May 21, 2023 • 24 mins
Professor Michael Flood describes types of masculinities that can be harmful to boys, men and the people around them. Listen for a discussion on engaging men and boys to address gender inequality and gender based violence.
In this episode, Professor Michael Flood describes types of masculinities that can be harmful to boys, men and the people around them. He also details the benefits of engaging men and boys in efforts to address gender inequality and gender based violence.
Resources:
See more about Prof Michael Flood. Read more articles from Michael at xyonline. Michael mentioned The Man Box by Jesuit Social Services. Our Watch have provided lots of information about addressing gender based violence. For more information about SHV @ shvic.org.au.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This podcast is produced on Wurundjeri land.
It contains discussion about adult topics,
use your judgment if there are little years around.
Welcome to Doing IT.
This is a podcast made by the Everybody Education Team at Sexual Health Victoria.
We run a whole lot of education programs for communities and medical professionals across Victoria.
(00:22):
We also run sexual health clinics in the city and Box Hill in Melbourne.
My name is Anne and I'm part of the S H V schools and community team.
We go to schools and run classes for all year levels on bodies growing up puberty,
sex,
reproduction,
consent,
relationships.
This podcast is for parents and carers of school aged Children so we can share what goes on in a relationships and sexuality education class and help support these sorts of conversations at home.
(00:51):
Today,
I will be talking to Dr Michael Flood who is a professor at Queensland University of Technology.
Michael is a prominent voice in the public discourse around engaging men in violence prevention.
Dr Flood has published widely on topics including violence against women and violence prevention,
men and masculinity,
(01:13):
pro feminist men's advocacy,
male heterosexuality,
fathering and pornography listeners will likely be quite familiar with current headlines around gender based violence,
public figures such as Rosie Batty and Grace Tane have used their stories to drive change advocates cite gender inequality and rigid gender stereotyping as key drivers of gender based violence and call for societal change as primary prevention for this kind of violence.
(01:46):
So what might we tell young people in schools about this Professor Michael Flood?
Thank you so much for speaking with me today.
My first question for you is just a bit of an overview.
Can you tell me a bit about the themes of your research and how this led you to be an advocate for healthy masculinity?
(02:07):
Sure.
So look,
um my research is all about uh men masculinity and gender and I've been an academic for a couple of decades before that,
I was a community educator.
In fact,
funnily enough,
I used to be a sexual health educator with sexual health and family planning.
AC T I was also a community educator for the local domestic violence service and rape Crisis center,
(02:30):
legal aid and so on.
I've had a number of involvements as well as uh now being in academia and I do work particularly on the positive roles that men can play in building gender equality and in stopping violence against women.
And as part of that,
I've done work on a range of areas,
I've done work on um men's involvements in fathering.
I've done work on men's health and suicide.
(02:53):
Done work on boys,
young men and pornography and Children and pornography more generally and work on uh sexual and reproductive health.
So I've had,
you know,
so fingers in lots of pies if you like.
But,
but a consistent three theme through my work has been questions of how we raise boys and men,
the messages that boys and men get about being a man.
(03:13):
What's good,
what's bad about those and how we can build healthier,
more equitable lives for boys and men.
Uh What does the word feminism mean to you?
Look,
uh It means an awful lot.
So I,
I'm certainly a passionate advocate for feminism.
I would describe myself as pro feminist.
Um I'm a bit nervous around,
(03:34):
I'm not nervous,
but I'm a bit reluctant to describe myself as a feminist because I,
I think there's an argument for that being a term that women can use.
Um And that women have an understanding of women's experience as women that I can't necessarily access as a man.
But I very much believe that men have a,
a vital and crucial role to play in supporting and advocating for feminism.
(03:57):
And I can come back to that in a minute.
But of course,
the particular issues that feminism focuses on the particular claims that feminism makes have shifted over time.
So one of the most obvious shifts,
for example,
is beginning in about the 19 eighties.
There was a growing attention to intersectionality.
That is to the fact that women's lives are shaped,
(04:19):
not only by gender,
uh shaped,
not only by the meanings given to being a woman and the ways that women's lives are organized as women,
but by other forms of social difference,
other forms of social inequality.
So women's lives are shaped by race and ethnicity,
shaped by class,
shaped by sexuality,
shaped by disability.
And so intersectionality recognizes that women's lives are not all the same.
(04:41):
And increasingly that's been applied to men as well,
that if you're,
you know,
in work with boys and men in a school,
for example,
those young,
those boys and men's lives are shaped not only by how they've been raised as men and the messages they've got about what it means to be a man and so on.
But they're shaped also by their ethnicity,
their class,
background,
their sexuality and so on.
So whether it's a bunch of,
(05:01):
you know,
white,
middle class,
privileged boys from a Melbourne private school or it's a bunch of indigenous boys from a deeply disadvantaged northern territory community inter shapes their lives um in ways to do with disadvantage,
but also to do with privilege.
So that's one I think very powerful example of how feminism has shifted over time.
(05:23):
A real,
a kind of wholesale shift to an intersectional feminist approach.
