By ALEXIS CAREY
This list of things a group of nine-year-old boys dislike about being male will make the inside of throat tense up and turn the corners of your lips decidedly down.
The list, which was created during a workshop held by White Ribbon community engagement manager Jeff Perera, clearly shows the range of pressures facing men and boys today.
“Boys are pressured to assert their masculinity and prove their manhood in everyday activities everyday all day. This leaves us with a world of boys and men pretending: trying to achieve an unattainable state of manhood,” he said.
The young boys showed they felt pressured not to cry or show emotion, and that they were concerned by the expectation that men enjoy violence as well as their gender’s “automatic bad reputation”.
The boys were concerned about their gender’s use of violence.
They were also upset that they could never be mothers (or cheerleaders, for that matter) along with more superficial worries like “smelling bad” and “growing hair everywhere”.
They also felt they missed out on motherhood.
We might often joke about it still being “a man’s world” – but this list is a clear wakeup call to the issues facing modern masculinity.
It is fitting that the list went viral in time for the annual #InternationalMensDay, which aims to raise awareness of what it means to be male today and highlight the unique pressures faced by men and boys.
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Out of curiosity I asked my young son's what they hated about being boys. Their answer: "nothing". I asked what they thought would be wrong being a girl and they came up with a list:
- Makeovers (I have no idea where that come from)
- They don't have a penis
- They have to wee sitting down
- They may be sexually harassed (have no idea where that one came from)
- They don't usually join the army
In answering questions to the list, they don't have a problem crying, one thinks he smells wonderful and that one is concerned about hair, the other is happy to be smelly, they don't care about being a mother because they are boys and state they will be fathers and they think that girls can do some work too.
I acknowledge that boys are up against some stereotypes too, and it does concern me, but hopefully the majority of our young boys are a lot more innocent than having to worry about violence and having an automatic bad reputation at such a young age. That's not a good sign.
I asked my 9yo son this and he said quite frankly:
That im going to have to get hair all over my face and that when I wake up in the morning something funny happens in my pants (great promtper for a chat).
however I asked my daughter (7) what she didnt lile about being a girl, and she said she couldn't think of anything but that she disliked dresses and that they were only for girls and she didnt like that.