Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / The Hidden Pressure Shaping Our Boys [an excerpt from 'Boys']

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The Hidden Pressure Shaping Our Boys [an excerpt from 'Boys'] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Well, the book's been out for a day and we
0:08
Speaker 1: can't stop talking about it, and a whole lot of
0:10
Speaker 1: people are very excited about it. Boys Building Strong Young
0:12
Speaker 1: Men from the inside Out by me, Doctor Justin Coulson,
0:14
Speaker 1: is what we're going to be discussing today and tomorrow's well.
0:17
Speaker 1: In the Happy Families Podcast, we're going to check out
0:21
Speaker 1: a chapter that I just I loved writing. I was
0:24
Speaker 1: surprised by the research. Everything about this caught my attention
0:27
Speaker 1: and in the interviews and the conversations that I've been
0:30
Speaker 1: having with people, the concept of precarious masculinity, the idea
0:35
Speaker 1: that masculinity might be something that has to be first
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Speaker 1: of all learned and then earned and somehow protected. What
0:43
Speaker 1: that means, why it exists, and what we need to
0:46
Speaker 1: do as parents to help our kids to have a
0:48
Speaker 1: healthy sense of masculinity. That's what we're going to read
0:51
Speaker 1: from chapter three of my brand new book, Boys Next
0:55
Speaker 1: Stay with us. Hello, Welcome to the Happy Family Podcast,
1:00
Speaker 1: where you get real parenting solutions every single day. This
1:02
Speaker 1: is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and
1:05
Speaker 1: Kylie Coulson and stepping into another chapter of Boys Building
1:09
Speaker 1: Strong young men from the inside out, because the book's
1:12
Speaker 1: been out for twenty four hours and we want you
1:14
Speaker 1: to see here, get into as much of it as
1:17
Speaker 1: you possibly can.
1:18
Speaker 2: As you were saying that, I was just feeling a
1:21
Speaker 2: little bit nostalgic. This is book number eleven, but it
1:24
Speaker 2: took me back to book number one, and I'm going
1:26
Speaker 2: to cry. It's not supposed to happen, but you dedicated
1:31
Speaker 2: your very first book to Nan. You're Nana Bunt and
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Speaker 2: I remember you getting that very first fresh copy of
1:39
Speaker 2: what your child Needs from you, and packing up all
1:42
Speaker 2: the kids and throwing them in the car and driving
1:45
Speaker 2: to Sydney so that we could see her and share
1:48
Speaker 2: that special moment with her. And it just made me
1:51
Speaker 2: think if she was here today, she would be the
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Speaker 2: first one at the bookstore and she would have brought
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Speaker 2: every copy off the bookshelf because she's so proud of
1:58
Speaker 2: you and what you've accomplished. And yeah, I just I
2:02
Speaker 2: was thinking about her.
2:03
Speaker 1: I love my name. Yeah, that's a lovely memory. Thank you.
2:07
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what she'd think about this, but I
2:09
Speaker 1: reckon she'd be pretty excited about it.
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Speaker 2: I think she would, and I think she'd tell you
2:14
Speaker 2: how proud she is of the man you've become.
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Speaker 1: Oh, now you're going to get me going love my name?
2:19
Speaker 1: All right? So yeah, Unfortunately Nan died in twenty seventeen.
2:23
Speaker 1: She's been gone for nearly ten years. Let's move on.
2:26
Speaker 1: I asked you which chapter you want me to showcase,
2:29
Speaker 1: and you've picked the chapter on character. But we're going
2:33
Speaker 1: to do that tomorrow because the chapter that I got
2:35
Speaker 1: most excited about writing kind of took me by surprise.
2:39
Speaker 1: I didn't think this one would get me so much.
2:43
Speaker 1: The chapter is called boxed in What Society is telling
2:45
Speaker 1: your son about manhood? It's chapter three, and Kylie, as
2:49
Speaker 1: we did the other day, I'm just going to get
2:51
Speaker 1: you to on Monday, I'm going to get you to
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Speaker 1: stop me whenever you want to intrude with a thought
2:56
Speaker 1: or an insight, or even just say well that was
2:58
Speaker 1: so good, or whatever it is that you want to
2:59
Speaker 1: talk about with the book, and this pod will go
3:01
Speaker 1: for the usual length. Will just stop reading chapter three
3:04
Speaker 1: when our time is up.
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Speaker 2: You're saying the usual lengths, I mean longer than supposed to.
