Part 3. #nomoreboysandgirls — An interview with Graham Andre

If you’re interested in the gender debate going on in society at the moment you may have seen the hashtag #nomoreboysandgirls floating around on social media. This hashtag was attached to a BBC documentary that aired in the UK about how gender roles and stereotypes could negatively impact children.

I reached out to the teacher of the class from this documentary Graham Andre as I thought he would be an interesting person to speak to about positive masculinity. I wanted to find out what he learnt throughout the process of making the documentary and how he’s implemented what he’s learned as it’s been a couple of years since the documentary was made.

He was very generous with his time and I hope everyone reading this gets as much enjoyment out of the questions and answers as I did.

Q. Firstly Graham, just wanted to say you have my respect for going along with the documentary as I understand it was kind of thrust upon you? There must have been many reservations going into a social experiment like this. Were there any concerns about what you might discover before you started?

A. It wasn’t really thrust upon me, it was quite a long selection process, we received an email from the production team in October 2016 and after several months of meetings and interviews our school was lucky enough to be chosen. I hadn’t given much thought to the gender messages our children receive so I didn’t have any preconceived thoughts or ideas. I was worried that they may not find any evidence of stereotyping at all, or that in just 6 weeks nothing would change — how wrong was I!

Q. I wanted to focus these questions more about the role of positive masculinity as opposed to education and outcomes in the classroom. Can you tell us a little about what you learnt about your own masculinity from being involved in this project?

A. I learnt that through the language I use and some of the choices I made I treated girls and boys very differently. I would choose boys more to answer questions as they would often be the ones with their hands up or shouting out (unconscious bias I think it is called) and I would use terms of endearment for boys (mate, fella) and girls (sweetpea, love) using these meant that every time I spoke to a boy or a girl I was highlighting or promoting the differences in them.

We also didn’t have a very balanced curriculum with regards to gender representation. So if we were looking at inspiring scientists or historians there would be a greater focus on men than women. This is something we have addressed and as a school when we write our medium term plans we have a section for Gender so that we have a regular focus on it to keep not just the children thinking, but us as educators.

Q. It seems to me there’s a very polarised approach to the equality debate at the moment, particularly when it comes to gender.

In one camp there’s the idea that gender is a social construct and that most (some argue all) behaviour is learnt. There’s essentially very little difference between men and women therefore it’s societal impact and gender stereotypes that negatively impact on equality. This argument tends to come more from the gender studies / social psychology line of thinking.

The other camp leans more towards the idea that whilst men and women share many different traits, there are also large differences between the genders at the end of the bell curve (eg. aggression in men, empathy in women), and this impacts greatly on behaviour, careers and life choices. It’s hypothesized that much of the disparity in industries that are dominated by a particular gender (men in tech or women in nursing, for example) can be attributed to these differences between the sexes and don’t necessarily constitute inequity.

This argument tends to come more from the biological / evolutionary psychology / endocrinology / neurobiology line of thinking.

I guess you could sum it up as the equality of opportunity vs the equality of outcome debate.

After going through the process of filming this documentary, where do you tend to sit on this spectrum and how do you think we can square these two lines of thinking together?

A. I honestly believe that it is a social construct, the messages our children receive through TV, books, film, advertising, newspapers, peers, parents, teachers, etc teaches them to behave in a specific way. The documentary set out to prove this and I think proved it very well.

We need to give our children all options and opportunities in life. If girls want to be scientists, climb mountains and rescue princes then they must know that they can. On the other hand if boys want to go into caring professions such as child care or to become dancers they also need to know that it is OK to do so (despite what some areas of society say). It is about giving them the choices, what they then do with them is entirely up to them.

Q. I have two daughters. If they were asking your advice, what are the traits you would tell them to look for in a man?

A. The ability to empathise, to show caring, to have the ability to walk in somebody else’s shoes. A good personality isn’t a bad thing to look for either :-)

Q (long one). I’ve been toying with this idea that gender stereotypes actually evolve from facts about differences between the sexes. Let me give you a few examples so you can get an idea of what I mean.

Here’s some of the more common gender stereotypes I see being pushed onto men and the facts I believe they stem from.

