Thinking outside the ‘man box’

Boys know the rules of being a Kiwi bloke, and they know it’s not OK to break them, according to research released today. But what if challenging how we bring up boys is key to ending violence against women?

Be strong. Provide for your family. Pay for meals. Don’t knit or do the gardening. Play rugby. Go to the gym. Drink beer. Don’t show emotion. Don’t watch television shows about emotions. Don’t listen to songs about emotions. Certainly don’t listen to John Mayer. You could probably wear pink, occasionally. But never wear a dress. And don’t cry. In fact, don’t even think about crying, because that’s acting like a girl.

And if you want to be a man, you can’t act like a girl, ever.

These are the rules of New Zealand manhood, as told to University of Auckland researchers by teenage boys, and published in a study released today.

‘‘You’re expected to be, as a guy, more tough. Kind of indifferent – and like, have this hard outer shell, not really show much emotion,’’ explains Rory, one of the 50 young men who took part in workshops for the research.

‘‘On the other hand you’re not really meant to be sensitive, and if you’re sensitive people kind of look at you and go, ‘what are you doing? You’re kind of acting like a girl’.’’

‘‘Like crying,’’ says Fetu, another teenage participant. ‘‘Crying is taken as a weakness. That’s what I was taught. I don’t like it though. I want to cry.’’

The study, led by University of Auckland psychology professor Nicola Gavey, asked 16 and 17-year-old boys to think about what it means to be a man, and to reflect on how they felt about that in a safe space with their peers.

The hope was that the boys – with some critical distance – would then be able to reject some of masculinity’s worst traits. In turn, that could create better gender equality, and eventually it could even lead to a reduction in New Zealand’s appalling rates of violence against women.

Gavey, an expert in gender politics, began the project after she noticed a handful of boys taking part in a protest about rape culture at Wellington College in 2017. They were holding banners in support of their female peers, and even went on national radio to voice their disgust at the behaviour of fellow male students who had posted misogynistic messages online.

‘‘I suddenly thought, there are boys – and of course there will be boys – who hate misogyny and sexism. And really we need to capitalise on their discomfort and their desire to be better than that,’’ Gavey says.

‘‘I’ve been studying gender since the mid-1980s and so much of the research about men and boys is so depressing. It illuminates their worst beliefs and sense of entitlement.

‘‘As a researcher you can keep documenting that, but with the research we did we wanted to see if it was possible to create spaces where boys could question these norms. It offered me the chance to think about it quite differently, quite optimistically.’’

The study’s main finding was that boys in New Zealand could easily identify the restrictive ideals of masculinity – and how they felt trapped into conforming to them. Internationally, this is referred to as being in ‘‘the man box’’.

‘‘The most poignant example of this was the rule against showing vulnerable emotions,’’ Gavey says. ‘‘It was so strong, across all the demographics and ethnicities, that to be a man you can’t be feminine.’’

Encouragingly, however, the research also found that many of the boys didn’t agree with the ‘‘rules’’ – even if they didn’t feel safe to push back against them

‘‘There’s going to be lots of teenage boys who think they’re the only ones who feel like this, but they’re not.’’ Nicola Gavey, below

because of the fear of being bullied or ousted from their friend group.

‘‘There’s going to be lots of teenage boys who think they’re the only ones who feel like this, but they’re not,’’ Gavey says. ‘‘That holds so much potential.’’

The researchers now want to use their findings to create change – they have funding to hold more workshops, give the boys more tools and information, and evaluate their attitudes over time. Eventually, they imagine a nation

wide programme – something that would require a leap of faith from funders, given any large-scale societal shift will be extremely slow.

‘‘Some people will say we’re being naive,’’ Gavey says. ‘‘But even in my lifetime there’s been huge societal changes – smoking, for example, or wearing seatbelts.

‘‘And of course it doesn’t mean that no-one does those things, but it does make it generally unacceptable. I think we have to be both realistic and optimistic. It’s one part of preventing violence, but

it’s an important part.’’

The researchers could be lucky in their timing. Masculinity is having something of a ‘‘moment’’ globally, with an increased awareness of the importance of mobilising men to join the struggle against gender inequality.

This is partly because a growing body of research points to inequality as the root cause of violence against women.

Studies show consistent correlation

between relationship violence and families where women and men are most unequal, or where people adhere strongly to gender stereotypes – such as rigid views on gender roles within the home.

‘‘For example, if the house is not kept tidy or the children are not well-behaved, a woman may be ‘‘punished,’’ writes Australian sociologist Michael Flood in his 2007 research on gender and domestic abuse.

Similarly, strong views about masculinity or femininity also

increase the probability of violence, such as the idea that men are more violent than women and driven by uncontrollable sexual urges – something that may lead some men to justify or excuse violent behaviour.

Risk factors associated with inequality also exist in community groups and organisations – meaning anything from a sports club where rape jokes are prevalent, to a community where men make all the decisions, can contribute to the conditions that lead to violence.

In identifying gender inequality as a main driver of violence, the research is not denying that other factors play a part – particularly intergenerational factors like the impact of colonisation, or when children are exposed to violence or abuse, or addiction.

However, in a paper for Our Watch, Australia’s national violence prevention agency, researchers note: ‘‘the majority of men who have experienced adversity, such as child abuse, do not go on to perpetrate violence against women’’, and that ‘‘many men who use violence against women, especially in intimate and familial relationships, do not generally use violence elsewhere or against other people – their colleagues, bosses or friends for example’’.