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Speaker 1: It's supposed to be ten or twelve minutes. And I
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Speaker 1: think we really think you should just give that dream up.
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Speaker 1: Two thirds of the men we surveyed said that since
3:17
Speaker 1: they were a boy, they'd been told that a quote
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Speaker 1: real man unquote behaves in a certain way. Matt Tyler,
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Speaker 1: that's the epigraph. Matt Tyler until recently worked with Jesuit
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Speaker 1: Social Services on the on a project that was all
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Speaker 1: about manhood, and I interviewed him a number of times
3:33
Speaker 1: in the lead up to this book coming out. As
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Speaker 1: I described in chapter one, ask a teenage boy to
3:38
Speaker 1: define what it is to be a man, and you'll
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Speaker 1: hear silence. But I didn't describe what comes next. Invariably,
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Speaker 1: it's a definition of masculinity in the negative. What it
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Speaker 1: isn't rather than what it is. Boys. Don't cry or
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Speaker 1: show emotion, don't be a worse, don't be a girl,
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Speaker 1: don't ask for help, don't talk about problems, don't show
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Speaker 1: fear or back down. Don't be a simp.
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Speaker 2: It's interesting that you have said that, because I've never
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Speaker 2: connected the dots that when we talk about it, it's
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Speaker 2: usually all the things not to do.
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Speaker 1: Yes, there's not what's the pathway to manhood? Yeah, it's
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Speaker 1: all negative, yeah, yeah, yeah, just don't do this stuff.
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Speaker 1: And apparently if you do the opposite, whatever that is anyway,
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Speaker 1: And the last one was don't dog the boys. Ask
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Speaker 1: adult men the same question, same result. Manhood is traditionally
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Speaker 1: defined in many civilizations, is not viewed as a birthright. Rather,
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Speaker 1: manhood is a status to be fought for one and defended.
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Speaker 1: The rituals were designed specifically to ensure men were separated
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Speaker 1: from the domestic world and work of women. Womanhood is
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Speaker 1: typically seen as a natural biological progression, whereas anthropologists, sociologists,
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Speaker 1: social and evolutionary psychologists, and historians broadly agree that manhood
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Speaker 1: has always been something that required constant evidence and it
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Speaker 1: can be taken away.
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Speaker 2: But has man just created this for himself? Like, I'm
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Speaker 2: thinking about all of the different cultures out there where
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Speaker 2: there's initiations into manhood. Right, girls and boys go through
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Speaker 2: biological changes, And why is it accepted that a girl
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Speaker 2: becomes a woman based on those biological changes happening, which
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Speaker 2: are just as visible as a man's or a boy
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Speaker 2: to a man, he has very visible changes.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, we call it sexual dimorphism. So why so have
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Speaker 1: listened to this next sentence and then we'll talk about it,
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Speaker 1: because you've sort of jumped in mid paragraph, and I
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Speaker 1: think this helps us to But I was doing the
5:42
Speaker 1: research for this chapter. I was going, this is kind
5:46
Speaker 1: of wild. I need to think about this a lot,
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Speaker 1: so I've got a whole lot to say about it.
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Speaker 1: But let me just read this. A man can be emasculated. See,
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Speaker 1: this is the thing. Sorry, there's one more sentence. Hang on,
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Speaker 1: I want to start talking, but I got to finish
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Speaker 1: the book. Social psychologist Roy Baumeister explains quote, in many societies,
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Speaker 1: any girl who grows up automatically becomes a woman. Meanwhile,
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Speaker 1: a boy does not automatically become a man, and is
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Speaker 1: instead often required to prove himself, usually by passing stringent
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Speaker 1: tests or producing more than he consumes. So what I
6:17
Speaker 1: find really fascinating here is that a girl becomes a woman,
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Speaker 1: and no matter what a woman does, nobody looks around
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Speaker 1: and goes, what sort of a woman are you? You're
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Speaker 1: not much of a woman. That doesn't make sense, right.
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Speaker 1: But with a male boy grows into an adult and
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Speaker 1: we call them a man. But if you see a
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Speaker 1: man behaving in a way that does not appear manly,
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Speaker 1: there will be a lot of people, usually other men,
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Speaker 1: but also women do this as well. Who will question
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Speaker 1: his masculinity. In other words, they will say, what sort
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Speaker 1: of a man are you? That's not the kind of
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Speaker 1: behavior and the perfect example. It's politically and for me
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Speaker 1: to say this, but it happens every single day in
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Speaker 1: every single one, every single school, probably every single school
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Speaker 1: in the country. You get a young man, you get
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Speaker 1: a boy who's really effeminate in his actions and his behaviors,
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Speaker 1: and he will be teased mercilessly. The boys police this,
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Speaker 1: even though in our enlightened adult efforts we attempt to
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Speaker 1: stop that from happening and to be accepting of people.
