#stephen frosh

[breakingtheboycode]

The tendency of many intervention projects to focus on boys on their own and to offer mainly conventional ‘male’ activities such as sports, has an obvious rationale in building group solidarity and indeed making the projects acceptable to boys, but our view is that too much emphasis on what are taken to be ‘natural’ boys’ activities feeds into the discourse of a narrowly exclusionary ‘hegemonic’ masculinity and thus makes the construction of alternatives more difficult.

[…]

The idea that boys’ ‘excess energy’ should be channeled into boyish things like sport and military or outward-bound schemes misses the point that, on their own, these are exactly the kind of ‘hard’ activities which support the construction of the narrow mode of masculinity which is itself a large part of the ‘problem’ of boys. [We argue] for a broadening of boys work (in line with some contemporary projects) to confront the assumption that real boys only do hard things.

While we are critical of the emphasis placed on boys-only activities of ways of ‘taming’ their supposedly wild nature, equally we are concerned about the tendency to problematize boys in boys-only groups. […] We suggest that by encouraging boys to talk about themselves and their relations in single-sex groups, close and supportive relations with other boys can be forged.

Stephen Frosh, Young Masculinities

[breakingtheboycode]

There was evidence in some of the interviews that boys appreciated the ways in which the very narrow lines drawn around acceptable masculinities constricted their lives. [...] This sometimes took the form of regretting the barriers imposed between boys by the fear of appearing gay. However, it also found expression in feelings of resentment about girls ‘having it better’ than boys, for example for being liked by teachers or for having available to them a wider range of possibilities.

Andy: There’s a boy in my class really, and he says he’s like, like [inaudible] likes Barbie dolls. RP: A boy in your class? Danny: Yeah. [Laughter] He said he likes Barbie dolls and then all the girls started laughing and then he said, um, ‘What’s the difference? An Action Man is a Barbie doll,’ but it’s different, it’s different. RP: And was it just girls that teased him? Jim: No. Girls and boys teased him. ‘Oh my God, you play with Barbie dolls!’[noisy laughter] Rob: ‘You’re queer.’ Danny: ‘You're poof.’ RP: Is that what happens? Do some boys get called poof then? Jim: Yeah, they get called gay and things like that. Rob: Yeah, if boys do something that girls do, it’s considered wrong, but girls are doing everything now, short hair, wearing trousers, everything like that. Playing football. And you don’t call ‘em nothing.

[...]

What seems to be going on in this episode is rather mixed. In part, the boys are lamenting the greater flexibility available to girls, who can transgress gender roles with less fear than can boys. On the other hand, it is clear from the mockery directed towards the boy who likes Barbies that they are still mainly exercised by the need to confirm established gender behaviours and would not wish to be thought of themselves as having this peculiar interest. [...] When it comes down to it—when dolls and babies are really in the frame—the boys back away, worried about feminisation and the accusation of homosexuality.

Stephen Frosh, Young Masculinities

[breakingtheboycode]

The complexity of the negotiations boys make in order to be able to survive at school demonstrates that debates on boys and education have to take note of the difficulties posed by canonical narratives of masculinities within school cultures. Far from being mindless in engaging with 'lads' culture,' many boys struggled to manage the contradictions they faced in order to gain some qualifications at school.

Stephen Frosh, Young Masculinities

[breakingtheboycode]

We have focused on what researchers refer to as the policing of boys’ identities, on the limitations this imposes on all boys and the particular anxieties experienced by boys labelled as gay and/or effeminate. We examined ways of constructing girls which underpinned boys’ investments in homophobic practices. Recent research on the ways boys police themselves has tended to make links only between misogyny and homophobia, pointing out that those boys who are called gay are constructed as effeminate and consequently denigrated for being weak, unsporty, and so on. We found, however, that homophobia entailed idealization as well as denigration of femininity. Many boys said that they liked girls precisely because they were construed as close and affectionate in contrast to insensitive, detached boys, yet by splitting girls and boys in this way, they themselves could not experience the closeness, sensitivity and seriousness they attributed to girls.

Recognizing that homophobia is linked to the idealization and not just the denigration of girls has important implications in relation to anti-homophobic educational practices with boys. As we have seen, this idealization is linked to dissatisfaction with other boys. Our findings suggest that anti-homophobic practices can be developed which aim at addressing the self-interest of boys, as it were, focusing on the costs of them being homophobic, rather than simply problematizing them for this and for being mysogynistic.

This does not mean that boys’ homophobia, sexism and disruptive behaviour should be tolerated. On the contrary, we would argue for a stronger response to it and less tolerance—including less tolerance of the legitimation of homophobia by teachers, which some boys reported occuring. But simply blaming blaming boys for being homophobic and mysogynistic is likely to be counterproductive. Many boys we spoke to were concerned about being seen as less mature, responsible and clever than girls by teachers, parents and girls themselves. This gave rise to much resentment, and seemed to make them more inclined to ridicule and deride attributes which they associated with femininity, asserting their perceived superiority as physically and emotionally tough, hard and active boys. Schools need to address homophobia and boys’ investments in this, by helping them to value the sorts of characteristics and ways of relating which they commonly deride (though also idealize) as feminine. This presupposes being less didactic and authoritarian, and developing the sorts of relationships which validate boys and encourage them to feel valued.

Stephen Frosh, Young Masculinities

[breakingtheboycode]

Jokey cussing was common among boys and constitutes, in part, an acceptable way for boys to express affection. But this has costs. While boys reported enjoying having a laugh with other boys, many boys found other boys’ laughter inhibiting. In the case of jokey cussing about being gay, this was a term which was not ‘just’ used in an arbitrary way, like any swear word, but also on occasions when boys and men were seen as being too close to each other and/or as too effeminate. This was in spite of seeing them as not really gay—it was more like they were being warned off going too far along the ‘non-masculine’ route.This kind of joking may have been significant in relation to the ways many boys bonded with each other, but it also helped to police boys, reminding them of the unacceptability of close relations between boys and men, as well as making it difficult for them to be serious with each other.

Stephen Frosh, Young Masculinities

[breakingtheboycode]

Research has suggested that popular masculine identities are produced through homophobic performances. For example, working within this framework, Nayak and Kehily analyze boys’ homophobia as performances through which boys give substance to masculinity as well as constructing themselves as masculine. That is, boys’ homophobia is seen as a set of activities through which they publicly and repetitively assert their ‘normal’ masculinity through heterosexuality.

Concomitantly, because of its status as ‘not masculine,’ homosexuality is associated with femininity and the construction of masculinity is partially underpinned by projecting this ‘femininity’ onto particular boys who are singled out as gay or not sufficiently masculine. Kayak and Kehily suggest that the compulsive and repetitive way in which boys assert their masculinities through homophobia implies just how fragile and precarious these identities are. As Butler observes, ‘crafting a sexual position ... always involves becoming haunted by what's excluded. And the more rigid the position the greater the ghost, and the more threatening it is in some way.’ Boys’ homophobic performances may thus be understood as ways of shoring up their masculinities by constructing the feminine other as an ever-present threat.

Stephen Frosh, Young Masculinities

[breakingtheboycode]

Teachers were not considered to provide identificatory models. Many of the boys in the study expressed resentment against what they perceived to be teachers’ preference for, and favouritism to, girls.

Stephen Frosh, “The trouble with boys,” The Psychologist

[linkinparkvevo]

[...] the turn of capitalism to Western-style racism is driven by its own power to disrupt the personality, to place selfhood and identity under threat.

Stephen Frosh, For and Against Psychoanalysis (1997)