It says therefore, that factors involving adversity for men do not on their own provide an explanation for the perpetration of violence.

As such, countries worldwide are beginning to frame domestic violence as an issue of public health – targeting it in the same way as drink-driving or heart disease.

New Zealand’s own strategy to combat domestic violence – the It’s Not OK campaign – is among this group. The campaign has recently reset its strategic intent, with the next phase strengthening focus on preventing violence by men, highlighting gender inequities as a driving factor.

‘‘At an individual level, men’s gender-role attitudes and beliefs are significant,’’ its strategy document says. ‘‘Men’s agreement with

sexist, patriarchal, and sexually hostile attitudes is an important predictor of their use of violence against women.’’

It is a huge leap forward, even if the campaign doesn’t want to acknowledge it as such, simply framing the approach as ‘‘more targeted’’. But for more than 20 years, anti-violence policy in New Zealand has grown increasingly gender-neutral (not least evidenced by the police term ‘‘family harm’’), despite the data and the research clearly highlighting that men are most likely to be perpetrators, and women the victims.

In a key example of genderblindness, when forming the 10-agency joint venture to prevent violence in 2018, the Ministry for Women was left off the invite list.

This stance has been in direct contrast to Australia, which has a national strategy labelled ‘‘Australia’s National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children’’, the national women’s safety research unit Anrows (Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety Limited), and national prevention agency named Our Watch, all funded by government.

Experts posit different theories about why this is, including a fragmented, underfunded sector; women in power feeling vulnerable if they talk too much about ‘‘women’s issues’’; or simply that we are too invested in our colonial myths of the stereotypical male, his strength and power, to want to create change.

There is also the fear of backlash, an issue referred to in the It’s Not OK documents. Backlash hypothesis says that, when women begin to gain autonomy or status in relationships or at the community or societal levels, violence against them may initially increase.

The It’s Not OK strategy says that backlash is a risk that needs to be ‘‘anticipated and managed’’.

For Gavey, the bigger risk is that the gender issue remains unaddressed. She is concerned both at a societal level, and an individual one, particularly given the findings about the emotional constraints on boys.

‘‘It is so widely globally acknowledged how damaging that is, both to them, and to the women in their lives... what that does to the psyche, if you can’t show emotion or hurt or disappointment – that gets turned into anger and violence, and self harm,’’ she says.

‘‘It’s a dangerous combination, to have that idea of masculinity in a society where men exist in a hierarchy of power – where they feel they should be in control, they should be heard, their perspective should be taken into account… and what happens when that goes wrong.’’

She also feels concerned at the way boys feel unable to challenge their peers, and wants to help them to feel they can.

‘‘The dynamics of those groups can work in problematic ways to silence men and make it difficult for men to speak out because the risks of being excluded are too great,’’ she says.

‘‘But the flipside is there is enormous potential to flip the norms and make it unacceptable to make sexist jokes and put down women.’’

Michael Flood, the Australian masculinity researcher, says the irony is that men routinely underestimate how many other men feel the same as them.

‘‘Men often overestimate other men’s support for sexism and violence, and overestimate how many men think jokes about violence are fine,’’ he says.

‘‘If you have six guys at the pub having a beer, and one makes a sexist comment like ‘women bring violence on themselves’, three or four of the guys don’t agree, but they don’t speak up because they think they’re the only one. And maybe one guy agrees and then there’s a false consensus.’’

Using the power of peer groups is a key part of Flood’s research. Your friends’ behaviour and beliefs are a key predictor of your own, he says. And even small things – refusing to laugh at their sexist jokes, for example – could help change the wider landscape.

This has already been taken on board in the It’s Not OK plan, with the use of social media influencers such as anti-violence campaigner Richie Hardcore, and founder of She’s Not Your Rehab movement Matt Brown, to use their power within their own communities to model a low tolerance for violence, demonstrate respectful behaviour, and hold a space where men can engage.

Brown, a barber who mainly works with former perpetrators, also highlights the importance of creating safety for men sharing emotions.

‘‘We can facilitate conversation with men when we are ready to listen and really hear what they are saying,’’ he says. ‘‘Society is so good at punishing, but not great at offering redemption. The men I talk to could be labelled as violent perpetrators or gangsters or addicts, and if that was all I was willing to see then I’m afraid I couldn’t foster any vulnerability.’’

Brown says he offers compassion and connection, something many of the men he works with – often child abuse victims – have never experienced before.

Such work isn’t without its traps. Previous campaigns have relied heavily on messages like ‘‘be a good man’’ or ‘‘man up’’ to combat violence, which further reinforces the gender norms at the heart of the issue.

Others have inadvertently framed men as the ‘‘saviour of women’’. Flood and others highlight what they call the gendered ‘‘economy of gratitude’’ that can lead to male supporters being showered with disproportionate kudos for minimal effort.

Gavey suggests that instead, prevention work takes a ‘‘lighter touch’’.

‘‘I think we need to let go of the idea that there is a template of how to be a man, or that there are rules for healthy masculinity,’’ she says. ‘‘Instead let’s focus on what it takes to be a good person.’’

‘‘We can facilitate conversation with men when we are ready to listen and really hear what they are saying. Society is so good at punishing, but not great at offering redemption.’’ Matt Brown Barber, author and Founder of She’s Not Your Rehab (PHOTO: GEORGE HEARD)