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Speaker 1: The boys police this horrendously. And you can earn your
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Speaker 1: masculinity by being manly, but it is stripped. I was
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Speaker 1: reading this book by a guy called David Gilmore, Manhood
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Speaker 1: in the Making. It was one of the most important
7:39
Speaker 1: books that I read. Is I wrote this chapter, and
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Speaker 1: he just talks about story after sorry of men who
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Speaker 1: don't go out and provide, don't go out and protect,
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Speaker 1: They stay at home and they are mummies. Boys write
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Speaker 1: that concept and the way society treats them versus the
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Speaker 1: way society treats men Herald's men who are their providers
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Speaker 1: and the protectors, the ones who stand up and say,
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Speaker 1: I do the manly things.
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Speaker 2: But we see this in nature as well. Has this
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Speaker 2: come about because when we define roles whenever that happened,
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Speaker 2: we defined.
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Speaker 1: Roles thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago.
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Speaker 2: Girls are actually almost instinctively and naturally born into their
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Speaker 2: roles as a nurturer. Girls are generally nurturers.
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Speaker 1: So this is one of those great, big hot potato
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Speaker 1: issues that I unpack in chapter two and again in
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Speaker 1: this chapter chapter three. I mean, there are books out
8:34
Speaker 1: there called delusions of gender, pink brain, blue brain, the
8:38
Speaker 1: gendered brain. People like Lisa Elliott, Cordelia Fine, Gina rip On,
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Speaker 1: they've written all of these books and they're basically saying, no, no, no,
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Speaker 1: it's all socialized. It's all socialized, this is all nurture,
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Speaker 1: This is not the natural state. But then you make
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Speaker 1: a statement like that, and I've got books like The
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Speaker 1: Ape that Understood the Universe by Steve Stuart Williams and
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Speaker 1: a billion years of sex differences. In fact, I've got
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Speaker 1: a whole bunch of books on my shelf here as
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Speaker 1: well that highlight exactly the counterposition as a girl.
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Speaker 2: Or a woman who is nurturing. She doesn't actually have
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Speaker 2: to play a role, a specific role to meet that,
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Speaker 2: whereas a male to be a protector and a provider,
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Speaker 2: he actually has to fit into the role of fright
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Speaker 2: tector and provider.
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Speaker 1: And I make this point a couple of times in
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Speaker 1: the book because my editors were like, hang on, you're
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Speaker 1: saying that a healthy man is one who helps people
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Speaker 1: around and feel safer and stronger. But that's a healthy
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Speaker 1: person like women do that as well.
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Speaker 2: That's exactly right.
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Speaker 1: And the reason that this is what makes a healthy
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Speaker 1: man and makes healthy masculinity is because it is not
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Speaker 1: the natural it is not biologically the natural way that
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Speaker 1: boys want to go as they grow into manhood. They
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Speaker 1: literally have to be a culturated There has to be
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Speaker 1: a level of socialization that directs them away from the
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Speaker 1: anti social, violent, grading dominating way that is very much,
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Speaker 1: much more naturally an inclination for males than it is
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Speaker 1: for females, towards the pro social stuff that I talk
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Speaker 1: about in the book. That's why raising great boys is
10:14
Speaker 1: such a challenge, because we actually have to the society's
10:18
Speaker 1: job is to socialize them away from the natural inclination proclivity.
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Speaker 2: Well, if you took this to the very raw extreme.
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Speaker 2: In order to be a protector, you have to be
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Speaker 2: able to be all of those things. The challenge is
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Speaker 2: that in order to be a protector, you've actually got
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Speaker 2: to be all of those things dominating and take control
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Speaker 2: and not care about anybody else in order to protect
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Speaker 2: your flock. Whatever that looks like.
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Speaker 1: Can you see why this was such a hard book
10:46
Speaker 1: to try to wrestle with?
10:48
Speaker 2: This?
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Speaker 1: And even the rights of passage stuff like those rights
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Speaker 1: of passage that used to happen and still happen in
10:53
Speaker 1: some places.
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Speaker 2: But the challenge for they're not protecting anything at this point,
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Speaker 2: and they're not even providing for anything.