Um A second shift is uh you know,
debates over,
you know,
all kinds of things over pornography,
over sex work or prostitution over men's violence against women,
over trans issues and so on.
And some of these are areas of heated debate.
(05:43):
There are significant disagreements among different schools of feminism,
different feminist advocates and organizations over how to address these issues.
The term toxic masculinity gets used a lot.
And in my experience working with young people in schools,
um,
this can be jarring to young men in particular who feel like they're in trouble for being male.
So how can we work better with young boys?
(06:06):
Yeah,
look,
the,
the term toxic Maslin is a really interesting one.
So I'll comment on that first and the term really only started being used in a widespread way in about 2015.
And we've had about 40 years of feminist scholarship um including on men and masculinity,
including on how we raise boys on issues of men and fathering and violence and all kinds of things.
(06:29):
And the term toxic maty is simply not part of that scholarship and really only starts appearing in the last,
as I've said,
you know,
um eight or eight or nine years where the term came from is 19 eighties and 19 nineties efforts to improve men's health.
It was people writing about men's mental health,
about men in prison and it was,
(06:51):
it was people writing about how the kind of dominant or common models of how to be a man that men are raised with were actually limiting for men themselves.
Limited men's emotional health,
men's physical health,
men's relationships with others and so on.
So it came out of an initial concern with how men themselves,
men ourselves are harmed by the kind of gender roles or dominant models,
(07:13):
the influential models of how to be a man.
But in,
in about 2015 or so got taken up in media commentary and now is,
you know,
a very common term.
I don't really like the term because it's too often heard by boys and men as saying,
there's something fundamentally toxic about being a man.
Now that's not what the term means at all.
(07:34):
It's a bit like the phrase toxic food.
We all eat food.
There's lots of great food,
there's delicious food and then there's toxic food food that's gonna poison us food,
that's gonna be bad for us.
And that's how the term toxic masculinity works.
It names one particular version of how to be a man that is toxic,
that is limiting for the boys and men who try to live up to it and limiting for those around them.
(07:59):
So the term toxic masculinity is often used for one particular version of masculinity or how to be a man that's about being dominant,
being top dog,
being emotionally shutdown,
being aggressive,
being in control and so on.
And the claim is,
and I think this is very much a true claim that this model of how to be a man.
(08:19):
First of all,
is limiting for boys and men themselves,
that men and boys who try to live up to that,
that version of masculinity,
they suffer harm.
So,
for example,
if you're a 16 year old guy and you believe that men should always be in control,
men shouldn't ask for help.
In other words,
you know,
you've signed up for toxic masculinity and then your girlfriend leaves you or your parents are separating,
(08:39):
or there's some kind of,
you know,
serious crisis going on.
You're less likely to reach out for help.
You're less likely to tell people you may have less emotional literacy with which to kind of deal with this crisis,
this stress and so on.
You may start feeling suicidal,
you may start feeling depressed and so on.
And that's a kind of perfect example of how this particular version of toxic masculinity gets boys and men ourselves in trouble,
(09:03):
but it also is harmful for other people.
So again,
if you're a 16 year old guy and you believe that,
you know,
guys should always be the ones in control in relationships and girls,
you know,
girls feelings,
girls interests matter less than guys.
Guys should be aggressive.
Guys should respond to challenge with violence.
Guys have an uncontrollable sex drive and so on.
If you believe those ideas,
(09:25):
you're more likely than other guys to use violence against your girlfriend to use violence against other men and so on.
So,
so far,
I've given you two examples where toxic masculinity plays out in limits or harms for boys and men themselves and um harms perpetrated against others against girls and women and against other guys.
(09:46):
So you asked,
how can we work better with young boys?
I'm coming back to this question.
So we certainly need to raise boys and men's awareness of the kind of harms of toxic masculinity.
We may not use that phrase.
Another phrase that's around in Australia is the Man Box and the Man Box is basically a similar idea.
It's the idea that there's this set of expectations about being a man that are narrow,
(10:10):
that are rigid and that constrain us.
They put us in a box and there's been some good research in Australia on young men's conformity to the man box and how it damages them and damages the people around them.
So the first thing we need to do with boys and young men is highlight the harms of the man box.
Highlight how if you do go along with the idea that you always have to be tough,
(10:33):
you always have to be in control,
you have to kind of repress vulnerable emotion that's gonna suck for you.
That's gonna make your friendships and relationships shallower less rich and it's gonna,
you know,
leave you in a vulnerable place.
We also have to um highlight others.
Uh So sensitize others to the harms of the man box so that the people who work with young men,
(10:54):
teachers counselors,
social workers,
police and so on also are aware of that.
But the second thing we have to do with boys and young men is to weaken the kind of cultural grip of the man box.
And one of the ways to weaken the cultural grip of the man box is to point out that lots of young men,
in fact,
don't conform to it.
Lots of young men,
in fact,
are vulnerable,
(11:15):
are sensitive.
Don't agree that men should always be in control or men should be violent and so on.
