Who's A Good Boy?

people don't accept. Climate science. If I think about how we're going to save the world, are enables us to move in that region. Welcome back to what happens next. So what can we as individuals do? In this episode, we'll hear from our experts about the best way to support men and boys to cultivate positive masculinity. We'll find out what works and why, and talk about the resources available. I am Rebecca Stewart and I am doing. My PhD

is part of the behavior change. Read your Research Industry Partnership, which is a collaboration between Behaviour Works Australia assed part of the Monitor Sustainable Development Institute in partnership with Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, and I am looking at what the key ingredients are too engaging men and boys in sustainable shifts in attitudes and behaviors around healthier versions.

I'm Britney around from a doctor or researcher at Monash University and my research books on masculinity in positive change, particularly with regards to men's friendships. I'm Steve Roberts, associate professor of sociology at Monash University. In my research area is masculinity and social change. Steve Roberts, Britney Ralph, Rebecca Stewart Welcome to the podcast.

I was having a chat with a really good family friend is a little boy whose 12 and I was just, you know, of no enemies, whole life, lovely kid, very gentle, growing up in a feminist household. And I said, How school going? And he said, Oh, we had It was International Women's Day The other day we had an assembly and I said, Oh, cool, how is that? He goes. Actually, me and my best friend really hated it because it wasn't about anything great that women are doing or what

they've achieved. It just made me and my friend feel bad for being boys. How do we deal with this with young kids in particular, I think with men they have the capacity to understand this idea of structure. So you might be out of, say, to an adult man. Um, I know you are against sexism. Personally, you're probably horrified by it, but you can understand how, even though you might be against that,

you can benefit from a system that reinforces it. But little kids can't understand that, and all he knows is. But I don't hate women, and I and I would never think that. And now I just feel bad for being a boy. How do we? What do we do

with that? One of the things that it makes me think about is the need to amplify the voices of boys and men who are practicing good behavior, right so that I can understand the perspective of that little kid because he's hearing all this negativity and like, Ah, that must be what men act there, endorse on value somehow. And I don't doesn't that's what's

also happening. It's not because they're being told that you're a bad person, is probably also thinking that's what men do, and they endorse that whatever, and that's actually quite problematic. So I think we need more work. And again, this is something that filters through all of our work in some ways to try and say there's some examples of how to be a good person slash good man, Good boy Andi think we need more

of that for boys? So any MAWR role modeling, I suppose, with the caveat that we know that lots of role models also terrible So But we need to be promoting better forms of masculinity. And in those discussions with young boys and men like, Yeah, it's it's difficult. We don't want to be saying it's not all men. We know it's not you but to point us towards the problem. So we are together working against the problem, not pointing at you and saying You're the problem. That's kind of a way through it.

I think it's no easy, but there's nothing definite about being a boy, that's what Right? Well, right now we teach kids that there is something definite about being a boy, and it's not being a girl. Yeah, so that building blocks of much earlier like, you know, around boys and girls toys and this kind of stuff like that kind of binary is not helpful because then when they grow up the air, boys behaving that way, and and I

think two of its explained at their level. If we give them a bit of credit that they are, you know, they are living this already. They've been living it since they were quite young. They would understand that when you go on the playground, there are certain rules for what

boys and girls shouldn't do in this. There's consequences and how kids engage with each other and putting it on their level and saying, You know, when such and such gets teased because he has long hair, for example, Why do you think that is is because of the boy? Is that fair? Should he have toe, you know, just tryingto put in in into language they can relate to and

understand because they are living it. They've been living it for a long time, and I think it's an important part of the conversation that, um I guess, has been missing up until this point, which is we talk a lot about little girls in particular, can be anything and do anything but we failed to for, and the narrative is often, but boys can't be this or can't do that. And so a lot of young men that I've spoken to it and people that are working in the space are