“Men need to be physically strong” — Men are physically stronger than women (obviously this is different for pre-adolescent kids)

“Boys don’t cry” — Men and women regulate their emotions differently using different areas of the brain. This study points out that women for example show neural activity in the anterior insula corte when viewing images that provoke a strong emotional response. This is the area of the brain that processes bodily sensations hence women ‘feel’ emotions.

Men on the other hand when viewing the same images showed activity in the visual cortex (the dorsal anterior insula cortex and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex) which is the part of the brain that regulates your attention to the world around you.

“Men need to be aggressive” — Men are more aggressive than women and this can be seen in every culture ancient, simplified or dignified and cross species. Testosterone for example is directly responsible for inducing competitive behavior.

“Men need to talk more” — Men don’t talk as much as women. There’s a protein called Foxp2 that regulates speech and women, on average have up to 30% more of this protein than men (also true for boys and girls). (study)

I’m sure you get the idea. Here’s why I bring these up. As a society, by ignoring these differences and sometimes flat out denying they exist, I believe we’re doing a great disservice to boys and men by not enabling them to understand why they may act or feel a certain way.

For example, the idea is hammered home that a man needs to talk more about his emotions. If he finds this difficult, uncomfortable or it doesn’t ‘feel’ right, he’s fallen into the trap of “toxic masculinity”. He’s told he has been taught and conditioned by society that he shouldn’t feel emotions because of gender stereotypes.

By rejecting there’s a biological element to how a man processes emotions, we’re denying men the opportunity to process emotions in a masculine fashion that’s adapted for men (solo time, physical activity, working on a project, writing, introspection or meditation, focus on building something, etc).

If we’re going to fight negative gender stereotypes, shouldn’t we also accept the differences between the sexes when it comes to behaviour to help us become better versions of ourselves?

A.Wow, you have done your research Peter!! I am no expert, I am learning all of the time about gender stereotypes and what may or may not influence them. I can only really talk about what I witnessed in the documentary.

I think that the issue of men talking about their emotions is an important one, we found through a simple task that even at the age of seven girls had more words to associate with emotions and feelings than boys (except the word anger) this has all sorts of implications in later life. Men are three times more likely to take their own lives, if we could get boys/men to start talking about their emotions would this figure fall, I would like to think so.

Let’s give our boys positive, caring role models that can talk about emotions and feelings, books are a great way to also show these traits. There are some brilliant gender stereotype busting books for children that we have found can start some excellent conversations in class about caring. You are right though we do need to allow men to process emotions in their own way, what we don’t want is for these emotions just to come out as anger.

Comedian ‘Robert Webb’ has written a brilliant book ‘How not to be a Boy’ (Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine is also a great read and looks and the impact we have on children even before birth), quite early on in the book Robert talks about ‘manning up’ or ‘acting like a man’.

‘You’re allowed to be angry, it’s boyish and man-like to be angry. I do it, I notice it more often these days, but I still do it. I express anger when what I’m actually feeling is shame. Or I get angry when I’m afraid; angry when I’m feeling uncertain or anxious; angry when I’m in grief. I bet you can think of men who even get angry when they fall in love.’

R.Webb: 2017

Q. What’s the process you go through to determine if a value or trait is beneficial or not. For example how would you teach another man (or boy) the value of something like honour or respect?

A. That’s a difficult one, as teachers we can only have limited impact on this, can’t we? We can help to teach values and respect through stories, our own behaviour, etc but for the values to be appreciated and part of the child’s make up or personality, I think the message needs to come from home through expectations of family and positive role models.

Q. If there’s a guy out there reading this who feels a bit lost, or that he doesn’t fit in or isn’t sure of his place in his family or society and wants to explore what it means to him to be a man, where would you recommend he starts his journey?

A. Twitter is a great place to start and to reach out, I am always available to chat, there are organisations like the ‘Good Men Project’ ‘A Call to Men’ or ‘Men Care Too’ in Australia. There is also #womened that although is focussed on women, is a great place to make connections and to start a dialogue. Things are slowly starting to change — men and women may always be different but we want them to be able to have the same opportunities and to be treated equally regardless of gender, which can surely only be a good thing.

Thank you Peter for your time, keep up the good work.

Graham, thanks for taking the time to answer my questions mate, I appreciate it!

You can follow Graham on Twitter @grahamandre or you can check out his website http://www.mathematicshed.com/