Yes, Boys Can Dance
It’s 2019. I can’t believe I have to say this, but here it goes: BOYS CAN DANCE. One day after releasing a podcast episode with the creator of #MyBoyCan, a international movement founded by Sassy Harvey after her 4-year-old son was told he must be either “gay” or “a girl” because he attended dance class, […]
Stop Assuming Boys Are Bad
“Something unexpected happened…” That’s the lead-up to this CBS New story about a middle school boy who befriended a 5 year old with autism: It’s supposed to be a simple feel-good story, the kind the news feeds us every now and then to remind us that all is not lost and that there is still […]
3 Tragic Consequences Of Telling Boys To “Man Up”
Much has been said about how damaging it is to live in a culture which tells boys and young men to “man up“. By continuing to use this kind of language, we unwittingly perpetuate the myth that not only is “manning up” preferable, but that it’s not good to show any signs of weakness or […]
Men & Boys Cry Too
The NFL has taken a lot of (deserved) hits lately. The league’s questionable handling of some of its players’ unquestionably bad behavior have left many wondering if the NFL, football and professional sports don’t contribute to a culture of toxic masculinity – a one-sided, tough-guy version of manliness that sometimes spawns ideas of male entitlement and acts […]
Dear Young Men, by David Cain
Dear young men, I want to tell you what I wish I’d been told, as I bumbled through the awkward years between 15 and 25. This whole letter might sound self-important, coming from a 34-year-old who writes mostly about how he’s just beginning to get the hang of adult life. Maybe it is, and you […]
Not Us vs. Them, Not Women vs. Men
I am a woman. A self-professed feminist. I am also astutely concerned with men’s and boys’ rights. Is that a dichotomy? An impossibility? No! As Emma Watson explained in her recent speech at the UN, “feminism by definition is the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. It is the theory […]
Stop Demonizing Boys
The words we use to describe people influence our — and others’ — perceptions of them. That’s a fact I wish writer John Eligon had kept in mind as he was writing his New York Times profile of Michael Brown, the teenager shot and killed in Ferguson. Brown, Eligon tells us, “was no angel, with public […]
Is Building Boys Exclusively a Man’s Job?
Excuse me while I take offense. Recently, a college basketball coach told CBS reporters that a woman most likely will not head up a men’s Division I college basketball team within the next 25 years. That I can live with. A man put forward his best guess as to what will happen over the next quarter […]
Stop Stereotyping Teen Boys
A new research study shows that teen boys care more about establishing meaningful relationships than sexual exploits. Let that sink of for a moment. Now think about how our interactions with our boys might be different if we accepted that truth as reality, rather than accepting the stereotypical idea that teen boys want sex more […]
#DownWithManUp & #YesAll
We need to talk about our men, our boys and our societal definitions and expectations of masculinity right now. We need to talk about it because while I was on an idyllic camping trip with my boys and church friends, a male killed a whole bunch of people in California. His “manifesto,” as widely reported, […]