For those so inclined, below are a number of links to essays and books that further explore the issues of male gender stereotyping
This current essay speaks to how boys are being raised in the current times.
Toxic Masculinity and the Brokenness of Boyhood - The Atlantic
link below
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/the-miseducation-of-the-american-boy/603046/
Sam Keen wrote this in 1991 and it holds much insight into the roles of fathers and sons.
"A splendid, robust collection of world poetry from Hesiod and Heraclitus to the present...The editors, leaders of the men's movement, have used these poesm in weekend retreats; they stress the old traditions of spoken poetry. The collection is organized into 16 sections dealing with men's issues such as war, love, fatherhood, communication and denial."--"St. Louis Post Dispatch"The stories in this book-though emerging from the editors' men's work-can be equally important to women. The book works well for those new to and unfamiliar with poetry and for experenced readers. These poems are lively, rather than dull; the editors help us by putting them into a useful context."--"Man!"[The editors'] collaboration resulted in a book with a remarkable group of poets across the ages, from Emily Dickinson to Charles Bukowski, from Catullus to Bob Dylan...These are poems focusing on concerns of the heart-fathers and sons, love and hurt, peace and war, anger, denial and zaniness."--"Seattle Post
Boys to Men: Teaching and Learning About Masculinity in an Age of Change
By Caroline Crosson Gilpin and Natalie Proulx
April 12, 2018
What do boys in America think about being boys today?
What do they imagine is expected of them? Whom do they look up to, and how are they navigating the transition from being boys to becoming men?
In a 2018 Times opinion essay “The Boys Are Not All Right,” the comedian and author Michael Ian Black writes:
The past 50 years have redefined what it means to be female in America. Girls today are told that they can do anything, be anyone. They’ve absorbed the message: They’re outperforming boys in school at every level. But it isn’t just about performance. To be a girl today is to be the beneficiary of decades of conversation about the complexities of womanhood, its many forms and expressions.
Boys, though, have been left behind. No commensurate movement has emerged to help them navigate toward a full expression of their gender. It’s no longer enough to “be a man” — we no longer even know what that means.
In this unit, we explore some of the questions Mr. Black, and others, raise, and suggest ways to deconstruct definitions of masculinity as they manifest in our society and our lives. We end with suggestions for several projects students might take on to expand and reimagine what “being a man” might mean in their own lives and in our society at large.
In 2015, Michael Kimmel, a leading scholar on masculinity and the director of the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities, helped start the nation’s first master’s degree program in Masculinities Studies. The program, at Stony Brook University, explores what it means to be male in today’s world.
In “A Master’s Degree in … Masculinity?” Jessica Bennett explains how Mr. Kimmel begins his classes:
Michael Kimmel stood in front of a classroom in bluejeans and a blazer with a pen to a whiteboard. “What does it mean,” the 64-year-old sociology professor asked the group, most of them undergraduates, “to be a good man?”
The students looked puzzled.
“Let’s say it was said at your funeral, ‘He was a good man,’” Dr. Kimmel explained. “What does that mean to you?”
“Caring,” a male student in the front said.
“Putting other’s needs before yours,” another young man said.
“Honest,” a third said.
Dr. Kimmel listed each term under the heading Good Man, then turned back to the group. “Now,” he said, “tell me what it means to be a real man.”
This time, the students reacted more quickly.
“Take charge; be authoritative,” said James, a sophomore.
“Take risks,” said Amanda, a sociology graduate student.
“It means suppressing any kind of weakness,” another offered.
“I think for me being a real man meant talk like a man,” said a young man who’d grown up in Turkey. “Walk like a man. Never cry.”
Dr. Kimmel had been taking notes. “Now you’re in the wheelhouse,” he said, excitedly. He pointed to the Good Man list on the left side of the board, then to the Real Man list he’d added to the right. “Look at the disparity. I think American men are confused about what it means to be a man.”
Definitions and Research: Masculinity and ‘Toxic Masculinity’
One term that comes up often in discussion of gender and, especially, what it means to be a man, is “toxic masculinity.” But as Colleen Clemens writes in Teaching Tolerance, “‘Toxic masculinity’ is tricky. It’s a phrase that — misunderstood — can seem wildly insulting, even bigoted.”
The Good Men Project defines it this way:
Toxic masculinity is a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, sex, status and aggression. It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly “feminine” traits — which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypersexual — are the means by which your status as “man” can be taken away.
Michael Ian Black sums up this sentiment in a response to a reader comment on his Op-Ed, “The Boys Are Not All Right”:
Mr. Florentino: I cried as I read this. My son — a high school and college wrestler who achieved much success on the mat — is one of the most sensitive souls I know. But far too often, I cheered his masculinity, his fierceness, and his muscles. I should have been cheering his kindness, his empathy, and his innate ability to be gentle. Those emotional qualities are what REALLY make him strong.
MIB: I am very interested in a fuller expression of male strength. Physical strength is great (I wish I had more of it, because I would like, for once in my life, to look good shirtless on a beach). But a man’s strength can be expressed in innumerable ways, including the strength to be vulnerable, the strength to ask for help, to seek forgiveness, to display empathy. By all means, root for your son, but root for his entire being. It sounds like you’re doing that.
• Toxic masculinity is not just a men’s issue — its consequences are pervasive and affect everyone, including girls and women. Also, girls, boys, women and men all make choices about their behavior that can either perpetuate a culture of toxic masculinity or disrupt it. (And, of course, “toxic femininity” is its corollary.)
Here are more articles worth reading - Links attached: