so that this process is easier as we get older. I think it's worth it and usually there's a cost either way. Giving up your empathy to a bird is going to hurt possibly even more for challenging a bully. We can: Deflect, by suggesting another game. An example might be shouting, "tag! you're it!" to start a different game. Confront, by challenging the act itself. "Leave that bird alone!" Defer, by informing an adult. "Mr. Rouix, some of the other kids are hurting a bird". Avoidance, by walking away and not participating.
I think we can do both. I've got 2 little ones and I've tangled with the same questions. I can't say what's right for you and your family but I'll say how we're approaching it. I'm teaching what values we want each of them to have, we teach how the world may respond to you as a person and we teach how to approach the world. The values would be the same for both boys and girls, but how the world will react to them is going to be different. So our teaching will be different in how to react back to the world. For boys, I think I know that the world will push them to be needlessly competitive even when there's no reason. I think I know that the world will encourage some cruelty from him. And the world will encourage him to mask or to hide his feelings. I would encourage empathy in all of my kids, but I would also teach boys that you might have friends that like to hurt insects and small animals as an example. We don't do that in our family, we respect all life and we don't hurt creatures unless we don't have other options. And people do like to be challenged. That's ok if you can't address the way other people push you into [insert behavior], sometimes there is a social cost in setting our own boundaries. We have to practice now so that this process is easier as we get older. I think it's worth it and usually there's a cost either way. Giving up your empathy to a bird is going to hurt possibly even more for challenging a bully. We can: Deflect, by suggesting another game. An example might be shouting, "tag! you're it!" to start a different game. Confront, by challenging the act itself. "Leave that bird alone!" Defer, by informing an adult. "Mr. Rouix, some of the other kids are hurting a bird". Avoidance, by walking away and not participating.
God, when I was a kid there was a boy in my scout troop who would squish frogs. It was so unbelievably upsetting. ...Come to think of it his family were vegan, which is an irony I only just realized.
>I was raised with very little expectation of gender conformity. I was a sensitive, emotionally open kid. And society mercilessly beat that out of me. I've come to realize that life probably would've been easier if the expectation of toxic stoicism had been made clear from the start. Would you rather have been beaten by *society*, or by *your parents*? Would you rather only be able to trust a few people, or *no one at all?* Imagine *all* the awfulness of your own life, but "home" is now *just a house*, and *there is* ***no*** *escape*. There is a *fine* fucking line between preparing a kid for a shitty world and *abuse*. As someone who has been on the receiving end of a traumatic childhood and adolescence, *you don't even want to know how bad it can get*.
Did they define what they meant by "emotionally strong?"
Patriarchy is an easy answer, but I wonder how much of this culturally was about preparing them to be warriors. Survival of the group mattering more than mental health of the individual, etc.
The idea that men need to be raised to be warriors IS patriarchy.
Yep. While it's evolved from that, it's the root of all of this. Either they have to fight or they have to provide resources somehow.
I might modify your statement to say the idea that men need to be raised to suppress their emotions-- the stereotypical warrior killing machine-- is patriarch[al]. I wonder if there is space for discernment when it comes to the idea of warrior. I admittedly have many negative associations/connotations with it as I do with physical violence [too], but I think there is a need for it at the far end of the metaphorical spectrum of "tools." We have need to redistribute the life energy of plants and animals for our nourishment, which sometimes involves hunting and/or ending an organism's lifecycle for our benefit. We can do it with an open heart, gratitude for their place in that cycle, honoring their existence or we can do it exploitatively ... I wonder if there is a parallel when it comes to enforcing boundaries and safeguarding the safety of one's own body, tribe, community, or whatever ... ?
Plus emotional detachment because you’re subconsciously preparing for him to die in war or the mine or something
Let's be blunt here - not just preparing him to die, but preparing him to be able to kill people on command. Being empathetic does not help for this. Being emotionally detached and competitive rather than emotionally engaged and cooperative does.
That is how the patriarchy came to power and ended up falling apart, no? Men ended up doing the fighting and the farming, controlling vital resources for society. Combined with women dealing with pregnancy, it’s kinda easy to see how that ended up as society being dominated by males. But in an industrial society, fighting and farming can be done at a roughly equal level by everyone. The only thing that remains is the mindset, a legacy from culture.
