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Ep. 76: Toxic Masculinity and how to raise Teenage Boys with Healthy Masculinities
343 Plays11 months ago
As the mother of both a teenage girl AND boy, I’ve seen how both of them have absorbed the messages in society about toxic masculinity, and I’ve been shocked at how polarising those are. I know the effect of attitudes towards women from my own experiences and my daughter’s; but I’ve also seen how damaging some of the narrative around that can be to boys and young men.
Boys and young men across the UK are struggling; research shows a decline in mental health and well-being, increased isolation, a lack of safe spaces and trusted relationships, and a higher risk of engaging in gangs, violence, substance misuse, and weapon-carrying amongst boys since Covid.
This is a hugely sensitive issue, so I’m going to say straight up, if anything we discuss in this episode feels difficult for you, please do raise it with me – I really think this is a conversation that needs to be opened up much more widely.
Instead of toxic masculinity, Hayley talks about healthy masculinities. She says it’s an area of civil society that is often misunderstood.
What is Toxic Masculinity?
I think Toxic masculinity is a phrase that’s thrown around without too much thought, and with a certain amount of anger. I get why, and it’s hugely important that the issue of attitudes towards women and girls is continuously raised - as the mother of a teenage girl it feels really scary sometimes. But we also need to consider the impact on boys.
Hayley Roffey is a mum who has been working with children and young people for 2 decades, through the Global Fund for Children – she instigated their healthy masculinities initiative when she realised that there was an alarming suicide trend amongst boys and young men. Hayley tells us about the Healthy Masculinities programme and how it aims to change the messages boys are getting so that they can take responsibility for themselves in a way which supports them to be authentic.
We also talk about bullying at school, acceptance versus challenge as a parent, and the joy of having really ugly braces as a teenager.
More teenage parenting from Helen Wills:
Helen wills is a teen mental health podcaster and blogger at Actually Mummy, a resource for midlife parents of teens. Thank you for listening! Subscribe to the Teenage Kicks podcast to hear new episodes. If you have a suggestion for the podcast or want to hear more on parenting teenagers contact me on Instagram and Twitter @iamhelenwills.
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Please note that Helen Wills is not a medical expert, and nothing in the podcast should be taken as medical advice. If you're worried about yourself or a teenager, please seek support from a medical professional.
Podcast produced by James Ede at Be Heard production.
Transcript
Introduction to Teenage Kicks Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
People don't necessarily lean in with curiosity. They back away because of fear. And again, that comes back to shame and embarrassment. Welcome to the Teenage Kicks podcast, where we take the fear out of parenting or becoming a teenager.
Guest Introduction: Hailey Roffey and Her Work
00:00:26
Speaker
I'm Helen Wills and every week I talk to someone who had a difficult time in the teenage years but came out the other side in a good place and has insight to offer to parents and young people who might be going through the same.
00:00:46
Speaker
My guest today is Hailey Roffey. Hailey is a mum who's been working with children and young people for two decades through the Global Fund for Children. She instigated their Healthy Masculinities initiative when she realised that there was an alarming suicide trend amongst boys and young men. We are going to talk a little bit about statistics, although there will be no details of actual suicide.
00:01:11
Speaker
As the mother of both a teenage girl and boy, I've seen how both of them have absorbed the messages in society about toxic masculinity.
Impact of Toxic Masculinity on Youth
00:01:20
Speaker
And I've been shocked at how polarizing those are. I know the effect of attitudes towards women from my own experiences and my daughter's, but I've also seen how damaging some of the narrative around that can be to boys and young men through what my son has experienced. Boys and young men across the UK are struggling.
00:01:40
Speaker
Research shows a decline in mental health and wellbeing, increased isolation, a lack of safe spaces and trusted relationships, and a higher risk of engaging in gangs, violence, substance misuse and weapon carrying amongst boys since Covid.
00:01:57
Speaker
This is a hugely sensitive issue, so I'm going to say straight up, if anything we discuss in this episode feels difficult for you, please do raise it with me. I really think this is a conversation that needs to be opened up much more widely.
Healthy Masculinities Initiative Overview
00:02:10
Speaker
Instead of toxic masculinity, Hailey talks about healthy masculinities. She says it's an area of civil society that is often misunderstood.
00:02:21
Speaker
Hayley, welcome to the podcast. Hi, thanks for having me. Oh no, thank you for coming and talking to us about this. I think the work that you're doing is massively needed, so I'm excited to hear about what you're doing and the impact it's starting to have. I want to ask you, first of all, as is in keeping with the tradition of this podcast, to tell us a little bit about your own teenage years.
00:02:45
Speaker
I was thinking about this earlier when I knew you were going to ask me. I honestly remember having really happy teenage years. I struggled at primary school, actually more than I did as a teenager.