In other words,
we need to turn up the volume on the diversity um among boys and young men,
you know,
that the fact that there are gay,
um gay young men,
there are trans,
young men,
there are men from,
you know,
all kinds of backgrounds and orientations and so on.
And a key thing to do here is to engage boys and young men in critical conversations about manhood.
(11:42):
What are the lessons they got about being a man from their dad,
from their mates?
What was good about those lessons?
You know,
what was healthy?
What was useful about those lessons and what was bad or limiting?
What do they learn from movies?
What they,
what do they learn from?
You know,
uh I think of uh sexist media influencers like Andrew Tate.
So we need to engage boys and young men in kind of thinking critically and reflectively about messages about manhood.
(12:08):
Um and so on.
The third thing we have to do is promote alternatives,
promote alternatives to the man box or toxic toxic masculinity among boys and young men,
we have to promote healthy equitable ways.
These are being,
being a guy or you know,
being a person,
it's not necessarily tied to masculinity at all.
But we need to put in front of boys and young men,
(12:29):
models of healthy masculinity,
guys who treat the women and girls around them,
the men and boys around them with respect and care,
sporting figures,
musical figures,
political figures,
whoever we can find that we see as positive role models.
We also have to recognize that women can be really powerful and positive influences for boys and young men as well.
It's not only adult men who can be powerful influences on boys and young men.
(12:53):
So we need an alternative vision of a healthy or positive masculinity that is equitable,
that is based on equality.
In other words,
that's feminist.
I would say that's diverse and multiple.
We don't need to replace one man box with another.
We need a diversity of ways of being a man.
And third,
we need to encourage um qualities,
(13:14):
not because there's something intrinsic about being a man that lends itself to those qualities.
We have to encourage healthy,
positive ways of being among boys and men and girls and women at the same time.
Yeah,
and it is a,
it's a long conversation.
It's not a sort of a quick answer.
I know this is the basis of a lot of your research.
Uh How do you think that pornography informs sexual development for young people?
(13:36):
Look,
pornography has become the kind of default sex educator for lots of Children and young people.
And one reason it's become that is because we don't have comprehensive sexuality education.
Certainly in my state in Australia and,
and lots of places in Australia Children and young people don't have good access to age appropriate information about uh about relationships about bodies,
(14:01):
about sexuality and so on.
Too much of,
you know,
for,
for too many Children and young people,
there's either no sexuality education or it's simply the birds and the bees.
It's simply biology and how babies are made or how to avoid disease.
And it's not much about relationships about intimacy,
about love,
about desire,
about sex and so on.
So some young people turn to pornography about for information about,
(14:24):
you know,
the things they want to find out about.
Some young people are exposed to pornography um by accident or unwittingly because of,
you know,
the way pornographic websites work or exposed by,
by other people,
by boyfriends or others and so on.
So pornography has become the default sex educator for lots of young people.
And what's tragic about that is pornography is a very,
(14:44):
very poor sex educator.
Pornography um rarely shows people explicitly negotiating consent about what they'll do or what they won't do rarely shows they have sex.
And what troubles me about pornography above all is that much pornography,
including much mainstream heterosexual pornography,
widely available on websites.
(15:06):
Um Much of that pornography shows violence abuse and degradation.
So large proportions of the clips that are freely available on pornographic websites show either physical or verbal violence.
They show men strangling women,
they show men slapping or hitting women and they also show verbal abuse so that,
(15:27):
you know,
the use of degrading and abuse language.
So large numbers of young people are encountering images of sexuality that I think are deeply sexist that are violent.
Um and that are unrealistic but un the lack of realism is not what concerns me most,
it's more the sexism and violence that I think is so routine in pornography and how that's playing out,
(15:51):
I think is in growing numbers of boys and young men um treating girls and women in the ways they've seen men in pornography treat women.
So for example,
um strangling their partners or expecting or pressuring their partners into practices such as anal sex.
Now there's no problem with anal sex if you want to have anal sex,
great do that.
(16:11):
That's fine.
The problem is not with the practice.
The problem is with pressure to do it or an expectation to do it when you don't want to or when you find it uncomfortable or degrading or whatever.
One thing that pornography is doing in particular is informing some boys and young men's sexual violence,
sexual violence against girls and women.
Now,
most boys and young men don't use sexual violence would never pressure or coerce a girl or woman or a boy or,
(16:35):
or man into sex.
But I think pornography is feeding into sexual violence.
It's not the only thing that shapes sexual violence among young people,
but it's certainly one important risk factor.
Girls and young women look at pornography,
far less than boys and young men.
Far less likely to look at it by themselves,
look at it by themselves and far far less likely to masturbate to it.
(16:56):
Often they're looking at it because a boyfriend wants them to or in a,
in a relationship.
And it also shapes their sense of self,
shapes uh girls and guys body image can mean that girls and young women kind of internalize an expectation to go along with practices that,
that they don't really want or to act in ways that aren't really about their own sexuality that are kind of performing a sexual role for their partners where their own sexual pleasure,
(17:21):
their own sexual desire,
their own sexual interests very much takes second place to what they think their boyfriends want or what their boyfriends are telling them they want.