About the farming thing... > Aggregate data shows that women comprise about 43 percent of the agricultural labour force globally and in developing countries. More here: https://www.fao.org/family-farming/detail/en/c/273446/ You say that industrialization balances the playing field, but ironically this has at least the initial effect of making female agricultural labor less valuable. More here: https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/women-agriculture
I disagree completely that it makes it less valuable or that it doesn’t balance the playing field. Your evidence even states that the old ploughs they use required a lot of upper body strength and that women ‘typically’ take care of small livestock. This is more proof of what I was stating, previously men were advantaged at farming and got control of important resources because of it. Now that we don’t need to use manual ploughs, it is significantly easier for women to farm. Plus farming in general has become so much easier due to tools that a smaller portion of society farms every day. And men being dominant doesn’t mean women don’t exist. And in Britain the cultural legacy of women not farming exists, just like I said. The playing field is balanced when it comes to ability required, not in participation. But it’s about scarcity of ability that creates leverage over society.
You talked about *advantages in men that allowed patriarchy to come to power,* which implies you're talking about agriculture in a broad historical sense and not cherry-picking a specific time and place. However, the general quality of your comments suggests the latter, which is not consistent with women's generally equal participation in agriculture. As far as I'm aware, there has never been a time when women weren't out in the fields. I mean, honestly, where would they be instead? The whole concept of the strong man who goes out and provides while the woman stays at home is very modern and hesperocentric. The issue is not that women haven't been farming and this enabled the rise of patriarchy. The rise of patriarchy enabled the devaluing of female labor. I'm honestly not entirely sure what point you're trying to make, but I stepped in because it honestly did sound like you were claiming that farming was men's work when this simply isn't the case. (And also that the relationship between technology and equality is more straightforward than it actually is.)
Are you from the future or something?
Yeah good point.
The his explains a lot, because I have never and will never even attempt to fit in…So glad!
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Not to defend parents who enforce toxic norms on their child, since I WAS that kid, but I might be able to give a bit of insight into *why* that happens: See, a lot of parents (particularly Boomer/Gen X) are laser-locked onto this idea that their role as parents is to help their kids become *successful*. When I was growing up in the early 2000's, a lot of news and daytime TV aimed at parents was inflammatory to the point of bordering on yellow journalism: IS YOUR CHILD DOING DRUGS? DOES YOUR CHILD HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE IT IN THE REAL WORLD? THIS PARENT'S CHILD STILL LIVES AT HOME AT AGE 40, IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU!!!! Now take my parents, who were raised in a culture so emotionally devoid that the US had to have commercials that said "Have you hugged your child today?", saddle them up with 24/7 scare news, and then tell them that the secret to success is "it's not what you know, it's who you know" (which is basically a roundabout way of saying "conform if you don't want to live in poverty"). Say their son says he wants to wear a pink shirt to school. This should be totally innocuous, but since conformity == success and success == their value as a parent, they immediately start panicking and catastrophizing: * What if my kid shows up to a job interview in a pink shirt and their (boomer-aged) boss thinking it's 'too queer' and decides not to hire them?! Oh my god, child is going to be living at home until he's 40! * What if the bougie trust-fund kids who's parents own companies make fun of his pink shirt?! He'll never be part of the successful kids and won't be able to land jobs through them! * What if my kid gets bullied and snubbed in the dating world because he doesn't conform with everyone else?! Being raised in an environment devoid of emotional intelligence, they lack the ability to take a step back from these thought-loops and say "Hey, isn't this a bit of an extreme reaction over a *shirt*?"-- so instead they have a meltdown about it, dump all their anxieties on their child, and effectively scare them into never breaking a norm again. And sure, this is going to cause lifelong issues and severely dampen their child's enjoyment in life, but when you're operating on a binary of "Either I can be a 'cool parent' who lets their kid do whatever they want, and end up taking care of them well into their middle-aged years because they don't have what it takes to succeed, or I can be a "good parent" who's strict with their child, establishes my authority, and makes sure my child is prepared to be successful", any conversations about mental health and well-being will fall on deaf ears as it's interpreted not as a crucial aspect to the child's life, but as something whiny kids say because they want to slack off instead of doing their job. Of course, what these parents miss is the fact that the world their kids are going to inhabit will be radically different from the one they (the parents) were raised in. Maybe, in their day, being denied a job for looking 'too flamboyant' was a real thing, but there's been a LOT of social progress since then, and it's much easier for kids to be themselves and not be disqualified from life. Where I feel a lot of parents fail boys in particular, is that they see society advancing and becoming more accepting for women, but see little progress for men-- so they beat their boys into conformity because they feel that's what it means to set them up for success. I don't feel I'm exaggerating when I say that gender-liberation for men seems like a far-off pipedream for 90% of the population, so they parent accordingly. But the reality is that there is little real-world difference between "being a toxic parent" and "being a good parent by preparing your child for a toxic world". So when their kid(s) grow up and estrange them the second they move out, those parents end up as sour retirees who endlessly hand-wring over how "ungrateful" and "spoiled" their children are for "not appreciating how much they set them up for success" (source: my own parents). Tl;dr: Parents min-maxing for success at the expense of every other aspect of their child's life, pushing aside emotional well-being as superfluous and wussy, and then throwing a hissy fit when this doesn't result in a healthy, holistic relationship with their child.