00:03:00
Speaker
sort of my bullying experiences and you know difficulties fitting in were mainly sort of in that year six year seven age group you know 10 11 sort of age and as I started to approach my teenage years um
00:03:16
Speaker
I think I just started to care a lot less. I was thinking about it the other day how I needed to have train tracks when I was a teenager. And the orthodontist said I needed to have a head brace.
00:03:38
Speaker
And I remember the orthodontist saying to me, you don't have to wear this to school if you don't want to, you know, I understand that, you know, if you don't, it will just take a bit longer, but that's fine. And I was like, No, I don't care. And that I think that was just my sort of attitude.
Navigating Teenage Social Dynamics
00:03:52
Speaker
I cared, I cared deeply about my studies. I worked really, really hard at school. I
00:04:01
Speaker
was, I had lots of friends, I just remember my teenage years and at home, we were really happy, you know, I had an amazing mum, and I had an amazing dad who's sadly no longer with us. So, you know, I just remember, and we were a house that
00:04:17
Speaker
the door was always open for anyone who was struggling. My dad also had worked with children, young people for much of his career, and spent a lot of time, you know, chatting to my friends and being someone they could talk to. So I actually remember really happy moments in my in my teenage years.
00:04:38
Speaker
you know, your first love and feeling really comfortable talking to my parents about that. So it's actually it's interesting because as I watch my eldest start to approach these years, I feel like she's got far more that she worries about and is aware of and I ever did at that age.
00:04:57
Speaker
Was that amazing? Yeah, completely. Yeah. It's interesting that that whole year, six, year, seven thing, I think that is when things in my experience tend to kick off, especially amongst girls, the whole French off scene for position as friendships change and they start to figure out who they are and who they identify with. It can be quite brutal.
00:05:20
Speaker
And that happened to me as well. My last year at primary school and my first year at secondary school, in fact, my first three years at secondary school were really quite tough. I didn't really have friends. I didn't know where I fitted in and I just needed to find my people. We talk about this on this podcast quite a lot, but I think it's really common and really upsetting for parents when that's going on for your child, because all you want is for them to be happy in school and have friends, but you can't have any control over it. And that headgear thing
00:05:50
Speaker
with the brakes. Oh my God. I think I was very much like you. The orthodontist said, yeah, you've got to have all this. And I went, oh, all right, then that sounds like I'll be the center of attention. I think there was a bit of that going on in me. And I got home with my dad took me. I remember I got home and my mum went, that's not happening. She's definitely not
Supportive Environments in Teenage Years
00:06:11
Speaker
doing that. And I just had the standard bricks on my teeth and like everyone else did and my teeth were fine. But
00:06:18
Speaker
I think something was in my mum because she'd been evacuated as a war child. I think something was in my mum of she's going to be traumatised by the bullying that will happen because of that. Actually, thank God she did. It's really tough, but you went through it. You did it.
00:06:35
Speaker
Yeah, and I think I did, you know, I did a lot of drama and, and dance. So I didn't, I just had a confidence, I think that certainly dwindles with age, right? Like as I'm approaching 40. I'm like, where is that girl who just didn't care? Like I was really happy to eat lunch on my own. I did didn't really do that very often. But I didn't. Yeah, I was just really happy to do it. And then the other side of it is I would happily go to debate club at lunchtime and
00:07:03
Speaker
Um, I loved boy bands. So me and my friends would spend weekends like going to see boy bands and you know, back in the day where there was all those Saturday morning TV shows. And I was doing that instead of being bothered by actual boys. So I wasn't, I just
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah, I just wasn't interested. And you're so right about finding your people, because I had this core group. But then also the wider year group of the school, just got on with people. And I think I was also really comfortable with the people that I didn't go on with. And it was like, that's okay, don't need to get on with everybody. And I wonder if a lot of that, as I'm thinking about it with you, stems from just this incredible feeling of acceptance at home. Right. You know, and parents who
00:07:47
Speaker
would challenge me to be like the best I could be. They challenged me when I wasn't kind, when I wasn't generous, when I put my friends before my family, they always challenged that because you know, there was just this real strong fundamental belief in family values, I think.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, which I think is really, and it's something I struggle with as a parent myself now, you know, and really making sure my children know that despite the job I do and despite the travel and they always come first.
Challenges of Modern Teen Identity and Social Media
00:08:20
Speaker
I never question that at home. I never question that I came first. And I think that's a challenge now when I look back and think about my childhood, I hope my children never question that either.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's hard to get that balance right, isn't it? I've often wondered whether I do too much for my kids as a knee jerk to the fact that my parents financially and physically I was taken care of, but emotionally I wasn't given an awful lot of time. It sounds like your parents were quite enlightened at the age if you felt completely accepted, because I never did, and that's a piece of work that I'm still doing actually.