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Speaker 1: But there's all sorts of challenges here. Oh my goodness,
11:02
Speaker 1: I love writing this book. This is why it took
11:04
Speaker 1: me four years to write it, because trying to work
11:06
Speaker 1: out how to articulate, work around and speak through these
11:09
Speaker 1: issues was massive. We've already gone way over our supposedly
11:12
Speaker 1: let's take a break time. So we're going to take
11:14
Speaker 1: a really quick break. After the break, another couple of
11:15
Speaker 1: paragraphs from the book. Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness,
11:18
Speaker 1: we've read two pages. Stay with this, mornings, We're back
11:29
Speaker 1: this is the Happy Families podcast. I love listening to
11:31
Speaker 1: you wrestle with what you're reading or what you're hearing
11:33
Speaker 1: me read. The challenging part of writing this book was
11:37
Speaker 1: to try to figure all of this stuff out. That's
11:40
Speaker 1: why it took so long. Kylie. Let me continue on
11:42
Speaker 1: page forty nine, Chapter three boxed in Suffering, pain, killing
11:46
Speaker 1: game or meat, living alone, or fighting were just some
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Speaker 1: of the ways boys demonstrated their manliness historically, and while
11:53
Speaker 1: the Western mindset is less focused on these themes though
11:56
Speaker 1: not entirely, men have always been the ones who proved
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Speaker 1: them masculinity by providing and protecting the surplus value be
12:03
Speaker 1: a bonus theme keeps showing up and is specifically linked
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Speaker 1: to demonstrating manhood. Check this out. This is the bit
12:10
Speaker 1: that I just got it so excited about it. University
12:13
Speaker 1: of South Florida. Research is found empirical support showing that
12:16
Speaker 1: masculinity is still precarious even in today's climate. When presented
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Speaker 1: with made up proverbs about gender, manhood is hard won
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Speaker 1: and easily lost versus similar made up statements about womanhood.
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Speaker 1: Both male and female participants strongly endorsed precarious masculinity they
12:37
Speaker 1: saw womanhood as a natural biological maturation, but viewed manhood
12:42
Speaker 1: as something that must be actively achieved and maintained through
12:45
Speaker 1: social proof. If it couldn't be proved and held strongly,
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Speaker 1: he wasn't a man. The research has pushed further. They
12:55
Speaker 1: had participants complete a pretend gender knowledge test and gave
13:00
Speaker 1: them false feedback. Some male participants were told they scored
13:05
Speaker 1: similarly to women, while others were told they scored the
13:08
Speaker 1: same as other men. The same was done for women.
13:11
Speaker 1: Some women were told they scored in a similar way
13:13
Speaker 1: to other female participants, while others were told they scored
13:15
Speaker 1: a lot like the men involved in the study. Participants
13:19
Speaker 1: were then asked how they would feel if family or
13:23
Speaker 1: friends found out their score. Men who were told they
13:26
Speaker 1: scored like women showed immediate anxiety and discomfort. This may
13:34
Speaker 1: merely be an issue of differentiation, or because women have
13:38
Speaker 1: lower status in the eyes of some men. The men
13:40
Speaker 1: in this study, though, told researchers they would not want
13:44
Speaker 1: family and friends knowing their more female oriented results. When
13:48
Speaker 1: they were subsequently given word completion tasks in what they
13:52
Speaker 1: thought was an unrelated experiment, they were more likely to
13:55
Speaker 1: see violence in neutral prompts for example, they completed pun
14:03
Speaker 1: as punch rather than punk punt or puny. They saw
14:10
Speaker 1: l O blank Er as loser rather than lover or lower.
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Speaker 1: Women showed no such buyers when their womanhood was questioned
14:21
Speaker 1: for supposed masculine scores, Achieving and maintaining masculinity appears strongly
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Speaker 1: related to feelings of status. Males consistently feel they must
14:34
Speaker 1: save face by appearing as masculine as possible, and that
14:38
Speaker 1: reverts to stereotypes that have existed for millennia. Strong and courageous,
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Speaker 1: resilient and emotionally level, physically capable, and successful in their maleness.
14:49
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to highlight Kylie before I move
14:51
Speaker 1: on to my favorite story in the whole book is
14:53
Speaker 1: coming up next. Those attributes strong, courageous, resilient, emotionally level,
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Speaker 1: physically capable, successful in their maleness. I don't think there's
15:00
Speaker 1: anything the matter with those. A lot of people are
15:02
Speaker 1: trying to bash that out of boys, but I actually
15:04
Speaker 1: think we want to encourage that. That's what it is
15:06
Speaker 1: to be healthy. Man. So all right, anything about the study,
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Speaker 1: anything about the idea of precarious masculinity before I read
15:13
Speaker 1: my favorite story.
