Despite the decades-long drumbeat for gender equity, young American men still feel strong social pressure to adhere to traditional male roles to be tough, sexually aggressive and controlling, even though most personally don’t believe in the tenets of old-style masculinity. This disconnect between how they feel they should act and how they say they want to act leaves many young males at sea.
“Most young men believe that women are their equals,” Gary Barker, president and CEO of Promundo, an international organization working with boys and men that today released a report, “Man Box: A Study on Being a Man in the U.S., the U.K. and Mexico.” “It’s other parts of manhood — the toughness, the emotional straitjacket, the need to be a rugged individualist — that continue to thrive because we still hold those values up as what males should live up to.”
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