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, no, completely. I don't know, because neither, neither of them, if you look back, they had amazing parents, both of them who worked through, you know, really, really difficult times, you know, and my dad's mum, you know, her husband left her with five children, and my dad was my dad was the youngest of five, and he was 11 when his dad left. And I think my dad just saw that as a moment to learn to never be like that himself. And both my parents just
00:09:26
Speaker
It was later in life that I think I started to really struggle with a lot of the things that I watched my nine year old, for example, really struggle with her appearance. I didn't become sort of bothered or really, really fully aware of that till my early 20s. And considering I was a dancer, that was quite late. And those sort of issues, I think some of the issues that I associate, I just feel like teenagers, someone said to me the other day,
00:09:52
Speaker
for, you never know how old anyone is anymore. 40 year olds at like 20 year olds and 15 year olds at like 30 year olds. And I was like, it's so true. And it's also true of their problems. Like the problems I feel like teenagers are facing now because social media just wipes out like a decade of their childhood. They're experiencing them in their teens, whereas I experienced them in my 20s.
00:10:16
Speaker
And that loss of identity and who am I and what's my purpose, that was all happening for me in my early twenties. Whereas now I see that happening at 14, 15, 16.
Societal Messages on Gender Identity
00:10:28
Speaker
And I think that that is, yeah, that's another real big struggle for teenagers today, for sure. It is, and we've covered that on the podcast a few times as well. I was actually out before I came onto this chat with a
00:10:43
Speaker
a member of my cohort on the counselling course that I'm doing and we were talking about how life is even more confusing for, I mean life for teenagers is confusing anyway, I remember being confused in my teenage years but it's even more confusing now than it ever was and that is in part
00:11:02
Speaker
thanks to really positive things like being able to openly discuss gender and sexuality. For example, that's the conversation we were having and talking about how it's impossible for them to get a sense of who they are.
00:11:19
Speaker
when there's so much out there to tell them who they could be. So actually, trying to get young people to just zone in on themselves and listen to their own bodies and listen to their own voices, when there's so much conflicting stuff coming at them from outside, much of it very well intentioned and then lots of it less so, as you've said on social media. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, that could be a whole other episode.
00:11:47
Speaker
If anybody wants to talk to me about that on the podcast, just get in touch. Thank you for sharing that. Let's talk a little bit about the whole business of what I've termed toxic masculinity, because it's something that has a phrase that's been bandied around, probably without too much thought.
Healthy Masculinities Initiative Approach
00:12:09
Speaker
And I think with a certain amount of anger, I get why.
00:12:13
Speaker
And it's hugely important that the issue of attitudes towards women and girls is continuously raised. As mother of a teenage girl, it feels really scary sometimes. But we do need to consider the impact of that on boys, I think. What's your take, Hailey?
00:12:30
Speaker
Okay, so first of all, I'll just tell you a little bit about how we've come to this term, healthy masculinities. And that's because I'm so my, my organization that I am global managing director of is called Global Fund for Children. And Global Fund for Children is an organization that believes in resourcing, so giving money to local community groups,
00:12:57
Speaker
all over the world and it's based on the fundamental belief that local people know how to create local solutions to problems for children and young people and the majority of the money that we move is unrestricted, it's flexible and it's based on totally trusting that people in their local community know what to do and we work very closely with our partners all across the world and
00:13:23
Speaker
Here in the UK, we have a programme called the Healthy Masculinities Initiative, which after an 18-month pilot, we launched in June, and it's all about promoting healthy masculinities and providing crucial support to vulnerable and at-risk boys and young men across England.
00:13:44
Speaker
So as you said at the beginning of the podcast, boys and young men are struggling. And one of the reasons that I kind of brought this pilot to the organization in 2018 and started having a conversation with several members of the team was around the scary suicide statistics for boys and young men, particularly age 18 to 25. Back then, it was the biggest killer of boys and young men.
00:14:12
Speaker
And actually, what we've seen over the last three years is the statistics getting worse, the age range is growing. And it's just it just I was just sitting with it because we do, you know, how, how are we speaking to boys and young men about what it is to be a man, for example? Yeah.
00:14:33
Speaker
So the reason we don't use the term toxic masculinity is because we believe it just suggests that there's one problem. And the answer is to replace one type of masculinity with another. Right. Also, the partners that we fund have told us they don't find it helpful. And they don't find it helpful as they work with young men and boys themselves. And we totally trust their approaches. And we've really learned from their approaches during that 18 month pilot and they learn from one another.
00:15:03
Speaker
And what they have suggested and said and believe is that we need to have, we need to basically open up lots of different ways and opportunities to be a boy and a young man. There's not just one masculinity that you sign up to for life, for example. And I think, and that's the point, it's masculinity rather than masculinity.
00:15:29
Speaker
because there's no one way to be a man. You know, there's lots of different experiences of being a man, lots of different ways that men show up in the world or identify as being a man. And the other side of it is, is toxic masculinity, you know, labeling it like that can really backfire. It can, you know, it can make boys feel shame.