15:15
Speaker 2: This is just fascinating, isn't it? Isn't it really fascinating?
15:18
Speaker 1: Oh? I just love writing this book. Okay, we need
15:20
Speaker 1: to wrap this up, but I'm going to share my
15:21
Speaker 1: favorite story. It's only a couple of paragraphs, but I
15:24
Speaker 1: just I got so excited, and I think that I
15:27
Speaker 1: say it in the book. But I have permission from
15:29
Speaker 1: the families of the boys involved to tell this story.
15:32
Speaker 1: During March twenty twenty five, I traveled to Somba in
15:35
Speaker 1: Indonesia for a surf trip. Two teen boys, Digby and Gray,
15:39
Speaker 1: each in year nine, were there with their dads. I
15:42
Speaker 1: mentioned I was writing a book about boys, and with permission,
15:44
Speaker 1: I quiz them about being a boy today. What's most
15:48
Speaker 1: important to a teenage boy when it comes to masculinity?
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Speaker 1: I asked, now, Kylie, before I tell you what the
15:54
Speaker 1: answer was from the boys, I knew what the answer
15:57
Speaker 1: was going to be. In my world, though it was
15:59
Speaker 1: going to be one scene word. I thought they were
16:01
Speaker 1: going to say status. It's not what they said, but
16:04
Speaker 1: it is what they said. I'll tell you what happened
16:06
Speaker 1: without hesitation. Digby answered, looking good in front of your mates, status,
16:12
Speaker 1: right like you just went straight there? Tell me more.
16:15
Speaker 1: I prompted, Digby shrugged, just looking good. That's it. Like
16:21
Speaker 1: that was the whole conversation. And then I say this
16:24
Speaker 1: in a book, and I watched it over and over again.
16:26
Speaker 1: With those boys in the ocean, a wave would appear
16:28
Speaker 1: on the horizon and steam towards us. Some waves were
16:31
Speaker 1: bigger than the boys felt comfortable surfing. If things went wrong,
16:35
Speaker 1: there was the potential for real danger. Digby would ask
16:39
Speaker 1: Gray do you want it? Gray would nod, challenge accepted.
16:44
Speaker 1: I could see concern or maybe it was fear in
16:46
Speaker 1: his eyes. Then he'd paddle out of the wave. Look good,
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Speaker 1: prove yourself, push the limits. Be a man, slay the
16:55
Speaker 1: lion charge. Next it would be Digby's turn to take
17:00
Speaker 1: on the challenge. Be a man, slay the lion charge.
17:04
Speaker 1: And they both did. There's so much more. There's so
17:08
Speaker 1: much more that I want to tell you. This chapter
17:10
Speaker 1: just it blows my mind and I've barely scratched the
17:12
Speaker 1: surface of it. Any final comments before we wrap up,
17:16
Speaker 1: because we do need to actually end the podcast at
17:18
Speaker 1: some point today.
17:19
Speaker 2: Lucky, the podcast only goes for ten or fifteen minutes.
17:21
Speaker 1: Oh, come on, come on, We're like eighteen and a
17:23
Speaker 1: half ish minutes in.
17:28
Speaker 2: Well, I'm really looking forward tomorrow's podcast. Clearly a lot
17:31
Speaker 2: more we can talk about.
17:32
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so excited. Wish I could just read the
17:33
Speaker 1: whole book on the pot it would be would be wonderful.
17:35
Speaker 1: Tomorrow we step into the stuff about building character. Join us.
17:39
Speaker 1: It's going to be an absolute cracker. The Happy Families
17:41
Speaker 1: podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Mim
17:44
Speaker 1: Hammonds provides additional admin and other support and for more
17:48
Speaker 1: information about the book, just get online and grab a copy,
17:51
Speaker 1: or go to the local bookstore and buy one. The
17:53
Speaker 1: first week of a book's release so important for the
17:55
Speaker 1: success of the book. If it's been on your mind,
17:57
Speaker 1: if you've been thinking about it, today's a day to
17:59
Speaker 1: do it. Please a copy of Boys Building Strong young
18:01
Speaker 1: Men from the inside out. Morinfo at Happy families dot
18:04
Speaker 1: com dot aum