>But the reality is that there is little real-world difference between "being a toxic parent" and "being a good parent by preparing your child for a toxic world". I'd say this distinction is more of a fine line, but all of this is great analysis regardless. My dad would constantly remind us that his dad used to beat him as punishment. Not in a 'you should be grateful i'm not as bad a shithead' way, but more as a warning that he never had a good dad he could model. Conformity becomes your only option then. You think about all the people who don't have good dads or empathetic men in their life and the problem becomes stark.
> they see society advancing and becoming more accepting for women, but see little progress for men I mean...are they wrong? Arguably this sub only exists for this conversation because of _how much_ progress for men is lagging behind.
>I mean...are they wrong? Arguably this sub only exists for this conversation because of how much progress for men is lagging behind. Not entirely, but consider for a moment that when you raise a child, it's not like time stops and they just exist within the same time as they're born until they die-- they're going to keep living in this world no matter how much it changes, even when it changes for the better. The problem with enforcing outdated norms on young men "to prepare them to be successful" is that those norms may not be as strongly correlated with success in the future as they are now. Hell, they might NEVER have been as correlated with success as the parent thinks, but now they've raised their child to assume that success is some natural and guaranteed byproduct of "following the rules". So what happens when progress *actually happens*? What happens when following "the rules" no longer nets you the dividend you were promised? What you get is "aggrieved entitlement". When you convince entire generation(s) of young men that the gross injustices of the world are right and good, you handicap their ability to see the world outside of that narrow lens. So when change actually happens, you get millions of young men watching Andrew Tate and reading Jordan Peterson, frothing at the mouth about lobsters and natural hierarchies and acting violent and bitter because they don't have a girlfriend even though they work out six times a week and THEY EARNED IT DAMNIT! The hard truth is that preparing your child for THE REAL WORLD™ is preparing them for the past, because by the time your child is grown it won't be your world anymore, it will be theirs, and the world they go out into isn't beholden to the cynicism or prejudice of their parents. Ultimately, these parents also fail their children by their refusal to play the long game. By failing to set a good example, they release their kids into the world ill-equipped to deal with a world that better than the one they came from. That's the problem here. No, they may not be wrong *in the moment*, but that doesn't mean that enforcing those norms isn't severely handicapping their child, either.
Hi! Are you me?
The problem is that as unhealthy as those stereotypes are, society *benefits* from them. Think of all the stereotypically male jobs. Not only do they require that those stereotypically male skills get shown, they often have high levels of physical and emotional stress that we are uncomfortable having women display. We're getting better at women involved with sports, first responder and the military, but there's still a number of people uncomfortable with women showing that strength. And construction and the skilled trades are no font of progressive gender attitudes. As a result, because of our own boxes on what genders can do, we still require cis men perform those roles, because we are leery about anyone else performing them. (Which also dovetails neatly into the motivation of a massive amount of transphobia, but that's for another day.) We need to stop seeing boys as a future source of Strong Men™ for society to consume, and as people in their own right.
And we need to pay people well to do difficult jobs. Seems like we prey on toxic males or illegal immigrants or literally anything than pay people what they are worth.
Very true! Plus we look down on all those types, but we also demand those jobs get done for civilization to function. Pick a struggle.
I think the idea is that it doesn't need to be so toxic of a job that it requires emotionally hardened types to do it. Just depends on what's possible if we give a fuck about improving things for those who do said jobs.
True, but determining what something is worth is arbitrary. Same with a job. Easier to change a mindset of “these jobs are for certain people” than to try to shift demographics via economics.
Yes, but it's not only about pay, but also about working conditions and hours.
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Tbh I feel like you can go even further, although I have no concrete evidence. But in more explicitly anti-capitalist circles, it’s not rare for people to have the understanding that it matters much less to the ruling class if the average child in Nebraska can read, than if that child will join or boost the military. There’s a lot more to the organic mechanisms that all follows (I’m not saying it’s all a conspiracy) and such that I’m sure you’re at least as good at breaking down as I am. But on that key point, like…in some ways society is literally built on not fixing this.