00:15:51
Speaker
Yes. And shame is such a damaging emotion. And I just adore Brené Brown, and she talks about shame so much and the impact it has on you. And when you feel shame, you don't want to engage in conversations around the issue that you're feeling shame about in the majority, do you? You know, if we feel shame.
00:16:11
Speaker
We don't want to, well, we want to run because our body wants to protect us, our nervous system. It's like, no, no, no, no, I'm not talking about that because as human beings, shame is just so damaging. And if we're talking about toxic masculinity,
00:16:27
Speaker
you know, the shame, I just think that you're not poised on, it's really difficult to engage in conversations around masculinity, and the other pressures that they're feeling on how they show up in the world, when you're feeling shame, you know, and when you're feeling that sense of embarrassment or fear. So, you know, we really feel that the way we experience gender is just so much bigger than us as individuals, right? It's not just about me,
00:16:57
Speaker
I am nothing else impacts me as a woman, for example, nothing. We know that's not true. You know, there's so many conflict and societal pressures and expectations that influence us.
00:17:09
Speaker
yet we use the phrasing of toxic masculinity centers the blame on boys and young men without looking at the wider systems of discrimination that exist and that what we're growing up in. And just to some finalise as well, the work of healthy masculinities for us at GFC is part of our wider equipment
00:17:35
Speaker
wider commitment to gender equity. So as you were saying, you know, you've got a teenage girl as well, you know, we do not see this as oppositional work to our work with women and girls. We, you know, a gender equitable society is just better for all of us. And we do a huge amount of work with women and girls and actually a lot of our work with adolescents
00:17:59
Speaker
we start off talking to girls, for example, and they're saying, hang on a minute, we need boys in this conversation. We need to be having this conversation together.
Gender Conversations and Safe Spaces
00:18:07
Speaker
So actually, boys and girls are saying to us as leaders in their communities, we are not gonna have these conversations in isolation. Sometimes we need to, sometimes it's important, but we want to be having them together. And again, if you, their words, healthy masculinities, just enables those conversations. And I believe it creates
00:18:27
Speaker
a safe spaces to have them. Gosh, yeah, that's a complete reframe and a really positive one. And one of the things that you talk about as part of the programme is the need to amplify the voices of boys and young men. When I've read that,
00:18:45
Speaker
I went straight to it. I have a young boy, a young man, and I totally get that. I saw him being silenced at one point by the toxic masculinity narrative that was going on. I know how uncomfortable that is, and when you say shame,
00:19:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's a light bulb because that's exactly it. We don't deal well with shame. And why would we? And when you're having shame put on you rather than feeling a healthy shame because you know you've done something that you need to make amends for, it's impossible to engage. There was no way he would want to engage with somebody that was doing that to him. And so that's what I think what I meant when I said at the beginning, it can be quite polarizing. So what the sense I'm getting is
00:19:36
Speaker
of drawing all genders together to talk about this. But I equally, when I read that, need to amplify voices of boys and young men, went straight to a place of, oh God, I know parents of girls and plenty of women who would say it's women's voices, not men's that need to be given more credence.
00:20:03
Speaker
How do you answer that point, which I know some people may be listening to this and thinking, hang on, that's what I think. What's your answer to that? Why do those girls want the boys involved in that conversation? Because that sounds like a really mature way to look at it from their point of view.
00:20:23
Speaker
I think what's really interesting is at a young age, like primary age, some of the things we've seen and read in research is that girls are much more likely to be vocal in school, much more likely to want leadership positions, you know, you put out school council, you know, members, it's girls who are going to want to do it.
00:20:42
Speaker
boys don't tend to do that in their younger, you know, under the age of eight kind of age group. And then what we see as sort of a gen, this is very, very generalized. Over the years, girls start to quieten down and boys start to rise up, right? Because we live in I'm gonna say the P word, but we live in a patriarchal society.
00:21:02
Speaker
And, you know, that that tends to be what happened. And I totally could not agree more with parents who will say, we need girls and young women to speak 100%. We need more girls and young women in leadership. I was literally just having this conversation this week about how we need more women in politics. And I'm raising two girls. So I who are very quiet. So I couldn't agree more with that. What this is around is raising and finding space
00:21:32
Speaker
for boys and young men to openly talk about masculinity. That is the difference. You know, I, when I lost my dad, very, you know, he was very young, watching the men in my life struggle with how to process such loss in their, you know, in their 20s, late 20s. And
00:21:58
Speaker
watching that difficulty and how it's so much easier to keep it within. You know, so many men I know, for example, grew up in a time where it was be a man, boys don't cry, don't show emotion, you know, you have to be strong, you have to support your wife. So I'm not saying that men need to be heard more. I totally agree. They take up
00:22:22
Speaker
so much space already. What I'm saying is actually, we need to be encouraging healthy conversations around masculinity. And when we say to girls, you know, what do you need? What do you want to do? It's just like, well, we want to talk to boys too. You know, we need everyone to fight for gender equity.