looking for. So what can I be? What can I do? What you know. Everything is quite fraught for a number of reasons in the world at this point in time and a lot of messages searching for connection and will continue to do so with a really good point. But I like that I like the idea of like, Boys need empowering as well because the whole idea in the empowerment in the feminist movement is toe let people make the choices they want to make, and the same should

be translated to boys as well. Anything that's absolutely and we've done so much. You know, there's no problems with a little girl showing up to Book week dressed as a male character. But I have a a friend's nephew who got sent home because he was an address stressed up as he's, um, favorite female character out of a book. The fact that some of the most powerful people in our country still feel the need to shame around those things. I think we have a lot of work to do it,

and that's what the organizations that I'm working with. Ah, that's kind of their K aim is to really I avoid the world the word in power because it's, I mean, this is a fraught area where you run the risk of all facets jumping up and screaming. But that's what it is. It's about helping, particularly young, but also any any age man. Understand that those rules in the mental shortcuts that you've just thought always the way you have to act on on. I think I think power started cut off.

I think power is like, really central to the issue if we connected to these broader issues. For men, power comes from dominance for a long time and has for a long time come from dominance but re reshaping our idea of power as impound and what you were saying earlier. As as you can do whatever you want, you can be whatever you want to be, regardless of your gender.

That would help to address some of the knock on effects later in life, when men feel disempowered in a society where there is hierarchy among men and and and there's class issues. And there's, you know, all these different hierarchies that they face, and they feel disempowered by it. So they go home and they find other ways to feel empowered. And often that's three violent means, whether that's their family, whether that's other men on a night out.

And I think if we're gonna change the way that society is going, we need to really confuse you with power. And when we get that from in our lives way, Britney, you've done research on men's friendships have. How have men's friendships in Australia changed over time? So the study that I'm doing for my PhD research talks to fathers and sons?

Um, and a really interesting thing out of the most basic level, we're finding that men are opening up more at least the men that I'm speaking to on the love men you find that are being spoken to in the literature. Um, they're becoming more comfortable with talking about their emotions with their male friends, and they're becoming more physically tactile, which we know is an important way

to access feelings of belonging and well being. Um, a really interesting thing that was mentioned earlier was that you know we look at young men as this sort of beacon of change, and it's definitely true that a lot of the younger generations arm or comfortable with being intimate with their male friends. What I'm finding with my research to is that the fathers that I speak to her age between about 50 and 70 they're also living in this cultural shift, and they lived

it 20 years ago as well. And so they're also coming up against things in their lives, deaths in the family, illness, other forms of trauma, and they're changing with with it. So they had this had this cultural shift, and they've gone through something traumatic and sort of gone. A direct quote from one participants is that you get to a point where you realize you can't do it on your own anymore. And so it isn't just young

men that are changing. It's also older generations, and they're bringing up boys, you know, as a result of their experiences in their thirties, they've been more intimate with their sons. They have been more open and communicative and caring with their sons. And so for the sons, it's just natural. Of course, this is only going off. Ah, a small sample of men that are willing to speak to me

as a researcher. So this is not not definitely not across the board, but it's It's a sign of positive change. All right, guys, give us take home tips. What can the average person at home do Teoh to improve things in this room? Ah, well, my bugbear is sharing of domestic chores and childcare on. That's not just the physical enactment of those things. It's the mental load as well. So a lot of women in my life, um, carry that load. I live alone, so I carry the whole load. I have a rabbit. He

does not contribute. It'll hopeless, Typical man. Uh uh. But yeah, I think it's around modeling and the private sphere as much as the public sphere. I endorse that I'm a man that tries to live his politics, and I can confirm that my wife and I share the domestic labour and we're both exhausted rather than just one of us being exhausted. So that's good. I said, Yeah, that's what you That's what it leads to. You don't actually have spreading of the load. You just

completely wiped out the whole time. Especially with a little baby in tow as well. Um, practical changes, you know, I think about this a lot. In terms of that, how do I best bring up my son? So he's nearly two, and I'm terrified already. Like I have these thoughts about What if he becomes a rapist? What if he does these terrible things that that culture teaches boys is okay, So I don't know, like, practically, I think, the points that backs already raised about being good bystander,