So I think pornography is a disaster for young people's sexuality.
And one key way to lessen its influence is through comprehensive sexuality education and you know,
(17:42):
sexual health provision through um by teachers,
by external educators and so on.
But also by other measures,
measures like critical media literacy and having curricular on pornography,
not,
not actual pornography,
but having critical discussions about pornography among young people in schools.
And I've worked for example,
with Marie Crabbe on a journal article and other work describing a framework for effective school based education on pornography.
(18:08):
And I see that uh as an important strategy,
a third strategy is regulatory and technological and that's to limit minors,
that is people under 18 minors access to pornography.
And I think that's tricky.
But I think that's a third important stream of strategy.
What role do you think relationships and sexuality education has to play in primary prevention of sexual violence and who is best to deliver this education?
(18:32):
Great question.
I think that relationships and sexuality education has a vital role to play in primary prevention,
particularly in the primary prevention of sexual violence,
sexual coercion,
sexual assault and so on.
And in fact,
there's good evidence that uh young people and university students from different studies that,
that young people exposed to sexuality education to appropriate sexuality education have lower levels of sexual violence perpetration and sexual violence victimization than young people who didn't receive um appropriate sexuality education.
(19:07):
In other words,
sexuality,
sexuality education has a protective role.
And that makes sense.
For example,
if you're,
if you're a young woman and you know,
at in secondary school,
you received good sexuality education.
And part of that was information about coercion about consent,
about setting sexual boundaries,
about recognizing your own sexual interests and desires and being able to express and being able to set limits on what you do.
(19:32):
Then you're more able when you're with a boyfriend or girlfriend or whoever to um explicitly communicate your own wishes for what you want to do or not do to set limits on what you do to negotiate consent,
to recognize coercive and abusive strategies and so on.
So there's good evidence that sexuality education contributes to sexual violence prevention so that you know that there are arguments for sexuality education in terms of its contributions to sexual health and reproductive health and well being.
(20:02):
And I think they are undeniable arguments.
But a further argument for relationships and sexuality education is that it actually contributes to violence prevention.
And again,
you know,
I I'm referring to the scholarship,
there's studies that have shown,
for example that um students who'd received schools based sexuality education had lower levels of sexual assault victimization at university than students who'd gone through abstinence only instruction or no sexuality education.
(20:33):
Now,
who should deliver it?
Good question.
I,
I was a sexual health educator,
as I said with a sexual health and family planning service.
So I used to be part of that model where external community educators go into schools and deliver,
you know,
deliver curricula on sexual health and so on to young people.
And I think there are good reasons for that model.
(20:54):
There's the kind of subject matter expertise that external educators have.
It builds links to community services so that young people are more aware of and more likely to contact those sexual health and family planning services.
It takes pressure off teachers who may um not have the knowledge or the skill or indeed the personal comfort to raise these issues with um students and so on.
(21:16):
However,
there are also arguments for teachers delivering sexuality education in schools,
teachers have ongoing relationships with students.
Those ongoing relationships provide opportunities for students to ask questions,
to check things out,
to raise issues they're concerned about and so on.
Um Having teachers deliver sexuality education uh can make it more likely that that education is comprehensive and sustained that it's not gonna ad hoc one off presentations to classrooms instead it's an ongoing part of school curriculum.
(21:48):
And so I think that in the long term uh sexuality education should be built into school curriculum so that students do maths English relationships education and so on as a as a normal part of the school day and the school week.
However,
I think that schools based comprehensive sexuality education should be complemented by um collaborations with and teaching by um community organizations because of the subject matter expertise,
(22:19):
because of the community links that,
that um work involves,
that's,
that's great and that's what we'd really like to do.
We embed that whole school approach and those messages of body ownership can be introduced so early and be built on right through up until uh someone is graduating and,
and potentially starting to have sexual experiences.
(22:41):
Um Yeah,
that's right.
And I use the phrase age appropriate.
And I think it's a really useful phrase when talking about sexuality education because you know,
if we can explain that to parents what that means,
I think we can kind of um assuage some of those concerns that at least some parents have about um excessively sexually explicit content delivered to younger Children.
(23:02):
Phrasing these things in terms of age appropriate sexuality education helps us to,
you know,
give a sense of how we do that over,
you know,
over children's pathways through school.
Great Michael,
thank you so much.
I'm done.
I don't think there's anything else I know that I could possibly communicate.
Thank you so much to Doctor Michael Flood.
(23:22):
Some key things which really stood out for me in this discussion are men have a vital role in supporting feminism to address inequality.
The phrase toxic masculinity derives from efforts to improve men's health,
toxic masculinity or the man box refers to limited expectations of being a man which can be harmful to men and the people around them.
(23:51):
Young people who are exposed to relationships and sexuality education have lower levels of sexual violence,
perpetration and victimization.
I will put a link to Dr Michael Flood's bio.
You can read more articles from Michael at X Y online dot net.
(24:13):
I'll put a link directly to his content.
Michael mentioned the Man Box by Jesuit Social Services.
