For more than a decade, an all-boys school in Melbourne's leafy south-east has worked to create a program to develop its students into "respectful men".
Brighton Grammar School's positive masculinity program, +M, has been developed with mental health experts and was designed to shape perceptions of manhood.
Most recently, the school has worked with American-based researcher and director of the California State University's Centre for Men and Boys Matt Englar-Carlson.
Dr Englar-Carlson said there were a lot of buzzwords around masculinity, but the movement was focused around "healthy and adaptive" elements that needed to be cultivated in boys.
"I want to understand how we can help men be healthier and happier, and essentially improve the lives of everyone around them, including himself," Dr Englar-Carlson said.
He said it was a challenging space to work in as society tended to gravitate to what men were doing wrong.
"[I] began to wonder what men are doing right, can there be a beacon, or can there be a pathway that can help them understand who they want to be in a very healthy, pro-social manner," Dr Englar-Carlson said.
"We kind of do masculinity, we don’t really talk about it."
A safe space
One of the main concerns, according to Dr Englar-Carlson, was creating spaces where boys could be vulnerable.
"And my experience has been that unless you've been in a therapy group, or maybe you've been in therapy, you don't sit around with your mates and talk about what it means to be a man," he said.
Brighton Grammar School principal Ross Featherston said in his experience, boys generally wanted to talk about what it meant to be a man.
"Some of the conversations you have with 13 and 14-year-old boys, they’re really profound," Mr Featherson said.
"I think we've got to provide more opportunities for kids to talk about it."
Look beyond the binary
Monash University's Brittany Ralph researches positive changes in masculinity to better understand what cultural drivers are most likely to see men engage in emotional and physical intimacy with their friends.
The education research associate says while positive masculinity programs have been helping create spaces for boys to engage with their feelings, more could be done.
"When it comes to being a man in today's society, there's an idea that men are unable to engage in these traits that we consider feminine, and that's part of a larger problem that we judge a person's actions or choices or behaviours based on their gender," Dr Ralph said.
"So what needs to happen is this decoupling of masculine and feminine norms from particular bodies, and a move towards allowing people to be whatever they want to be in a particular moment, as long as it isn't causing harm."
Dr Ralph says all levels of society need to examine how gendered stereotypes are projected.
Masculinity has previously justified men's dominant position in society and, according to Dr Ralph, this is now being challenged with women in the workforce and dual household breadwinners.
She says men might feel this is "pulling the rug" out from underneath their traditional role.
"And the reason [men] feel uncomfortable is because it's muddied water around what your role in society is," she said.
"The next logical step is to emancipate men from their role and say, 'Look, you're more than just someone who can provide money to a family.'"