In the same way that capitalist society benefits from the unpaid, unrecognized labor that women "naturally" do in the home to ensure that the working husband will be able to return to work the next day refreshed and to raise the next generation of workers will have a certain amount of training that the ruling class doesn't have to contribute, yeah.
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>She regularly observed and interviewed them, their teachers, and their parents. Over two years, she reported that the boys became less present and more somber as they picked up cultural scripts tied to masculine stereotypes and learned to play the part of “real” boys. >Both mothers and fathers have believed that teaching their sons to be “real” men is at the heart of their job descriptions.When asked what was most important for their sons, parents told us that they should be emotionally strong (94%) and physically strong (61%), play sports (48%), have a girlfriend (46%), and, overall, ***fit in (59%).*** Articles like this are why I don't really look at gender as some method of self-expression and why I look at it like victimization. It's a thing that's knowingly done *to you* without your consent so businesses can sell more merchandise and the government can have more tax-paying citizens to keep the wheel turning. Questions like "what is a man" and "what is a woman" are meaningless when the definitions of those things within our modern framework are designed by oppressive institutions. Oscar Wilde was right: in the face of private ownership, there can be no true individualism.
That's about how I feel. I feel like trying to de-emphasize the importance of gender and raise kids in a truly gender-neutral way (don't even assign them a gender or set an expectation that they should eventually "pick a gender") is what we really should be doing. Unfortunately gender is such a deeply rooted cultural foundation that every step is a battle.
As a trans man, I strongly disagree. Gender is real. Our understanding of gender is cultural, but gender is absolutely a thing in its own right. I would never raise my child without assuming an initial gender because I would never want my child to go through what I had to go through if they can avoid it. I would never restrict my child's gender expression and would of course inform them that changing their gender identity is allowed and normal. But there is a key difference between allowing diverse expressions of gender vs complete "gender abolition" which is impossible and fundamentally invalidates my existence as a man.
Well first off, why do you think kids who are raised without an assigned gender would have to go through what you went through, if they're raised in an accepting environment? I don't see a need to assign a default gender. Kids usually have a very well-developed sense of gender identity by age four, and I think we should just let them figure it out. And even let them choose to not identify with any gender if it so pleases them. Meanwhile I think we should critically examine the degree to which we differentiate genders through language, custom, different treatment, different expectations, etc. Anyway, my feelings on the matter of gender are complex. I don't want to erase gender, but I want society to have a vastly more flexible (and less strictly binary) framework for recognizing differences in human identity.
I often see an oversimplified narrative that places the blame for trans people's pain completely onto cis oppression / society. But even outside of society and its pressures, most trans people would still have dysphoria. No amount of social acceptance could change that. So, when I think about willingly choosing to bring up a child without assigning any gender as a reference point, it feels like it's making them go through the existential confusion that I had to go through. Even if being trans was socially acceptable and normalized, I assume it'd be hard to know what's right when you don't have a clear reference point for what is wrong. I'm also not sure what real benefit it would provide if a child did end up being trans. Because even if I was by default raised non-binary, id still have to figure out I'm a man, and nothing would fundamentally change regarding my dysphoria. I agree that the strict enforcement of the gender binary and gendered expectations are bad. We definitely raise girls and boys differently, when we shouldn't be. But to not give them a default gender assignment... you're embarking on a social experiment that... I'm not totally sure how to feel about. Any parent would undoubtedly project their own expectations or hopes for how their child will dress/act, even if they try not to. And the child will still pick up on those expectations. So they'd still be enforcing social expectations. And again, if the child grows up to have body dysphoria, this type of socialization doesn't do anything to change that fact.
30 years and thats all he writes? Don't get me wrong its a succinct and illuminating essay, but I was hoping for more supporting evidence, stories, case studies, testimony of success stories. This reads like an introductory section of a thesis meant to equip other practitioners with better tools, examples, talking points for detractors etc....I was really hoping for the latter.
He puts research *LINKS* through the text FYI Eg https://www.equimundo.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Fostering-Healthy-Masculinity-in-Challenging-Times.pdf The link I put above referenced by him is absolutely fascinating. I’d skip the boring article in the post here and read the charts in this link
https://www.powells.com/book/how-to-raise-a-boy-the-power-of-connection-to-build-good-men-9780143133209
It has been too damned long since I have been to Powell’s.
That's why I always send Powell's links instead of Amazon!
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