I honestly don't know what planet you live on! How many time in your life have you been called or heard a boy called a pussy or told he throws like a girl? This is a very central aspect of how masculinity is constructed in the West. Boys shouldn’t do anything girls do, because boys are superior to girls.
Paul Kivel conceptualized the “Act Like a Man Box” in the early 1980’s, by asking high school boys what the rules were for being a man. It turned out the rules were pretty straightforward. They included:
• Hide all emotions
• Treat women as less, have control over women
• Be tough, never admit self doubt, fear
• Police and bully other boys who don’t conform.
Jock culture (or what the young men I met were more likely to call “bro culture”) is the dark underbelly of male-dominated enclaves, whether or not they formally involve athletics: all-boys’ schools, fraternity houses, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the military. Even as they promote bonding, preaching honor and integrity, such groups condition guys to treat anyone who is not “on the team” (a category that may include any woman who is not a blood relative) as the enemy — bros before hos! — justifying hostility or antagonism toward them. Loyalty is unconditional, and masculinity asserted through sharing sexual exploits, misogynist language, and homophobia.
Orenstein, Peggy. Boys & Sex (p. 21). Harper. Kindle Edition.
Media exerts a lot of influence in maintaining gender norms and stereotypes, beginning in childhood, and continuing throughout life. “One study we looked at found that the more TV children of both sexes watched, the more likely they were to believe that “boys are better”. For little boys, watching television appears to reinforce their already positive self-regard, while for girls, watching television appears to dampen it. This is concerning given that there are more than twice as many male characters as there are female characters on kid’s TV shows.”
And although much of this societal messaging is that males are more competent, independent, and worthy of holding power, strict gender norms hurt boys and men as well. The Global Early Adolescent Study, based at Johns Hopkins University, concludes that due to these gender norms, “they engage in and are the victims of physical violence to a much greater extent than girls; they die more frequently from unintentional injuries, are more prone to substance abuse and suicide; and as adults their life expectancy is shorter than that of women. Such differences are socially not biologically determined.”
I could easily cite you about 50 more examples.
