But current gender norms demonstrably do not teach boys how to be "responsible" anything, much less responsible men. It teaches them to endlessly compete in an artificial dominance based hierarchy (at the expense of the interconnection that is vital to human health and happiness), to get what you want through intimidation, bullying and by controlling weaker people, including women. It teaches boys that they need to stuff their emotions rather than learn to modulate and learn how to regulate them, which leads to most men being completely and entirely run by their disavowed emotions from out of their subconscious minds. This too has disastrous impact on men's mental and physical health and when combined with norms that encourage violence, creates an often explosive and dangerous combination.
Gender norms are made up bullshit intended to maintain the dominance hierarchy and they serve no useful purpose in society. What's wrong with allowing all people to be whomever they naturally are, and to be whatever healthy expression of their sex that feels right to them? Men can certainly participate in allowing and encouraging that without the coercive aspects of current indoctrination.
A study by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) found that “20% of gender non-conforming students reported attempting suicide compared to 7% of gender-conforming students.The data is bad for both sexes, but it seems to be worse for males.”
One of the most destructive elements of the patriarchal dominance hierarchy social system is the constant vying for rank — often at the expense of others. This is particularly true for men, who are always having to perform masculinity, rather than just embody it, and it is unbelievably dysfunctional and destructive. As Mark Greene points out in How the Man Box Poisons Our Sons:
“At a time when boys should be expressing and constructing their identities in more diverse, grounded, and authentic ways, they are brutally conditioned to suppress authentic expression and instead cleave closely to the expression of male privilege as identity. Locker room talk and the denigration of women become central to proving they are “real men” in their social circles.
When we teach our sons “You are better then girls,” instead of teaching them, “Don’t put others down to make yourself feel better,” we prime their vulnerability to all forms of bigotry.
You are better than gays,
You are better than Blacks,
You are better than Jews,
You are better than immigrants,
You are better than the poor, and so on.”
Encouraging, allowing, accepting - those are all vastly different from indoctrination and we all need to participate in those things, although men need to lead the way because men perform masculinity for the approval of other men. You don’t get men to be healthier, happier, human beings by coercing them into it. That should be kind of self-evident . . .