00:22:43
Speaker
it cannot rest on one gender to fight for gender equity. But if boys don't feel comfortable talking about their masculinity, and talking in an inner space where their conversation is open, and
00:22:58
Speaker
should be challenged as well, you know, there's space to challenge one another. Then I think we're going to just continue to replicate the same systems and the same problems. And it's going to continue to be really, really difficult, you know, we the amount of people I've met over over the years.
00:23:16
Speaker
And men in my work, you know, before I came to Global Fund for Children, the majority of men I met, for example, when I met homeless people, they were men and it was all around losing job and identity. And, you know, so much of success is wrapped up in the way they view themselves as a man. And I think that's the conversation that's happening. That is, you know, that we really want to help young people
Parenting Narratives and Emotional Expression
00:23:41
Speaker
with.
00:23:41
Speaker
Yeah, I totally get the boys don't cry message. And I think people are realizing as parents that that is not a good narrative to put in front of our boys. I mean, to be fair, I will own this as a parent. I've done that to both my kids. I've been of the nature of
00:24:03
Speaker
They've fallen over, they've hurt their knee, just get them up, distract them, pray they don't cry. Because we, as a society, don't handle other people's emotions very well. And as parents, I think that was what was taught. Certainly what was taught to me, you just try and prevent them from crying at all costs. You even stick sugar in their hands, which I look back now and go, God, set them up for life with issues there.
00:24:31
Speaker
I'm laughing but I think I probably have. So not just boys but girls I think are told to hold it together and not cry or maybe that's just me and my parenting and the way I was parented. But I'm interested in, I've got this picture of a bunch of girls in a room
00:24:53
Speaker
saying that they want to talk to the boys and you've brought the boys in. If that's happened, I'm interested in how those conversations go. Do they get heated? Or are they constructive? I have to say I'm not I'm not often lucky enough to be in those spaces because it's our partners who do that work. Right. And who work directly with them. But from my experience of working with young people,
00:25:20
Speaker
when they ask for others to be brought into their space, they do have those conversations. And don't forget the partners that so the organic community groups that we fund, who were asking who are offering this space, they know what they're doing, you know, and they, they the young people will totally trust them. So it will feel like a space where they're able to talk to each other and have open conversations. And I think just one of the
00:25:49
Speaker
the things that we, you would always want to happen. And it's something we really believe in when we do direct work with young people, we have a youth leadership council at Global Fund for Children, for example, for anything that we do with them, you just want to make sure you go back to them and say what happened or there's, you know, there's, there's an outcome, because otherwise it can feel really tokenistic.
Success and Expansion of Healthy Masculinities Initiative
00:26:08
Speaker
Yes.
00:26:09
Speaker
you know, teenagers, it's important that they they feel valued for their contribution that they see tangible things happening, or they understand the barriers to why something didn't happen as a result of them giving up their time because it's so precious. But yeah, I don't get as as my career has gone on, I don't get the lucky opportunity to sit in a room with adolescents as much as I would love to anymore.
00:26:36
Speaker
Okay, and what sort of things have happened as a result of these conversations?
00:26:42
Speaker
So the program actually that we funded, it was a pilot, but because it was so successful and the partners themselves built such incredible relationships between them. So our partners, for example, we work with organizations like Breaking the Silence, who are based in Bradford, Haven, who are based in Sheffield, the Warren Youth Project in Hull, and more.
00:27:10
Speaker
through working with them, we know that young men and boys need support and need to be in trusted spaces to be able to feel vulnerable and start talking about issues and expressing themselves. So by doing this work, and by running the pilot and by which we did in pandemic, so it was a lockdown project, we found out we got the funding for the project in June 2020, March 2020. So just as we were looking down, so all these partners built these incredible relationships.
00:27:41
Speaker
over Zoom and really themselves started to look at how their own programs were rooted in healthy masculinity and how I guess they as we came through and where we're going now as a result of that work is a call to reimagine masculinity.
00:28:00
Speaker
and promote boys and young men's visions of alternative, expansive and healthy expressions that also acknowledge intersection, intersectionality, right? So we have to acknowledge the intersections of race, of class, of gender identities, sex, location, etc. So we are really, really trying to take what
00:28:22
Speaker
these partners did in that 18 month pilot to inform the work going forward. And that's what the young people involved can see that this project isn't, you know, going away.
Community-Led Spaces and Gender Norms
00:28:33
Speaker
It's become a really, really vital space for these community organizations.
00:28:37
Speaker
Yeah, I like in the sound of, as you call it, community organisations. I think that's one of the things that went missing. And again, this could be a whole other podcast. We've talked about it previously.
00:28:53
Speaker
in, it was David Cameron's reign, I think, was that all the youth projects disappeared, and boys as well as girls. I've got an episode on gang culture and knife crime, and the young lady that I spoke to about that, she was only 17 actually at the time.
