Men are boxed in by masculinity myths
Youngsters fight to escape the ‘man box’
The “man box”, a term coined by gender activists, is an emotional prison made up of all the traditional expectations of masculinity, namely that men should act tough, self-sufficient, hypersexual and controlling. Men trapped in the man box are more likely to harm others and themselves, according to new research among 3,600 men in the UK, US and Mexico. But there are also plenty of men, including in SA, who are trying to break these destructive behavioural stereotypes.
Those who conform to rigid beliefs about what it means to be a man — measured by the man box scale’s 15 questions, which can be distilled into five — are twice as likely to be depressed or have suicidal thoughts. They are five times more likely to be associated with bullying or sexual harassment.
Behavioural scientist and study co-author Dr Robert Coulter from the University of Pittsburgh says they found that the man box accurately measures a “wide variety of concepts about what it means to be a man” and the individuals who scored higher on it tended to impact negatively on those around them.
Why then do men follow stereotyped ideas of what manhood means? This script typically gets boys or men rewards like power and attention, as its toxic cheerleader, US President Donald Trump, shows.
Closer to home in Alexandra, Johannesburg, a study conducted over 12 years followed 32 boys from their teens into their 20s. Some of them are shifting between, even escaping from, the stereotypes of what it means to become a “real township boy”, despite the emotional toll this takes.
In his new book Becoming Men, Wits University psychologist and professor Malose Langa writes that a dozen of the boys adopted fluid and multiple masculinities to maintain status in each context, acting differently at home or in the classroom to what they would on the street corner or in the shebeen.
Take self-proclaimed “sex jaro” Oupa, who became a devoted teen father, breaking out of the man box in this role. Unlike his absentee father — 19 of the 32 boys had zero contact with their fathers — Oupa wanted to be a “good father”. He changed nappies and fed his baby daughter.
“I want to do things for my child so she can have a better life than I did and guide her not to experience the things that I did,” he told Langa.
Langa says: “If Oupa played amadice, he would put aside money he won to give to the mother of the child.” He found a part-time job at a supermarket after school to support his baby girl.
On his way home from work one night, he was killed in the crossfire of a gun fight between two men, reportedly over a woman in a tavern. Nobody was arrested for his death.
Of the dozen boys in Langa’s book, 10 have jobs, one is unemployed and one is in prison, where he is now studying law. Langa continues to visit him.
Unisa psychologist Dr Kopano Ratele says Langa has gathered immense data on masculinity.
“He was like a parent, really dedicating time to see how this person was going to grow from boyhood to manhood,” says Ratele.
Langa, who interned at a prison while working for the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, realised tough masculinity was common among inmates, even though their reasons for being inside were different.
This gave him the idea for his research: could boys in Alex choose nonviolent, non-sexist and nonhomophobic identities while growing up surrounded by stereotyped tough male role models?
Langa kicked off by giving 32 boys at Alex high schools, aged 13 to 16, disposable cameras to take 27 pictures of their “life as a boy in SA” and doing interviews on what they captured.
“When they were young, they took photos of girls and cars, mainly materialistic items. As they grew older, especially those who became parents took photos of their children and partners. They wanted to be a supportive partner and be a present father with their kids.”
Langa found that some boys, often those with strong relationships with their mothers, wanted to escape the stereotypes.
As he won their trust, he discovered how these “academic boys” coped in a world where the “tsotsi” boys usually ruled the schoolyard and the “sex jaros” got the girls.
Despite the script on the streets, TV and social media celebrating violence, hypersexuality and risktaking behaviours, Langa says, “they were beginning to struggle with wanting to embrace something new, identities which were not popular”.
To avoid the downside of not fitting in, the academic boys inhabited what Langa calls a “borderland”, often straddling multiple worlds.
“One could be an academic boy at school but put on the façade of being a tsotsi on the street.”
The academic boys had better prospects, but
“what I saw was a lot of ambivalence, self-doubt, hurt and contradictions, feeling unsure about who they were”, says Langa.
“‘Other boys can laugh at me if they know my girlfriend and I never had sex,’ ” Langa would hear from the boys, who would stay home with friends, not drinking, not taking drugs and not playing amadice.
The aggression acted out by the tsotsis was not without pain to them, often hiding “a lot of fear”.
Ratele says the Alex study benefited the boys by giving them the chance to reflect on their lives and emotions.
In Alex, in SA — in the world — being masculine typically means prioritising hot emotions like anger and ignoring painful emotions like sadness and shame.
When the American Psychological Association released guidelines for treating men and boys in 2018, conservatives objected, saying the guidelines were trying to deny and suppress all masculinity.
On the contrary, responded one the lead authors, professor Fredric Rabinowitz; the intention was to help men lead healthier and happier lives.
“We see that men have higher suicide rates, men have more cardiovascular disease and men are lonelier as they get older,” he said.
“We’re trying to help men by expanding their emotional repertoire, not trying to take away the strengths men have.”
Whatever the backlash, conversations rejecting aggressive and predatory manhood and embracing positive masculinities have permeated the zeitgeist in the wake of movements like #MeToo.
“The rhetoric of equality and a gentler masculinity is becoming widespread,” Ratele says.
“But the more women get out of their box of subordination and stand up against violence and oppression, the more men try to put them back in the box, or the kitchen.”
Rhetoric on its own is not enough, and some men exploit “benevolent masculinity” to get what they want, says Cape Town feminist researcher Dr Benita Moolman, who has interviewed 72 rapists in prison.
“A lot of them sort of posed as ‘good men’ with benevolent masculinity rather than toxic masculinity. Hypermasculinity would have reduced their chances of winning the trust of women and children and grooming them.”
Moolman, head of the Global Citizenship Programme at the University of Cape Town, sees the gender dynamics on campus slowly shifting among students, with younger women holding their male peers more accountable.
Those who conform to rigid beliefs about what it means to be a man are twice as likely to be depressed or suicidal
‘One could be an academic boy at school but put on the façade of being a tsotsi on the street’
“We are at a turning point across a five-year period with the rise of #MeToo, #TotalShutdown and other movements against gender-based violence,” she says.
Says Langa: “The obvious solution [to violent crime] is investing in early childhood education when boys are very young … instead of spending billions of rands on incarceration.” What is invested today could pay off in 18 years’ time.
Ratele says five, 10, 20 years ago he would be the only man in the room with women talking about ending gender-based violence, but this is changing. Now there are a few more men.
“Some people still want boxes and others are trying a more egalitarian, gentler, nonviolent masculinity,” he says.
“This is a ray of hope.”