Our watch have provided lots of information about addressing gender based violence.
For more information about sexual health victoria,
go to S H vic dot org dot A U.
(24:34):
You can follow us on Instagram,
Facebook or Twitter,
contact me directly at doing it at S H vic dot org dot A U.
Subscribe to the podcast like it if you like it.
Thank you so much for listening.
This podcast is produced on Wurundjeri land.
It contains discussion about adult topics,
use your judgment if there are little years around.
Welcome to Doing IT.
This is a podcast made by the Everybody Education Team at Sexual Health Victoria.
We run a whole lot of education programs for communities and medical professionals across Victoria.
(00:22):
We also run sexual health clinics in the city and Box Hill in Melbourne.
My name is Anne and I'm part of the S H V schools and community team.
We go to schools and run classes for all year levels on bodies growing up puberty,
sex,
reproduction,
consent,
relationships.
This podcast is for parents and carers of school aged Children so we can share what goes on in a relationships and sexuality education class and help support these sorts of conversations at home.
(00:51):
Today,
I will be talking to Dr Michael Flood who is a professor at Queensland University of Technology.
Michael is a prominent voice in the public discourse around engaging men in violence prevention.
Dr Flood has published widely on topics including violence against women and violence prevention,
men and masculinity,
(01:13):
pro feminist men's advocacy,
male heterosexuality,
fathering and pornography listeners will likely be quite familiar with current headlines around gender based violence,
public figures such as Rosie Batty and Grace Tane have used their stories to drive change advocates cite gender inequality and rigid gender stereotyping as key drivers of gender based violence and call for societal change as primary prevention for this kind of violence.
(01:46):
So what might we tell young people in schools about this Professor Michael Flood?
Thank you so much for speaking with me today.
My first question for you is just a bit of an overview.
Can you tell me a bit about the themes of your research and how this led you to be an advocate for healthy masculinity?
(02:07):
Sure.
So look,
um my research is all about uh men masculinity and gender and I've been an academic for a couple of decades before that,
I was a community educator.
In fact,
funnily enough,
I used to be a sexual health educator with sexual health and family planning.
AC T I was also a community educator for the local domestic violence service and rape Crisis center,
(02:30):
legal aid and so on.
I've had a number of involvements as well as uh now being in academia and I do work particularly on the positive roles that men can play in building gender equality and in stopping violence against women.
And as part of that,
I've done work on a range of areas,
I've done work on um men's involvements in fathering.
I've done work on men's health and suicide.
(02:53):
Done work on boys,
young men and pornography and Children and pornography more generally and work on uh sexual and reproductive health.
So I've had,
you know,
so fingers in lots of pies if you like.
But,
but a consistent three theme through my work has been questions of how we raise boys and men,
the messages that boys and men get about being a man.
(03:13):
What's good,
what's bad about those and how we can build healthier,
more equitable lives for boys and men.
Uh What does the word feminism mean to you?
Look,
uh It means an awful lot.
So I,
I'm certainly a passionate advocate for feminism.
I would describe myself as pro feminist.
Um I'm a bit nervous around,
(03:34):
I'm not nervous,
but I'm a bit reluctant to describe myself as a feminist because I,
I think there's an argument for that being a term that women can use.
Um And that women have an understanding of women's experience as women that I can't necessarily access as a man.
But I very much believe that men have a,
a vital and crucial role to play in supporting and advocating for feminism.
(03:57):
And I can come back to that in a minute.
But of course,
the particular issues that feminism focuses on the particular claims that feminism makes have shifted over time.
So one of the most obvious shifts,
for example,
is beginning in about the 19 eighties.
There was a growing attention to intersectionality.
That is to the fact that women's lives are shaped,
(04:19):
not only by gender,
uh shaped,
not only by the meanings given to being a woman and the ways that women's lives are organized as women,
but by other forms of social difference,
other forms of social inequality.
So women's lives are shaped by race and ethnicity,
shaped by class,
shaped by sexuality,
shaped by disability.
And so intersectionality recognizes that women's lives are not all the same.
(04:41):
And increasingly that's been applied to men as well,
that if you're,
you know,
in work with boys and men in a school,
for example,
those young,
those boys and men's lives are shaped not only by how they've been raised as men and the messages they've got about what it means to be a man and so on.
But they're shaped also by their ethnicity,
their class,
background,
their sexuality and so on.
So whether it's a bunch of,
(05:01):
you know,
white,
middle class,
privileged boys from a Melbourne private school or it's a bunch of indigenous boys from a deeply disadvantaged northern territory community inter shapes their lives um in ways to do with disadvantage,
but also to do with privilege.
So that's one I think very powerful example of how feminism has shifted over time.
(05:23):
A real,
a kind of wholesale shift to an intersectional feminist approach.
Um A second shift is uh you know,
debates over,
you know,
all kinds of things over pornography,
over sex work or prostitution over men's violence against women,
over trans issues and so on.
And some of these are areas of heated debate.
(05:43):
There are significant disagreements among different schools of feminism,
different feminist advocates and organizations over how to address these issues.