00:29:12
Speaker
driving an initiative in East London and she said it's that that did it to her area because boys had nowhere to go, kids had nowhere to go and ended up creating their own spaces which were less well managed and not overseen by a mature responsible adult. So yeah, I totally see the benefit of the whole community space. I've got other questions about it but
00:29:41
Speaker
I've picked up on one of the stats that was in the press release that came out to me when we set this up. It said, one in three young men in the UK have admitted to making sexually harassing comments to women or girls they didn't know in public places or on the internet and social media.
00:29:59
Speaker
I think this is one of the things that women and girls are most angry about at the moment. And I've watched men eyeball my daughter as I've walked down the street with her. She's not aware of it or she is... I've watched it happen when she isn't aware of it and it is so uncomfortable because I know what's going through their minds. How do you think an initiative like this can have any impact on that kind of mentality? Again, I think we have to remember
00:30:30
Speaker
It's not it's not necessarily about individual boys. We live in a society that has made it okay to objectify women. Yeah. And I remember growing up and if I walked past a building site and I didn't get a wolf whistle, I thought what was wrong with me today, you know, so problematic. Exactly.
00:30:57
Speaker
So it is not just about boys in this case, right? Like it is about...
00:31:05
Speaker
where we are, the messages that we're constantly hearing, or the films we're seeing, or the way we hear men talk about women, you know, in spaces. Yeah, yeah. So I think I think, and but what I do believe is an initiative like this can open up. And I and I, you know, our partners, like I say, they work in very different intersections of healthy masculinity. So it's not just
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah, they work across a broad spectrum of incidences where healthy masculinity and you know, the real focus on mental health across across the board. I do think that it's more about opening up the conversation so that it's questioned like this. So the automatic response of eyeballing a girl or saying something is questioned rather than
00:32:00
Speaker
you know, rather than just doing it or just playing along or just not saying anything, it's more about can we create more conversations that means boys and young men feel more comfortable
Long-Term Societal Changes for Gender Equity
00:32:17
Speaker
challenging their friends when they do it or not doing it themselves to start with. And I think, you know, that kind of impact is incredibly, like it could never be measured. And one in three to me, I think that sounds low. Like when I think about all of my friends, it would, yeah, one in three doesn't feel like even the full picture. Well, if we've all experienced it, then there's quite a lot of people that have done it, isn't there?
00:32:44
Speaker
Even though we know men and boys who have never done it and don't do it and wouldn't.
00:32:53
Speaker
you know, thinking back to my own teenage years, you know, if you were at like an under 18 sort of nightclub or something, there was a real sense of like high fives, boys high fiving each other if they, you know, when I chatted to a girl or, you know, there's a sense of I am successful if I can talk to a girl. Yeah. And I think projects like this, I hope,
00:33:21
Speaker
create spaces where boys can question why that self validation comes from talking to a girl or appearing macho.
00:33:33
Speaker
Yeah, but that's a good question, but a tricky one. Well, I know, yeah. And I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but I think it's an important conversation to have. You're right, the whole movie thing of the basis that boys get to. It was second base, third base, fourth, whatever. And then the boasting about it in the locker room afterwards. And it's pervasive everywhere in society. And I think this is what winds women up.
00:33:59
Speaker
We've all woken up to the fact that that actually isn't fun and isn't part of the process. And we as women were wrong in the past, because I've had the same when I've been 18, walking past a load of builders.
00:34:19
Speaker
We're wrong to assume there was anything wrong with us because the man didn't fancy us. Just in the same way that boys are wrong to think that they are valuable and validate, even though they feel validated, they're valued and valuable because of a success that they, and even that word, a success that they've had with a girl. It's really grassroots stuff, isn't it? Changing the whole of society's
00:34:49
Speaker
approach to their own, to our own self value, whether you were a boy or a girl, it's getting out of a decade, well, a centuries long narrative. Exactly. And it has to start with boys really young, really young, you know, it's back to the same old things so much of the money and the resource and the time that our, you know, charitable, incredible charitable sector spends on is reacting.
00:35:18
Speaker
to terrible things. And actually, if we were able to, if we had the chance and the space and the room to be proactive in the first place, but because there's just so many terrible things all of the time, it's just this constant cycle of reaction. But we talk, you know, people know what know the answer, it's getting in there young, it's talking to people, it's education, it's learning from others, doesn't mean in practice, it's easy to do, because you have a pandemic.
00:35:48
Speaker
you know you have a re-election there's always something which makes it really difficult but actually it's right from the beginning there's so much research out there which you know i won't go into at all about even how boys and girls are raised as babies
00:36:04
Speaker
And how that feeds into this narrative. So that's why I just think it's so important, you know, that we listen to community groups who are saying, Listen, let's talk about this as healthy masculinities. Let's not be afraid to have difficult conversations. Let's work across, you know, this is about gender equity. It's not about always young men over here and girls over here. It's how do we create a gender equitable world?
