What if that’s what masculinity actually is, rather than the caricature of 21st century masculinity? I agree with what he says. The difference is that I don’t consider those points to be a revelation.
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I agree with these lists by Steve Magness. And many posters who have not agreed on much else on this thread are finding common ground with these lists.
But I’m confused why these are ideas for positive masculinity rather than for positive humanity. I’m a woman and I do everything on both these lists except carry the label of father, brother or husband. Substitute parent, sibling, spouse, and I think this is a list for how to be a good human.
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Very true @fiftyfifty1 . But in the post the author was speaking specifically about young men.
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When people agree, there’s generally little to discuss about that topic, so the focus is on where people disagree, so the differences seem exaggerated.
That said, I want to come back briefly to your reaction to the Norah Vincent video, because I think it illustrates one of the differences between women and men.
You focused on the danger she felt at the men’s retreat, and that largely defined the video for you. Men don’t react that way to stories of past danger (or at least the boys/men I grew up didn’t do that). Instead, stories of past danger that don’t result in serious injury are told, laughed over, and usually exaggerated as the number of drinks increase. Topics included being careless with spinning blade lawn equipment, dangerous chemistry “experiments” involving pure sodium, BB guns, fireworks gone wrong, other “hold my beer” moments fortunately never captured on camera, being in the wrong neighborhood, (almost) picking fights with the wrong people, running from danger, etc. And all this from people who were never in trouble with the law.
Then again, we were effectively free range kids, where a bunch of boys who were told to go out and “come back before dark”. Certainly not how my kids grew up.
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Girls too. This was my childhood.
I’ve often lamented my own kid did not have this experience.
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Me, too! I loved exploring in the woods and at the creeks. I was so excited when we built a house in the Maine woods, on a river. I pictured our kids playing for hours out there. Ha! DH built them a really cool tree house I think they used a handful of times. They just weren’t interested. 
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Oh you mean like the time I stole the ingredients for the thermite reaction from school and set it up on the baseball diamond and almost set my hair on fire? Or the time when I was drilling a core sample and accidentally punched myself in the jaw when the auger got away from me and broke off my tooth? Or the time my friend and I traveled through Central America during the years killer bees were a thing, and she had a bee allergy and forgot her epi-pen? Yeah, we laugh about that crap.
We don’t laugh about the times we got raped or almost raped, or targeted for other gender-based violence though…
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She was never targeted for any of those things in the video.
Well, I tried to explain a possible reason for the different reaction and apparently failed. Moving on.
No she wasn’t. But her quote shows she feared she would be if they found out she wasn’t a man. They hadn’t been hiding their violent misogynistic desires, and she would have been aware of what happened to Brandon Teena either from the documentary or from the Hollywood film.
So, to bring this back to the initial question, possibly one way to improve outcomes for young struggling males is to develop evidence-based ways to help them cope with anger. Because even the therapist who ran the mental health retreat for men seemed to subscribe to the idea that the answer was for these men to “blow off steam” (for example by axing a log while saying it was their wife.) But the catharsis theory of anger management is grounded in Freudian pseudoscience, and enacting violence to “let off steam” when one is angry has actually has been shown to increase later violence, not decrease it.
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An interesting article on how school teachers are biased against boys:
Thanks for posting this. Can you say more about the design of the study? Steve Stewart Williams doesn’t say, and the linked paper is one that is mainly paywalled for me. The part that I have access to indicates this is a French study and says that the researcher compared boys’ scores on a national standardized test test of math and french, and then compared these scores to ?? What it is is paywalled but perhaps some scores that the boys received from their actual teacher during the school year, I can’t be sure
I can’t see beyond the paywall either, but the blog post about it says the paper compared national (externally moderated) exam results in France with “in-class grades” or “in-class exams”, including looking at how those in-class grades varied over the course of the year.
Interesting study.
In my own experience,it was the opposite. “Smart” girls were the proverbial"dime a dozen" in the elementary school my kids attended so they rarely got attention. The system for accelerating students in math had to be completely overhauled because almost all of the kids previously selected were boys. It was based upon observation and it was assumed that “boys did math”. When they used actual test scores (in math there are correct answers-not biases) and other data they found that they had “missed” lots of talented girls (as well as students of other groups). This was just one example.
The same thing persisted at the middle/high school. In that case so many girls did well that a boy who did “stood out” and got lots of attention and encouragement.
OTOH, S was given tons of attention at school for being a “smart kid”.
I do think the boys were considered more unruly, though. Some of the negative behavior of girls was overlooked.
That’s just my experience, but it impacted D very negatively for years.
