A damaging masculine mask

I've just seen The Mask You Live In from The Representation Project, which asks people to "challenge society's limiting representations of gender". The film was about boys and men in the United States getting into social groups and habits that mean they struggle to share emotions. It argued this linked to video game addiction, objectification of women, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide and mass shootings (I hadn't realised just how these are accelerating in the US). The psychologists, sociologists, interviewees and their mentors made a lot of thought provoking comments, for example:

• US (and I guess therefore anglophone) culture links strong men with economic success, sexual prowess and excellence in competitive sports - and I can imagine the same criteria could be generally true, from ancient Greece onward.
• Gangs can form from a very early age, with preschoolers creating male-only clubs with hierarchy, rules and punishments for their infringement. This linked to fraternity house initiation culture where you don't rat on your mates even if you know what they're doing is wrong.  It also reminded me of the distinctive characteristics of US prison gangs spoken about by David Skarbek on Thinking Allowed earlier this year.
• A group of young men asked to write keywords on the outside versus the inside of a mask consistently put anger and pain as things they kept hidden. But guilt and shame, exacerbated by their superiors and bullies, were cited as key emotions underlying the chronic rates of suicide and often untreated depression.
• The film spoke of the frustration and anger of disenfranchised young men arising not from failure, loss or being genuinely wronged. Instead, it came from an aggrieved sense of entitlement, created in part by marketing and popular culture presenting a world of success, happiness and prosperity that in reality only a few achieve.
• Easier to sympathise with, though, was another point that emerged about the gap between between received expectations and internal feelings. That dissonance causes negative moods, which there's then no one to talk to about when your peers are all wearing their "act like a man" masks too.
• The conclusion urged men to be a positive influence on boys - as fathers, sports coaches or whatever - encouraging individual self-expression instead of using bullying and humiliation to raise performance.

In a panel discussion after the film, there was a telling show of hands about who didn't figuratively wear a mask in public (zero). I guess we all have to create our public ego from our cultural context, but the problem is when a masculine identity leads to harm (to others or ourselves), or when it creates injustice. 

I do wonder if gender (along with race and sexuality) is becoming more important to our egos. Previously used identifiers - like our occupation, or standing in our village, street or faith group - become less stable or important. The film made me think again about the negative effects of video games too - spending hours role-playing an assassin or soldier; they are a lot more realistic and immersive than when I played Elite and Baldur's Gate... The discussion also helped me to recognise that young people today may be more image conscious - thinking of how portraits now appear by text and Facebook messages on smartphones, for example.

I was surprised that in the discussion one of the panel from Leeds Beckett discounted biology or genes in gender role determination though. The panel also undermined an argument that sport can be cooperative and positive, by one young speaker saying that it's an acceptable release valve for aggression.

So under biological determinism, the masculine criteria above can be rephrased. Wealth demonstrates access to resources and sports demonstrates health, strength and ability to physically overcome competitors. These then support the actual biological imperative that underlies these and the sex drive: to successfully pass on your genes. 

A more scientific explanation of issues with in masculinity in the modern world was also given in the Economist on manhood earlier this year. A striking line of reasoning in there used something like game theory to explain how small demographic shifts can have a big impact on family stability. If men and women expect a man in a stable job to provide for the family, but there aren't quite enough men that fit that bill, then employed men have more opportunity to cheat, causing a domino effect that cascades through previously stable relationships.

It therefore seems naive to think that cultural pressure for boys and men to be more emotionally expressive and empathic will change fundamental characteristics of male identity. I don't believe men need to feminise themselves to resist harmful and patriarchal ultra-masculinity. This runs parallel to women's liberation and the struggle toward equality not meaning that women need to become like men, 

But there do need to be changes in this country as well as the United States, even if mass shootings are rarer here. Thinking of Kirsty Wark's Blurred Lines TV program last year, the hurtful anti-feminist backlash from a certain chunk of the population shames us all.