Boys Will Be Boys
The origins of boyhood masculinity
For over a century, youth who identify as male have been faced with a virtually unopposed ideal of masculinity. Societal norms of what it means to ‘be a man’ have defined generations. Terse fathers. Unready sons. The traumatic battlefields of the 20th century and the evolving workplace of the post-industrial age. Clint Eastwood’s stern gaze. John Travolta’s boyish smirk.
Our ideal of masculinity offers a singular, long-standing blueprint for men. Men haven’t experienced the same kind of liberation that women have. It’s time we change that.
“Time ticks, though, with a relative clock, and given the remarkable advances of feminist theory, one is once again reminded of the strong arm of regulatory anxiety as it muscles masculinity, keeping it unquestioned.” — Ken Corbett
I’m currently taking a Foucauldian university seminar in which we discuss the value of historicity in deconstructing seemingly immutable beliefs. If you can trace the origins of something within human practice and human history, you can identify it not as a constant but as a construct. If something was made, to put it simply, that means it can be unmade.
So I’m not writing about manhood. I’m writing about the origins of boy culture—not as something to unmake as much as something to understand. I recently finished a research project centred on juvenile discipline in the early 1900s, with police records, personal accounts, newspaper archives and peer-reviewed journals all contributing to my understanding of the pseudo-modern ‘boys will be boys’ narrative.
All of which is to say, if we’re going to discuss the reality of boy culture today, we need to start where it began.
The concept of boyhood as a distinct identity in North America emerged in the early 20th century. Young boys became part of an inchoate grouping; distinct from their younger androgynous counterparts, distant from girls and not yet men. In this liminal space, 20th-century boys laid the foundations of a unique subculture, defending their independence with reckless delight.
Within the mainstream narratives of the 20th century, boy culture was playful and cruel. The uncertainty of masculine identity meant that boys built respect through physical competition and conflict. Strength and daring were the currency of admiration.
Boy culture was separate from and in many ways set against the constraints of the outside world—but it was also enforced by adult authority. You can see this in contemporary descriptions of effeminate boys. They didn’t fit. They were unambiguously associated with homosexuality and feminine inferiority and needed to be fixed. Parents panicked. Newspaper columns pressured conformity. Sociologists inculcated masculinized ideals. Politicians exhorted organized sports and boys’ clubs.
In this process, boys were set apart. Masculinity became a singular blueprint. Patriarchal society demanded it; allowing femininity among boys was too great a risk. And so, with one eye on a boy’s fists and another on the man they hoped he would become, adults reinforced characteristics like temerity and reticence. They built up a male ideal.
“But, good gracious, you’ve got to educate him first. You can’t expect a boy to be vicious till he’s been to a good school.” — Saki (H.H. Munro)
As Julia Grant wrote in The Boy Problem, it was then that ‘boys will be boys’ became less of a description than an injunction. It was then that boys began buckling under the pressures of social authority: Don’t cry. Toughen up. Be a man.
This is where we went wrong. Boys are not men. Men are not invincible. By demanding conformity to a gender-based stereotype, we deprived boys of their fragility. We let the tears evaporate on their cheeks. We left the right words unsaid.
Masculinity was made.
Most boys you know probably seem happy enough. They probably are happy enough. But often we do not see the full story. For every fist, there is heartbreak; for every failed test, there is uncertainty. We have established an expectation for male strength and self-reliance, leaving boys to fend for themselves.
The reality is that almost every boy who steps away from the societal ideal of masculinity in order to be true to himself is doing it alone—and standing against huge odds.
“We know that often it is easier to bring one person back into the fold than it is to get everyone to take that big step forward. So what do they do? They punish him.” — Bill Pozzobon
According to psychologists like Michael Kimmel and William Pollack, social pressures of masculinity are at the core of the ‘boy crisis,’ and researchers agree that these pressures are formidable and self-perpetuating. If you disagree, fine; maybe it’s not a conversation you need to have with Barack Obama. It is, however, a conversation you could have with your son.
It’s a worthwhile conversation to have. And if you don’t believe me, ask the eleven-year-old boy I know who cut himself because he blamed himself for his parents break-up and had no outlet for his grief and guilt. Ask the thirteen-year-old who kissed another boy and got in a fight for calling a kid a fag in the same day. Ask the fourteen-year-old who cut his hair short and started lifting weights because he was sick of getting beat up.
Look, boys wrestle and roar and throw rocks. Boys also hurt.
In Real Boys’ Voices, William Pollack describes ten-year-old Michael, who was bullied for the intimacy of his friendship with another boy. There was absolutely nobody he could go to. “Sometimes I just want to end it all,” Michael said, “When something good happens in school I don’t think about it, but most other days I come home from school and I picture it in my head.”
“I don’t cry, though.”
Challenging the values and expectations we place on boys is not about ‘re-engineering masculinity’ or supporting a ‘males-are-toxic ideology,’ as Christina Hoff Sommers wrote in an article criticizing Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s new documentary, The Mask You Live In. It’s about making space for new possibilities of masculine identity and empowering boys to break down socialized concepts of who they are supposed to be.
It’s about listening to boys like Michael, allowing him to express his emotions and keep his wrists free of scars.
We’ve been waiting to have this conversation for a hundred years. It’s time.
Breaking the Boy Code is a feminism-aligned publication on masculinity on Medium, and a podcast on the inner lives of boys on Apple Podcasts, Google Playand Spotify. Follow @boypodcast on Twitter and Facebook for podcast-related updates and masculinity-related news.
This article was added to the archive after the publication was created.