00:36:31
Speaker
And we have to look at all the difficult stuff and have those tricky conversations and question our own understanding and unlearn it and unpick it and not be afraid as adults to really think deeply. Oh, actually, that experience that happened to me was really problematic. Yeah, for boys and you know, women, adults across the board. And yeah, question it because otherwise,
00:37:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's just, and it's a really difficult subject. So many people have such deep emotional responses to this subject, quite rightly, quite rightly. And again, I think that that adds that extra level of fear to why we talk about it. And again, I'm talking as a mum here as well, you know,
00:37:21
Speaker
not even my elders couldn't even have friends as boys last year you know without fear of oh do they think i fancy that you know and it's just um it's on both sides isn't it yeah yeah so it's just you know it's
00:37:36
Speaker
And I know we all know this. And as parents, we're all struggling with it and teenagers are too.
Managing Emotionally Charged Conversations
00:37:43
Speaker
But I think it's about opening the door for that conversation is the first start. And that's what community groups do so well, they know, they know the community, they know who they're working with, they know the conversations they can have. And they create the safe spaces to have the tricky ones, and to call each other out, which I think is is also really important.
00:38:03
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's managing those conversations in a safe way, isn't it, so that people are able to be curious about what's going on for someone when they respond in a certain way and whether the word triggered is probably overused now, but it actually is a physical response that's triggered in somebody when they hear certain words or see certain things or
00:38:28
Speaker
read a certain media story that it's triggering and it's triggering for a reason because there's a fear as you've just said in there and then what comes out in response to that fear isn't necessarily always the most
00:38:41
Speaker
productive progression in that conversation. So having, I imagine, grown up conversations where people are brave enough to understand what's being said to them and given they're brave enough to cope with negative feedback potentially.
00:39:04
Speaker
and then explain their own emotions around it and then a conversation starts. But we're just not terribly good at that. I was having this conversation with my husband this morning in Western society in general, we're really quite terrible, allowing people to have their feelings and not taking it personally, just being curious about what someone else's experience is like. I've just done a whole load of psychobabble. I don't know if you're looking completely
00:39:30
Speaker
No, it made sense. No, it made sense. Because I think, I think what's also really important, and this is something I talk to my children about a lot, context is everything. But it's not an excuse. So, you know, just because you've had a really like, I know the context of why you've just spoken to me like that, right? Like, I know that you have had a bad day. And you've spoken to me like rubbish. But it doesn't make talking to me like that okay.
00:39:56
Speaker
And I think that's the other side of it,
Evolving Community-Led Initiatives
00:39:58
Speaker
isn't it? So these, you have to take responsibility for your actions and for the way you show up. But when people who are receiving you have context to understand, you know, like, for example, I don't know how I I don't even know
00:40:15
Speaker
the whole year after I first lost my dad, I can't remember it. So I'm sure I showed up at things and was just distant. I was dismissive route. It doesn't mean it's necessarily okay. But people around you who knew the context made space for that, you know, that that's okay. So I think that again, with some of these, you're right, people don't necessarily lean in with curiosity.
00:40:40
Speaker
they back away because of fear. And again, that comes back to shame and embarrassment. Also, this is like we both said, this raises so many emotions in people this conversation. And it's a difficult one, you know, you and I talked about being nervous about having it because it's, and that's why again, I just feel so grateful that we get to work with these incredible community groups who
00:41:07
Speaker
continue to learn and evolve and change the way they do their programming based on new learning, based on new conversations with young people and based on the learning that they have with each other across England around the ways they're working in this space. And, and none of them are having this conversation in isolation, which I think is, is also really important.
Integrating Gender Discussions in Schools
00:41:30
Speaker
Yes, it is. Yeah, because it then becomes a cultural shift rather than an initiative that people have to adopt as a separate aspect to their existing busy lives. Exactly. Exactly. Is there a plan to take any of this into schools? Some of our groups have relationships with schools that they work with. But that would be totally down to the partners themselves. Right. And whether they, how they were to do it. So yeah, that's not something that
00:41:59
Speaker
that we would do ourselves. I just think it's amazing. It sounds like an incredible conversation and a very, very important one as just how you extend that and grow it so that more people are involved. And I know that schools don't really understand how best to handle it. They're overstretched and they're busy and that's not
00:42:20
Speaker
you know, that's not the crux of their job. They're teaching academic subjects, but mental health is obviously a responsibility in schools. And we spoke briefly, and I won't go into detail about it, but we spoke briefly before we started about Sarah Everard's murder and how
00:42:39
Speaker
young people definitely got very, very involved in that conversation and schools really struggled at the time. I remember talking to a lot of parents saying that their schools were struggling to know how to handle that and weren't necessarily always equipped to support the kids in the right way. And I think quite a lot of it just got silenced as a result of that, because they didn't have the time or the know-how as to how to support both boys and girls in that.
