The main mission of The Good Man Project is to challenge these sorts of restrictive boxes, particularly for men, so when they publish a piece that instead reinforces these same boxes as inevitable and "natural" it's a problem. Pretending that actively reinforcing these stereotypes is the same as being neutral just because they are so pervasive makes no sense what-so-ever. You might as well say, "Oh, we have ants in our house. Too bad there's nothing we can do about that because they are everywhere."
Gender indoctrination begins at birth and it is ubiquitous. We are not going to eliminate it in our lifetime, but that doesn't mean that we should go out of our way to support its reinforcement. Nor does it mean that we should just give up and accept it. We cannot control our children and we shouldn't try to, but we can still help them see that they do have choices - and then allow them to make their own instead of telling them that all boys think like this and all girls think like that.
“Children are constantly bombarded with gender-based expectations from society and from the media, and they are reinforced by both peers and adults alike. Sometimes that reinforcement is coercive and comes in the form of teasing or bullying for failing to comply with norms. Boys are more likely to be subjected to this kind of censure, sometimes with terrible consequences. 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.”
Because gender norms start at birth, even very young children know what is expected of someone like them. “Research done in 2007 among three to five-year-olds found that at an early age, these kids were able to identify “girl toys” and “boy toys” — and predict whether their parents would approve or disapprove of their choice.
In a 2011 study of math gender stereotypes in American elementary school children, two findings emerged. “First, as early as second grade, the children demonstrated the American cultural stereotype that math is for boys on both implicit and explicit measures. Second, elementary school boys identified with math more strongly than did girls on both implicit and self-report measures. The findings suggest that the math-gender stereotype is acquired early and influences emerging math self-concepts prior to ages at which there are actual differences in math achievement.”
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.”
Disney’s Moana and Frozen, as well as Pixar’s Brave, all did well at the box-office, shattering the trope that girls are primarily interested in pursuing a love interest and that girls will watch a movie about boys but boys won’t watch one about girls. In fact, Frozen 2 is the highest-grossing animated movie of all time.
Beginning to challenge gender stereotypes and norms helps the spiral to begin to turn in the right direction. Boys and men quite often find that they do actually enjoy stories made about girls and women, and then due to their success at the box office, more such movies will be made. Positive, non-stereotyped depictions of women in the media also helps to counter the patriarchal precept that things that are coded as feminine are not as good as things that are coded as masculine, which in turn gives greater permission for some boys to be more of who they naturally are.”