The term toxic masculinity gets used a lot.
And in my experience working with young people in schools,
um,
this can be jarring to young men in particular who feel like they're in trouble for being male.
So how can we work better with young boys?
(06:06):
Yeah,
look,
the,
the term toxic Maslin is a really interesting one.
So I'll comment on that first and the term really only started being used in a widespread way in about 2015.
And we've had about 40 years of feminist scholarship um including on men and masculinity,
including on how we raise boys on issues of men and fathering and violence and all kinds of things.
(06:29):
And the term toxic maty is simply not part of that scholarship and really only starts appearing in the last,
as I've said,
you know,
um eight or eight or nine years where the term came from is 19 eighties and 19 nineties efforts to improve men's health.
It was people writing about men's mental health,
about men in prison and it was,
(06:51):
it was people writing about how the kind of dominant or common models of how to be a man that men are raised with were actually limiting for men themselves.
Limited men's emotional health,
men's physical health,
men's relationships with others and so on.
So it came out of an initial concern with how men themselves,
men ourselves are harmed by the kind of gender roles or dominant models,
(07:13):
the influential models of how to be a man.
But in,
in about 2015 or so got taken up in media commentary and now is,
you know,
a very common term.
I don't really like the term because it's too often heard by boys and men as saying,
there's something fundamentally toxic about being a man.
Now that's not what the term means at all.
(07:34):
It's a bit like the phrase toxic food.
We all eat food.
There's lots of great food,
there's delicious food and then there's toxic food food that's gonna poison us food,
that's gonna be bad for us.
And that's how the term toxic masculinity works.
It names one particular version of how to be a man that is toxic,
that is limiting for the boys and men who try to live up to it and limiting for those around them.
(07:59):
So the term toxic masculinity is often used for one particular version of masculinity or how to be a man that's about being dominant,
being top dog,
being emotionally shutdown,
being aggressive,
being in control and so on.
And the claim is,
and I think this is very much a true claim that this model of how to be a man.
(08:19):
First of all,
is limiting for boys and men themselves,
that men and boys who try to live up to that,
that version of masculinity,
they suffer harm.
So,
for example,
if you're a 16 year old guy and you believe that men should always be in control,
men shouldn't ask for help.
In other words,
you know,
you've signed up for toxic masculinity and then your girlfriend leaves you or your parents are separating,
(08:39):
or there's some kind of,
you know,
serious crisis going on.
You're less likely to reach out for help.
You're less likely to tell people you may have less emotional literacy with which to kind of deal with this crisis,
this stress and so on.
You may start feeling suicidal,
you may start feeling depressed and so on.
And that's a kind of perfect example of how this particular version of toxic masculinity gets boys and men ourselves in trouble,
(09:03):
but it also is harmful for other people.
So again,
if you're a 16 year old guy and you believe that,
you know,
guys should always be the ones in control in relationships and girls,
you know,
girls feelings,
girls interests matter less than guys.
Guys should be aggressive.
Guys should respond to challenge with violence.
Guys have an uncontrollable sex drive and so on.
If you believe those ideas,
(09:25):
you're more likely than other guys to use violence against your girlfriend to use violence against other men and so on.
So,
so far,
I've given you two examples where toxic masculinity plays out in limits or harms for boys and men themselves and um harms perpetrated against others against girls and women and against other guys.
(09:46):
So you asked,
how can we work better with young boys?
I'm coming back to this question.
So we certainly need to raise boys and men's awareness of the kind of harms of toxic masculinity.
We may not use that phrase.
Another phrase that's around in Australia is the Man Box and the Man Box is basically a similar idea.
It's the idea that there's this set of expectations about being a man that are narrow,
(10:10):
that are rigid and that constrain us.
They put us in a box and there's been some good research in Australia on young men's conformity to the man box and how it damages them and damages the people around them.
So the first thing we need to do with boys and young men is highlight the harms of the man box.
Highlight how if you do go along with the idea that you always have to be tough,
(10:33):
you always have to be in control,
you have to kind of repress vulnerable emotion that's gonna suck for you.
That's gonna make your friendships and relationships shallower less rich and it's gonna,
you know,
leave you in a vulnerable place.
We also have to um highlight others.
Uh So sensitize others to the harms of the man box so that the people who work with young men,
(10:54):
teachers counselors,
social workers,
police and so on also are aware of that.
But the second thing we have to do with boys and young men is to weaken the kind of cultural grip of the man box.
And one of the ways to weaken the cultural grip of the man box is to point out that lots of young men,
in fact,
don't conform to it.
Lots of young men,
in fact,
are vulnerable,
(11:15):
are sensitive.
Don't agree that men should always be in control or men should be violent and so on.
In other words,
we need to turn up the volume on the diversity um among boys and young men,
you know,
that the fact that there are gay,
um gay young men,
there are trans,
young men,
there are men from,
you know,
all kinds of backgrounds and orientations and so on.
And a key thing to do here is to engage boys and young men in critical conversations about manhood.
(11:42):
What are the lessons they got about being a man from their dad,
from their mates?
What was good about those lessons?
