Toxic masculinity doesn’t stop at marginalising women and LGBTQ+ people. It harms straight men by discouraging emotional expression, tenderness, and connection.
As the TV show Adolescence demonstrated, the troubling anxiety and rage surrounding what it means to “be a man” can arise early in life. What Adolescence also reminds us, though, is that framing boys as potential threats is not the way to go.
So how do we reach boys before they radicalise in dangerous ways? How can we do this without reducing them to stereotypes?