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That was my D’s experience in school as well.
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I have access to the article through my institution. Some quotes:
“Students obtain the blind score when they complete a standardized test at the beginning and end of grade 6. The French Education Ministry created this test, taken annually by all French pupils, to assess students’ cognitive skills. Identical across all schools, it tests knowledge on French (reading and writing) and mathematics… Each student also receives grades from teachers on in-class exams. A pupil has a different teacher in each subject, and each teacher reports their pupils’ average grades on end-of-term report cards. In this study, I use information on the average grade given by teachers in math and French during the first and last terms of grade 6.”
“However, despite featuring similar types of questions, the formats of the two tests might differ. The standardized test consists of two sessions of 45 minutes over two days, while teachers’ assessments rely primarily on in-class exams and possibly some home work.”
“At the end of grade 9 (which is the end of middle school), all pupils take a national exam to obtain the Diplome national du brevet. The dataset includes information about pupils’ choice of high school and course… I use this information to estimate the effect of teachers’ gender biases on four outcomes: pupils’ probability of undergoing general training, likelihood of choosing a scientific track, likelihood of choosing a literature track, and likelihood of repeating a grade.”
I don’t know how they do things in France, but in the US, the report card grades assigned by teachers in grade 6 are comprised of a lot more than just exam scores. So the author compares standardized exam scores to report card grades, making the assumption that the report card grades are assigned based almost entirely on performance on similar exams. This would be like saying that if the gap between SAT scores and english / math HS grades is greater in boys than in girls, that means their HS teachers have gender bias against the boys. And that this teacher bias is causing girls to choose science careers more often than they “should” (based on their SAT scores). Except the assessment is done in grade 6 not grade 11 like the SAT, but you get the idea.
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There have been other studies showing bias against boys in the classroom, especially in elementary school. Girls (on average not an absolute) tend to be quieter, more attentive, less restless, and more focused on pleasing the teacher. Boys tend to be disciplined more. OTOH, boys may also get more attention due to these actions.
Girls tend to get better grades all through school. Maturity, focus and wanting good grades. But more boys may end up in math/computer classes. I still remember being at the National Honor Society Assembly for one of my kids and fully two thirds of the inductees were girls. My very smart son was just not motivated enough by grades to get the top grades he was capable of.
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Thanks for the information. Given that it is an apples and oranges comparison, it is a wonder the two samples match up as well as they do.
I assume your example is meant to further highlight a major underlying flaw in the study, but unfortunately many people do believe exactly what you describe, based on SAT scores.
IMO there is a cart and horse issue with quite a lot of what is being presented here. Data is being offered that, upon closer inspection, doesn’t necessarily support the conclusions.
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They don’t “do things in France” anything like the US. To quote from an introduction to French high schools (for exchange students):
“Participation and homework points don’t really exist; your grade is based off tests and the occasional take-home assignment. The homework load is a bit lighter than the US, but you’ll need to spend more time studying for tests. Even though the homework isn’t graded, the teachers will still do occasional checks, so it’s better to do it (and get the extra practice!).”
So your comparison to the US, where the SAT is completely different to class grades, is inapposite. The difference is mostly attributable to who is marking the exams, with perhaps a very small part attributable to the (extra stress of?) national exams being concentrated into a shorter period of time than the regular schedule of class tests.
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I had several friends who were frustrated that their sons did well on tests but got lower grades because they failed to turn in homework, didn’t put the effort into projects, etc. Many of them seemed to be resigned to this.
We have both a daughter and a son and that did not fly in our house.
In the real world ( working) you don’t just do the parts of your job that are interesting or challenging. Some if it is boring or repetitive or seemingly meaningless, but it’s part of the job. You get it done.
Not sure if a study in France is meaningful as their educational system is very different than ours.
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This 2017 article popped up on my Mozilla start page this evening:
The article talks about the overdiagnosis of certain things (particularly ADHD) and how helicopter parenting can stifle kids, but it also mentions the need for physical activity and the effects on boys:
They studied 153 kids, aged 6 to 8, and tracked how much physical activity and sedentary time they had during the day. Sure enough, according to a report by Belinda Luscombe in Time, the less “moderate to vigorous physical activity” the boys had each day, the harder it was for them to develop good reading skills:
The more time kids … spent sitting and the less time they spent being physically active, the fewer gains they made in reading in the two following years. [It] also had a negative impact on their ability to do math.
The results didn’t apply to girls.
It also talked about a school in Texas (linked within the article) that moved to having four 15-minute recesses a day and how there was an improvement in behaviors and focus.