You know,
what was healthy?
What was useful about those lessons and what was bad or limiting?
What do they learn from movies?
What they,
what do they learn from?
You know,
uh I think of uh sexist media influencers like Andrew Tate.
So we need to engage boys and young men in kind of thinking critically and reflectively about messages about manhood.
(12:08):
Um and so on.
The third thing we have to do is promote alternatives,
promote alternatives to the man box or toxic toxic masculinity among boys and young men,
we have to promote healthy equitable ways.
These are being,
being a guy or you know,
being a person,
it's not necessarily tied to masculinity at all.
But we need to put in front of boys and young men,
(12:29):
models of healthy masculinity,
guys who treat the women and girls around them,
the men and boys around them with respect and care,
sporting figures,
musical figures,
political figures,
whoever we can find that we see as positive role models.
We also have to recognize that women can be really powerful and positive influences for boys and young men as well.
It's not only adult men who can be powerful influences on boys and young men.
(12:53):
So we need an alternative vision of a healthy or positive masculinity that is equitable,
that is based on equality.
In other words,
that's feminist.
I would say that's diverse and multiple.
We don't need to replace one man box with another.
We need a diversity of ways of being a man.
And third,
we need to encourage um qualities,
(13:14):
not because there's something intrinsic about being a man that lends itself to those qualities.
We have to encourage healthy,
positive ways of being among boys and men and girls and women at the same time.
Yeah,
and it is a,
it's a long conversation.
It's not a sort of a quick answer.
I know this is the basis of a lot of your research.
Uh How do you think that pornography informs sexual development for young people?
(13:36):
Look,
pornography has become the kind of default sex educator for lots of Children and young people.
And one reason it's become that is because we don't have comprehensive sexuality education.
Certainly in my state in Australia and,
and lots of places in Australia Children and young people don't have good access to age appropriate information about uh about relationships about bodies,
(14:01):
about sexuality and so on.
Too much of,
you know,
for,
for too many Children and young people,
there's either no sexuality education or it's simply the birds and the bees.
It's simply biology and how babies are made or how to avoid disease.
And it's not much about relationships about intimacy,
about love,
about desire,
about sex and so on.
So some young people turn to pornography about for information about,
(14:24):
you know,
the things they want to find out about.
Some young people are exposed to pornography um by accident or unwittingly because of,
you know,
the way pornographic websites work or exposed by,
by other people,
by boyfriends or others and so on.
So pornography has become the default sex educator for lots of young people.
And what's tragic about that is pornography is a very,
(14:44):
very poor sex educator.
Pornography um rarely shows people explicitly negotiating consent about what they'll do or what they won't do rarely shows they have sex.
And what troubles me about pornography above all is that much pornography,
including much mainstream heterosexual pornography,
widely available on websites.
(15:06):
Um Much of that pornography shows violence abuse and degradation.
So large proportions of the clips that are freely available on pornographic websites show either physical or verbal violence.
They show men strangling women,
they show men slapping or hitting women and they also show verbal abuse so that,
(15:27):
you know,
the use of degrading and abuse language.
So large numbers of young people are encountering images of sexuality that I think are deeply sexist that are violent.
Um and that are unrealistic but un the lack of realism is not what concerns me most,
it's more the sexism and violence that I think is so routine in pornography and how that's playing out,
(15:51):
I think is in growing numbers of boys and young men um treating girls and women in the ways they've seen men in pornography treat women.
So for example,
um strangling their partners or expecting or pressuring their partners into practices such as anal sex.
Now there's no problem with anal sex if you want to have anal sex,
great do that.
(16:11):
That's fine.
The problem is not with the practice.
The problem is with pressure to do it or an expectation to do it when you don't want to or when you find it uncomfortable or degrading or whatever.
One thing that pornography is doing in particular is informing some boys and young men's sexual violence,
sexual violence against girls and women.
Now,
most boys and young men don't use sexual violence would never pressure or coerce a girl or woman or a boy or,
(16:35):
or man into sex.
But I think pornography is feeding into sexual violence.
It's not the only thing that shapes sexual violence among young people,
but it's certainly one important risk factor.
Girls and young women look at pornography,
far less than boys and young men.
Far less likely to look at it by themselves,
look at it by themselves and far far less likely to masturbate to it.
(16:56):
Often they're looking at it because a boyfriend wants them to or in a,
in a relationship.
And it also shapes their sense of self,
shapes uh girls and guys body image can mean that girls and young women kind of internalize an expectation to go along with practices that,
that they don't really want or to act in ways that aren't really about their own sexuality that are kind of performing a sexual role for their partners where their own sexual pleasure,
(17:21):
their own sexual desire,
their own sexual interests very much takes second place to what they think their boyfriends want or what their boyfriends are telling them they want.
So I think pornography is a disaster for young people's sexuality.
And one key way to lessen its influence is through comprehensive sexuality education and you know,
(17:42):
sexual health provision through um by teachers,
by external educators and so on.
But also by other measures,
measures like critical media literacy and having curricular on pornography,
not,
not actual pornography,
but having critical discussions about pornography among young people in schools.