00:43:06
Speaker
So it would be an amazing thing to have these conversations more widely in schools. Well, school is just such a great place to
00:43:15
Speaker
get all children in the community, because nearly all of the children in the community are spending majority of their time there. So I know back in my years working directly with children, young people myself before coming to GFC, so many of the programs that we had were thinking about how do we engage with the schools and work with the schools to add value as well, because you're right, they're so overstretched, under resourced, so.
Empathy, Self-Acceptance, and Healthy Masculinity
00:43:40
Speaker
Yeah. Hayley, I want to ask you,
00:43:45
Speaker
Before we start winding up, what are healthy masculinities look like to you? Because we've talked a little bit about it, but I just want to have some, I don't know if you can define it and you've said there's multiple aspects to it, but what does it look like to you in a nutshell? I think the word that comes to mind is questioning. You know, questioning expectations, questioning norms,
00:44:14
Speaker
feeling comfortable and safe to question. I don't think we're human beings. So human beings always mess up. So it does just because you feel like you understand who you are doesn't mean you're always going to feel that way. And I think, yeah, feeling safe to ask questions would be the way I would
00:44:37
Speaker
define it, I think, because I think it's so nuanced, so many different varieties of it. It means so many different things to so many different people. It's incredibly individual. But it's, yeah, questioning listening to your gut, when something doesn't feel right, asking the question and having empathy, which is not easy. I know that from a lot of work I've done myself with my own my own children. It's not just a natural
00:45:06
Speaker
you know, don't necessarily just naturally have empathy, you know, we've got to learn it. And I think having empathy is, is, is really important to not essential, but or compassion, you know, I know they're two different things. But yeah, question in compassion for others and for yourself.
00:45:29
Speaker
and accepting that you're going to that you're going to get things wrong sometimes and hopefully balance in, you know, feeling that real deep shame. Yeah, I think that's what Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. And
00:45:46
Speaker
Yeah, I'm reminded you've already talked about Brene Brown and the whole shame and vulnerability thing. I think being as a boy, it's really hard for all of us, but it's even harder as a boy sometimes to allow yourself to feel vulnerable, to notice it and not defend it.
00:46:06
Speaker
instantly, we tend to leap to defending vulnerability. And I don't mean externally, I mean, in terms of go away vulnerability, I don't like how you make me feel, I'm just going to pretend that I've, I've got it all going on, and I know what I'm doing, and I'm okay, and I'm not going to cry, and I'm not sad, angry, lonely, whatever the things are that I'm feeling, it's just it's being able to, this is what I tried to preach with my kids, I haven't, you know, I
00:46:31
Speaker
I've got to turn them around because I didn't make a very good start, I have to say. It's trying to get them to understand that however they feel is okay and just checking in with themselves about why they feel that way and what they want to do about it. As you say, from their gut rather than from a narrative or a script that's being kind of sold to them by society.
00:47:01
Speaker
What would you say to anyone that's listening? What would you like them to do as a result of listening to this episode or feel? Where do you want them to go? What do you want them to do with this information? To feel it's okay to get this stuff wrong. Find safe people to have more conversations with.
00:47:23
Speaker
and know that the systems, the societal systems we live in are tricky. So there's so much out there that's encouraging this constant divide. There's so much out there that
00:47:39
Speaker
we still need to fight for, for gender equity. You know, I'm well aware that I've got two girls at the moment, they're going to earn less money, they're going to have less opportunities. But you can still talk about healthy masculinity, you can accept and fight for gender equity whilst also caring about the mental health of boys and young men. And I think that's, that's something that I've, I feel is really important. And I would love it if people took that away with them today.
00:48:09
Speaker
I haven't gone into all the details of the statistics, but some of the statistics you sent me, I knew them anyway, but they are quite shocking in terms of the mental health outcomes of boys compared to girls. It's tough for all our teenagers, but boys are really struggling and I feel like sometimes they get lost in the narrative. So thank you for
00:48:32
Speaker
Thank you for putting a spotlight on that. Where can people find out more, can go and read those statistics and find out more if they want to? Our website globalfundforchildren.org has got information about our Boys and Young Men program and initiative. And there's also some incredible blogs on there about some of the partners that we work with and some of the work that they did during the pandemic with Boys and Young Men. Brilliant. Thank you, Hailey. It's been really interesting conversation. Thank you, Helen.
00:49:05
Speaker
Thank you so much for listening. I really do appreciate it. Thank you too to everyone who's already rated and reviewed the podcast. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts or Amazon, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a review. It really helps get the word out as well as making me very happy to read what you have to say. If this episode strikes a chord for you, please share it with anyone else you know who might be in the same boat and hit subscribe so you don't miss the next episode.
00:49:33
Speaker
If you have a story or suggestion for something you'd like to see covered on the podcast, you can email me at teenagekickspodcast at gmail.com or message me on Instagram. I am Helen Wills. I love hearing from all my listeners. It really makes difference to me on this journey. See you next week when I'll be chatting to another brilliant guest about the highs and lows of parenting teens. Bye for now.