Boys Are Told To Be A Man Before Preschool
Men were just boys when we learn about society's expectations for what men should be like and we follow.
When you are looking at gender roles more closely, you’ll notice them all over the place. However, in the case of men it’s more subtle than what you might expect. Often spun as positive things, men are told through various means that we should be strong, providers, protectors, and stoic.
These are all great qualities to have in their own way. But at a time where people are changing more and realizing so many things, some of these traits — and how they are conveyed — can be so misleading.
For example, in a recent article on great qualities men should have I talked about Tucker Carlson’s portrayal of a man. The whole trailer is bizarre — especially since the selling point revolves around testicle tanning. It leads me to believe that he’s leaning towards those gender roles while throwing in toxic masculinity themes too.
For many, it comes off as bizarre, but for others they will lean into that sort of stuff and wouldn’t know any better.
That disparity is there for a specific reason and a lot of it has to do with our upbringing. That much is confirmed by a 2020 study published in Sex Roles: A Journal of Research, where researcher Matthew Nielson took 480 sixth graders in Arizona and looked into how the boys and girls felt gender pressure.
What was surprising for the research was that the boys trying to be masculine felt as much pressure as those who were gender non-conforming. The only difference was that ones not conforming to gender roles displayed more confidence in who they are.
But what was also surprising is these kinds of instances can occur at an incredibly young age. Boys as young as three can act as gender enforcers and reinforce the masculinity that we see today.
Why Do Boys Conform To This?
Of course, when you’re three yours old you can give kids the benefit of the doubt that they don’t know any better. They’re three years old.
But as boys get older, they don’t change that behaviour at all and instead try to conform to those gender roles. Why? A lot of that has to do with the fact men have more to lose when they’re not conforming.
The psychological term is abiding by “gender typicality”.
In the US — in particular — boys are consistently met with higher levels of pressure to be masculine compared to girls feeling the pressure to be feminine. Part of the reason comes down to power. Where a workforce is dominated by men, power is something that all men should be looking for.
So how does one get power when you’re a man? Well, you need to act like one.
If you’re too feminine or can’t display masculine attributes, you’re weak. That overall culture instills that men have way more to lose. By not conforming to what a man should be, you’re given less power and privileges.
In the case of kids, this sort of behaviour is displayed in more subtle forms. Growing up, I didn’t really see it as I had an older brother who was into other boy things: video games, dinosaurs, and action figures.
The one time I got a girl toy — from a McDonald’s kid’s meal — I felt almost shameful over it. I had no reason to of course, but things like “girls have cooties” can instill the idea that boys shouldn’t have girl toys. Or that a boy watching shows that are meant for girls is somehow wrong.
You see boys getting teased if they bring girl toys or they bring up they watch girl shows like Powerpuff Girls, Sailor Moon, or My Little Pony.
They Also Find It Easier To Conform Thanks To “Gender Police”
Gender police or gender bullies are also around to enforce gender norms as well. This happens a surprising amount and it’s these individuals that call out boys playing with Barbies or girls' toys get called out. All the same, girls playing with dinosaurs or trucks will get called out too.
These are gender enforcers and they enforce those gender norms. This is often displayed in kids who don’t know any better. As a result, they don’t see their teasing or bullying in this context as a bad thing. Especially since kids get excited when enforcing rules on their classmates.
And it should come as no surprise that boys are more likely to take up these roles and conform to these gendered roles and pressure others to comply.
Pressure Plays A Key Role In All This
Studies revolving around gender up to this point often compared boys to boys and girls to girls. What this new study has done is point out it’s vital to compare boys to girls as well for various reasons.
Most notably is that it shows in the cases where boys are spending more time with girls there is less pressure to “act like a man”. The study also proves how boys felt about their gender tied into how much pressure they felt to conform.
This was a big kicker because when we look at the world today and gender roles as well as gender you’d think immediately the most vulnerable people are the trans community.
They certainly are as the US — and Republicans specifically — are targeting a small portion of Americans with pointless and hateful laws.
But in the case of gender, a lot of transgender communities are in fact the most confident about their gender. Absolutely, they’re going to be dealing with a lot of crap from other people. That stuff isn’t going to change much.
But in the case of gender roles, transgender and non-conforming kids are more likely to push back and are confident in whatever they want.
The same can’t be said for the boys playing football or are jocks. The same can be said for the gym sharks and bodybuilders too. To them, masculinity is really important because they’ve poured so much into the system and are now forced to maintain appearances
After A While, Gender Roles Become Baked Into The System
What conformity to gender roles looks like as men get into adulthood is what we see today in the world. We casually brush off homophobic, and misogynistic environments and comments. It’s easier for us to pick on those who don’t conform to gender roles and think of it as normal behaviour too.
The big reason is that after years of conditioning, the people that have conformed to gender roles and portray masculine behaviour don’t think about gender roles.
The guy on the football team or hitting the gym every day to get jacked and rock six-pack abs don’t really care about those things. He’s likely to go into being a car mechanic, a bodybuilder, a personal trainer, or something like that and never think about masculinity ever again.
That ignorance also comes into play with people in positions of power. For example, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill that was passed in Florida is painfully ignorant but the people that pushed that people — and especially Ron DeSantis — has probably never had to think about gender roles and how they might’ve been conditioned or pressured into behaving in that fashion when they were a kid.
And it’s something they don’t want to be confronting either because if they ever went down the non-conforming route at various points, there would be consequences.
DeSantis could lose faith in the corporations backing him or his political support at this point. And that can lead to people taking some extreme measures.
In the case of younger men who aren’t in positions of power, they could lose a lot of friendships, could get bullied and picked on and have to deal with that emotional trauma while also dealing with not conforming to gender roles.
In their mind, it’s easier to conform at this point and going back is a suicide mission emotionally and not something men would be willing to do. The system demands they conform and the consequences for resisting are too steep.
How We Can Change It
What this study shows is that pressure is the main culprit but it also helps to know the source. What the study found out is that the initial introduction of gender roles starts somewhere of course.
But after that, internalization is what pushes it further.
For example, even though I wasn’t highly exposed to gender roles, the idea of me owning a girl toy was a “bad thing” came from myself. It was something that I made a big deal about even though I was never picked on for that reason.
Some McDonald’s staff put a girl toy in my happy meal that day. That was it.
But once we have the pressure to live up to, we begin to ingrain thought patterns and processes to the point that we feel like we know it. And for some of us, it goes as far as for us to invent a rule and enforce it. This becomes even stronger and harder to ignore.
Understanding that process is helpful and addressing it sooner rather than later is also important to do. We’ve seen these days transgender and gay boys having higher levels of depression and suicide.
Part of that comes from the fact they are non-conforming kids working against a system that bullies and pummels them mentally and physically into a specific gender role.
Non-conforming kids also face a lot of anxiety as well.
But what this study brings to light is that even the people who have conformed feel the pressure as well. And that pressure leads to the exact same symptoms that the gay and transgender community face: anxiety, depression and suicide.
In the end, the instilling of these gender roles and the demand for conformity affects the mental health of men long-term. Even though most of society has started to accept fewer gender roles and is more accepting of the LGBTQ+ community, men still have to deal with those internalizations.
And overcoming that mental hurdle is difficult to do.
More research can help in uncovering this, but for the time being, one solution that the study subtly brings up is being around other girls and other men who don’t conform to gender roles.
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