And I've worked for example,
with Marie Crabbe on a journal article and other work describing a framework for effective school based education on pornography.
(18:08):
And I see that uh as an important strategy,
a third strategy is regulatory and technological and that's to limit minors,
that is people under 18 minors access to pornography.
And I think that's tricky.
But I think that's a third important stream of strategy.
What role do you think relationships and sexuality education has to play in primary prevention of sexual violence and who is best to deliver this education?
(18:32):
Great question.
I think that relationships and sexuality education has a vital role to play in primary prevention,
particularly in the primary prevention of sexual violence,
sexual coercion,
sexual assault and so on.
And in fact,
there's good evidence that uh young people and university students from different studies that,
that young people exposed to sexuality education to appropriate sexuality education have lower levels of sexual violence perpetration and sexual violence victimization than young people who didn't receive um appropriate sexuality education.
(19:07):
In other words,
sexuality,
sexuality education has a protective role.
And that makes sense.
For example,
if you're,
if you're a young woman and you know,
at in secondary school,
you received good sexuality education.
And part of that was information about coercion about consent,
about setting sexual boundaries,
about recognizing your own sexual interests and desires and being able to express and being able to set limits on what you do.
(19:32):
Then you're more able when you're with a boyfriend or girlfriend or whoever to um explicitly communicate your own wishes for what you want to do or not do to set limits on what you do to negotiate consent,
to recognize coercive and abusive strategies and so on.
So there's good evidence that sexuality education contributes to sexual violence prevention so that you know that there are arguments for sexuality education in terms of its contributions to sexual health and reproductive health and well being.
(20:02):
And I think they are undeniable arguments.
But a further argument for relationships and sexuality education is that it actually contributes to violence prevention.
And again,
you know,
I I'm referring to the scholarship,
there's studies that have shown,
for example that um students who'd received schools based sexuality education had lower levels of sexual assault victimization at university than students who'd gone through abstinence only instruction or no sexuality education.
(20:33):
Now,
who should deliver it?
Good question.
I,
I was a sexual health educator,
as I said with a sexual health and family planning service.
So I used to be part of that model where external community educators go into schools and deliver,
you know,
deliver curricula on sexual health and so on to young people.
And I think there are good reasons for that model.
(20:54):
There's the kind of subject matter expertise that external educators have.
It builds links to community services so that young people are more aware of and more likely to contact those sexual health and family planning services.
It takes pressure off teachers who may um not have the knowledge or the skill or indeed the personal comfort to raise these issues with um students and so on.
(21:16):
However,
there are also arguments for teachers delivering sexuality education in schools,
teachers have ongoing relationships with students.
Those ongoing relationships provide opportunities for students to ask questions,
to check things out,
to raise issues they're concerned about and so on.
Um Having teachers deliver sexuality education uh can make it more likely that that education is comprehensive and sustained that it's not gonna ad hoc one off presentations to classrooms instead it's an ongoing part of school curriculum.
(21:48):
And so I think that in the long term uh sexuality education should be built into school curriculum so that students do maths English relationships education and so on as a as a normal part of the school day and the school week.
However,
I think that schools based comprehensive sexuality education should be complemented by um collaborations with and teaching by um community organizations because of the subject matter expertise,
(22:19):
because of the community links that,
that um work involves,
that's,
that's great and that's what we'd really like to do.
We embed that whole school approach and those messages of body ownership can be introduced so early and be built on right through up until uh someone is graduating and,
and potentially starting to have sexual experiences.
(22:41):
Um Yeah,
that's right.
And I use the phrase age appropriate.
And I think it's a really useful phrase when talking about sexuality education because you know,
if we can explain that to parents what that means,
I think we can kind of um assuage some of those concerns that at least some parents have about um excessively sexually explicit content delivered to younger Children.
(23:02):
Phrasing these things in terms of age appropriate sexuality education helps us to,
you know,
give a sense of how we do that over,
you know,
over children's pathways through school.
Great Michael,
thank you so much.
I'm done.
I don't think there's anything else I know that I could possibly communicate.
Thank you so much to Doctor Michael Flood.
(23:22):
Some key things which really stood out for me in this discussion are men have a vital role in supporting feminism to address inequality.
The phrase toxic masculinity derives from efforts to improve men's health,
toxic masculinity or the man box refers to limited expectations of being a man which can be harmful to men and the people around them.
(23:51):
Young people who are exposed to relationships and sexuality education have lower levels of sexual violence,
perpetration and victimization.
I will put a link to Dr Michael Flood's bio.
You can read more articles from Michael at X Y online dot net.
(24:13):
I'll put a link directly to his content.
Michael mentioned the Man Box by Jesuit Social Services.
Our watch have provided lots of information about addressing gender based violence.
For more information about sexual health victoria,
go to S H vic dot org dot A U.
(24:34):
You can follow us on Instagram,
Facebook or Twitter,
contact me directly at doing it at S H vic dot org dot A U.
Subscribe to the podcast like it if you like it.
Thank you so much for listening.
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