Flexible masculinity & values
There are many masculinities
Recent years has seen much gender role churn and proliferation of masculinities through influential social movements, political upheavals, and instruments of popular culture. Academic research has also acknowledged the challenges and changes to dominant and toxic ‘hegemonic’ masculinities; from societal-level gender role changes in South Africa (1) to examples of boys railing against masculinity conventions (2). Perhaps as a result, there is a popular notion that males are confused about who they’re supposed to be. This uncertainty is reflected in numerous examples in the mainstream media; For instance, Michael Black in The New York Times: “Men feel isolated, confused and conflicted about their natures.” (3)
We have previously talked about the idea of adopting ‘flexible masculinity’ to navigate through the noise and confusion of how blokes are supposed to exist in today’s society. Telling men what and who they should be is likely to cause resistance and alienation. After all, many unhelpful forms of masculinity emphasise strength, control, and even dominance over others. Why would men heavily invested in these scripts run the risk of appearing to surrender meekly to the will of others?
Instead, we advocate starting with men’s existing masculinity ‘template’, then look to expand how these can be defined and expressed in day-to-day life. For instance, ‘strength’ may mean hiding psychological pain from others….not helpful if you want to manage distress effectively. A more useful approach could be achieved by expanding the concept of strength to include the brave acknowledgement of personal difficulties in order to analyse, understand, and select an effective response to mental health difficulties. Psychological flexibility in various forms (e.g., coping flexibility) is linked with improved well-being (4). We argue that flexible masculinity is an essential type of psychological flexibility that can lead to enhanced psychological and behavioural functioning in men. We have seen some evidence of this in some of our recent research (5).
What if you are confused about who and what you should be? Reporting various examples of non-hegemonic masculinities signals the possibility for men to change their masculinity scripts. But this diversity can simultaneously raise the question ‘change to what?’ We can respond to this predicament by considering our values. We mentioned this approach in our recent article on ‘man-up’. We also made suggestions for promoting flexible masculinity in this article, and in another piece on flexibility in the workplace. Here are a few more ideas for men who want to clarify masculinity-related values:
Try an exercise suggested by Sociologist Michael Kimmel: Write down a list of attributes, qualities, etc that you see as constituting a ‘good’ man. Now write down a list of characteristics that you feel describe the traditional concept of a ‘real’ man. Spend some time looking at the two lists. What are your thoughts on any differences/discrepancies between the lists? This exercise can increase flexibility by helping you to take different perspectives on masculinity, and to consider values-based versus societally-influenced masculinity.
List the pros and cons of being a good versus real man. Do the pros outweigh the cons for each of these masculinity ‘models’? If so, why? What does this say about how you currently want to be seen by people around you?
One major part of your identity is your gender identity. How do you want to be remembered as a man when you are gone? What do you want people to say about you? Most importantly, why is it vital for you to be remembered in this way?
A values card-sorting exercise can help identify those values which are most important to you. You can find a freely downloadable set of cards here. You can use these cards to identify values most relevant to a good man (particularly if you are stuck with the first suggestion on this list). Alternatively, you can use these cards to identify the values you want to exhibit more in your life (an expansion on the attribute of ‘control’) or identify the values which, if actioned in daily life, would make the biggest positive difference in the world.
References
1. Walker, L. (2005). Men behaving differently: South African men since 1994. Culture, Health & Sexuality, 7(3), 225-238.
2. Black, M. I. (2018). The boys are not all right. The New York Times, Feb 21, 2018. www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/opinion/boys-violence-shootings-guns.html
3. Way, N., Cressen, J., Bodian, S., Preston, J., Nelson, J., & Hughes, D. (2014). “It might be nice to be a girl… Then you wouldn’t have to be emotionless”: Boys’ resistance to norms of masculinity during adolescence. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 15(3), 241–252.
4. Kashdan, T. B., & Rottenberg, J. (2010). Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health. Clinical Psychology Review, 30(7), 865–878.
5. Spendelow, J. S., & Joubert, H. E. (2018). Does experiential avoidance mediate the relationship between general role conflict and psychological distress? American Journal of Men’s Health, 12(4), 688-695.