Opinion: the 'failure' to embody the ideals of modern masculinity can often produce a sense of anxiety and crisis in young men
By Loic Wright, UCD
Recent discussions around masculinities in Ireland have called for a reappraisal of how we measure manhood and how we construct models of masculinity to which young men aspire. Rather than referring to masculinity in the singular form, more discussions on gender equality are referring to masculinities in the plural form, acknowledging the diversity of forms of manhood. This is also to acknowledge that masculinities are shaped by the varied cultures in which they appear.
In essence, our perception of masculinity is often constructed in the media or within a culture that promotes certain ideal versions of manhood. That is to say that there are dominant forms of masculinity in each social sphere. For example, a Dublin-based rugby-playing school will often see a hierarchy of masculinity based around adeptly playing rugby and being in the school's top team.
Meanwhile, rural schools might focus more on the male role in a local GAA or football club, and will consequently create their own hierarchies of manhood. The senior cup team captain from a Dublin rugby school, therefore, will not feature as prominently in a rural GAA school’s hierarchy and is unlikely to receive the same masculine status as in his Dublin counterpart.
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The hierarchies fabricated in each social circle are often just that: a fabrication, as demonstrated in Sally Rooney’s successful novel Normal People (2018) and its equally auspicious BBC/Hulu television adaptation (2020). When the character of Connell Waldron, a rural secondary school’s GAA team hero, moves to Trinity College Dublin, the new constructions of masculinity in the university—based around metropolitan, artistic social groups—alienate and isolate him. In contrast to his position atop the masculine totem pole in his secondary school, Connell is no longer at the top of the local hierarchy in Dublin, causing further pain and confusion.
The 'failure’ to embody the ideals of modern masculinity can often produce a sense of anxiety and crisis in young men. For dismantling rigid models of masculinity, discussion and self-reflection on our perceptions of masculinity, as well as an acknowledgment of how varied masculinities can be of paramount importance. Considering this, Normal People has been rightly praised for initiating a further conversation around masculinity in Ireland today.
There can often be a general unwillingness to discuss masculinity as well as a tendency to treat masculinity as innate, or "just the way it is," rather than addressing how variable masculinities can be and how they are built by cultural forces. Recently, however, growing concerns over masculinities, and oft-termed ‘toxic masculinity’ have sought to initiate discussions around our understandings of masculinity.
Conversations around this topic have been broached from myriad perspectives in recent years. Between 1995 and 1997, the Department of Education and Science (DES) and the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) developed and subsequently piloted the "Exploring Masculinities" programme across a group of select schools in Ireland.
The programme was partly designed in response to previous surveys and research into single-sex male education. Among the programme’s findings was a concern that young men in these settings "equate superior masculinity with various forms of physical prowess, sport, and strength; report a strong peer code about height, body size, and sporting prowess; with boys who were small for their age, of thin build, or overweight being negatively sanctioned by their peers through jokes, teasing and bullying" (Mac an Ghaill et al. 6).
The establishment of the programme does evidently point to contemporaneous concerns over the state of Irish masculinities based on exclusion and hierarchical power dynamics. Moreover, social narratives that prompted the programme were based in a need to instigate ongoing discussions around how masculinities are constructed, and how these constructions of masculinities are based on power, discrimination, prejudice.
On the Late Late Show in 2016, Blindboy Boatclub convincingly argued that young Irish men need feminism to help dismantle "patriarchal attitudes" that are no longer relevant to men in the 21st century. Indeed, these attitudes—including a need to be the breadwinner, emotionless, and aggressive—when upheld as crucial components of ‘real’ masculinity, can undermine younger and older men’s feelings of their masculine, and therefore, overall worth. Where some rigid perceptions of masculinity are being softened, there are still remnants of our expectations of manhood to conform to certain types and models.
Similarly, in 2016, an Irish Times roundtable discussion entitled "How to be a Man" explored the experience of seven men of different ages, backgrounds, and sexual orientations in order to deconstruct boundaries of masculinity in Ireland. In launching the ‘SHARE’ platform, former footballer Richie Sadlier has instigated crucial discussions around young men and their understanding of sex and consent.
Psychologist Dr. Elaine Byrne has hosted online events aimed at opening discussions with men about their attitudes towards key sexual and relationship issues. Niall Breslin (Bressie) has also been instrumental in opening up discussions around mental health and addressing the barrier for young men to healthily articulate their feelings. In 2020, a Public Consultation by the Citizen's Assembly on Gender Equality also researched the wider public’s social attitudes to gender roles in Ireland, seeking to open a large-scale discussion into our perceptions of what we expect from men and women in society.
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There is evidently a growing, multi-pronged social movement aimed at loosening our understandings of how men should be in Ireland. As evidenced by the crucial work of Byrne, Breslin, and Sadlier, the most important, and at times more difficult step is instigating the conversation and reflecting on what forms of masculinity we see around us.
Loic Wright is aPhD Researcher at the School of English, Drama, Film, and Creative Writing at UCD. He is an Irish Research Council awardee.
The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
