Training Little Boys to Be Lonely Men
Man Box culture is the source of men’s isolation and it begins training us out of connection when we’re babies.
The process is surgical. Man Box culture tells little boys that they’ll have everything they want in the way of connection, friendship, belonging and identity if we just follow the rules of the Man Box.
What are the rules?
• Don’t show your emotions,
• Be a breadwinner
• Be a leader
• Be tough, never ask for help
• Talk about cars, sports, nothing deep
• Be heterosexual
• Have power over girls/women
Judy Chu, in her book When Boys Become Boys, shows that by Pre-K, boys are already being taught to hide their emotional acuity, taking on the stoic performance of masculinity our culture forces on us.
Niobe Way, author of Deep Secrets, asked boys in early adolescence, “What does your best friend mean to you?” Boys answered “I love my best friend” and “without my best friend I would go crazy.” By late adolescence those same boys say, “That friendship is fading out.”
Why are boys walking away from these intimate friendships that just a few years earlier they said “they would go crazy without?” Way discovered that these boys become convinced that wanting close friendships means they are “little kids, girly or gay.”
It is at this point, that boys’ suicide rates become 4 times that of girls their age.
It’s the ugliest kind of bait and switch. Boys and men are driven into an epidemic of isolation by the very Man Box rules they are taught early on are the key to belonging and community for them.
But understand, we all have huge agency in how boys grow up and who they become. All we have to do is, as Judy Chu says, “show up for them.” Dominance-based Man Box masculinity can only take hold when parents, coaches, teachers, communities fail to create spaces in which children can self-reflect and express their whole selves. Want to change a boy’s life. Be there for him to talk about what’s going on.
Hold space for him. Ask him what he thinks is happening in his social circles. “Why do you think that other boys did that? What do you it’s like at his house?” When we give our sons, daughters and non binary kids the opportunity to share what they are seeing in the world, it is transformational. When we provide that constantly for a child, they eventually reject the brittle gender binaries of the Man Box and create a more authentic life for themselves.
Want to learn more?
Listen to “Mark breaks down Man Box culture” on the Remaking Manhood podcast. Charles Matheus and I show the terrible harm done by the Man Box to men, women and and to all those who’s lives we impact.
Or, get our book, The Little #MeToo Book for Men. In just 75 pages, learn to spot Man Box culture and see it’s influence in our lives. It’s never too late for you or someone you care about to break out of Man Box culture.