but again, a za man. And as a formerly a boy, I've had a hard time calling out my mates. I try, you know, and I'm But I'm an academic who's messed in this stuff all the time. I would hope that people can call people out for sexist behavior and sharing of images of women, non consensually and that kind of stuff. Yeah. Look, I've got a really hard line that I'm telling here. I think just talk to people. I If you're a woman,

talk Teoh, the men in your life. If you're a man and you need something or you know something's up with someone just reach out because you never know when if that's gonna change someone's life, if reaching out is gonna change someone's life and and it's it will change your relationships and it'll make you feel more connected. And, um, yeah, I think just reach out. Essentially, that's a nice one. Thank you so much to all of you for joining us today. Thank thank you Having us.

My name is George via I lecture in educational leadership at Monash University. And I do research private boy schools, but I also interested in issues, agenda and educational. Dr. George Varian. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. What do you think is the single most effective thing we could try to do to change the way our culture thinks about masculinity? If you could just change one thing, what would

have these pressurized schooling environments where it's so competitive? Why do we, you know, no under sport becomes logical, because in these competitive schooling in, um, environments, it's going to be, you know, me first, right? So how are we all in it together? Maybe that's the discourse of education going forward. How can we reimagine school such that we're all in

it together rather than it being? If you can do that, I think that would be a way forward Dealing with all these other issues around gender run inequality is all for the average person who is sitting at home and wants to do something to improve the way we think and talk about masculinity in Australia and around the world, Maybe either just in their everyday lives or even the way it operates in the late private schools. What would be

one thing? A practical thing that a person at home could do not thinking so much about policy or anything in government or business days to do, but the average person Is there anything they can do to try to improve things. I spent a lot of my time is electric, trying to get people that think critically about the world they live in. And so I guess it's the question you're taken for, granted assumptions around gender and keep asking questions. Uh, give you an example.

You know, I would not consider myself a feminist because I think I have so many blind spots around the issue of gender equality that all I can do

We need to work towards them. I think this is the only thing we can all do, and we can have these conversations without Children and we can have these conversations without friends, and we should have them rather than you know, other compensations way have to have these difficult conversations on. I think that's probably the starting point. Dr George Varian. Thank you so much for your time. You're very welcome.

Hi, My name is Dr Sandra Domain. I'm a medical doctor and a public health expert and advocate on the CEO off Big Health or Victorian Health Promotion Foundation. Um, and, uh, I'm currently learning how to make salad. Sandra de Mayo. Thank you so much for joining us.

kind of fighting flight type responses. Onda could, you know. And we are very concerned that this would lead to an increase in family violence, that it could become more frequent and more severe in the current emergency s. So I think you know now is is is a really important time toe for all men. But not this men and boys. For everyone in society to realize, you know it's OK during covert 19. For anyone to feel scared or uncertain, you don't have to feel strong

or stoic. You don't have to handle based on your own. You don't have to be, you know, the the bread winner and the the tough one on do that by not doing these. It's definitely not a sign of weakness, I think making sure that men and boys, but everyone in society that we feel confident and comfortable to share the concerns we have to reach out to friends if we're feeling overwhelmed, stressed, worried to make sure we maintain communication with now mates. We can't have a beer with

them at the moment. We can't catch up with the pub, but we can jump on Skype. We can stay connected on. But I think, most importantly, used to know where to reach out to you. You know, you some, uh, particularly for men. If they if they made some help during this time, Um uh, particularly around the risks. We know off increased rates of family violence. And that's, of course, reaching out to, um, 1 800 respect on bond and knowing that there is a service there available to talk to,

you know? But I think that that the take away is just to remember that thing is this is a tough time for everyone and feeling scared, feeling worried, feeling uncertain. Um, it doesn't make you any less manly. Everyone will be feeling that way at the moment. Talk to your mates. I'm staying connected and take care of yourself so that you can take care of with others.