MenAreGood
Teen Violence - When Ideology Trumps Data - 3 Bias Against Men and Boys in Psychological Research
April 15, 2023

 

A friend emailed me a link a couple of months ago to an article from Great Britain about teen violence. The friend was worried that the article was biased against boys. Here’s how it started:

  • Teenage boys were urged not to violently abuse their girlfriends in a new Government campaign launched today.
  • TV, radio, internet and poster ads will target young males aged 13 to 18 in an attempt to show the consequences of abusive relationships. It is part of a wider effort by ministers to cut domestic violence against both women and younger girls.
  • Research published last year by the NSPCC found a quarter of teenage girls said they had been physically abused by their boyfriends.
  • One in six said they had been pressured into sex and one in three said they had gone further sexually than they had wanted to.

I was a bit taken back by the article considering the recent research on teen violence which has been finding that relationship violence in teens is fairly symmetrical with both boys and girls being perpetrators and victims. This article was offering a very different perspective from the studies I had been seeing. It was clearly assuming that the girls were the primary victims and the boys the primary perpetrators which reflects an archaic and outdated stereotype about domestic violence. It made me wonder exactly what was happening. I read several more articles online about the ad campaign mentioned in the first article and was shocked to see that the focus of the campaign was indeed solely to help girls and to “teach” boys about not abusing their girlfriends.

In each of the articles there was a reference to the research findings that drove the ad campaign. I decided to go back to the source and see what the original research had found.

The original study was sponsored by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) of Great Britain and was in two parts. The first part was the “full report” and was a detailed 209 page research report explaining methodology, results, implications and conclusions. The next was the Executive Summary which was a 10 page summation of the findings of the full report. It was a quick read meant to give people the essence of the larger document. I read through the “full report” and then the executive summary. It was striking to me that the data in the full report actually showed that boys were victims of teen violence. The original news article I had read had mentioned that the research had found that 25% of girls said they had been physically abused by their boyfriends. What the news article omitted saying was that the same research had also found that 18% of boys had said that they had been physically abused by their girlfriends. This meant that this research found that almost half of the victims of teen relationship violence were boys! Somehow this important fact had been omitted from the news report.

There were plenty of other headlines that could have been drawn from the data of the full report that showed the boys to have been victims and the girls perpetrators but they were nowhere to be seen in any of the news articles. Here are a couple of examples of headlines that could be written from the data of the full report:

  • 25% of those reporting physically forcing their partners into having sexual intercourse were girls – Table 15 page 82 full report
  • Nearly three times as many girls reported using SEVERE violence in relationships. table 11 – page 75 full report
  • Over three times as many girls reported using partner violence in their relationships table 10 page 74 full report
  • Over 1/3 of those reporting being pressured into kissing, touching or something else were boys. table 6 page 66 full report–
  • Nearly half (42%) of the victims of teen relationship violence were boys 
Table 3 page 44 full report
  • Nearly one third of the victims of severe violence were boys
Table 4 page 45 full report
  • Twice as many girls reported physically forcing their partners into “kissing, touching, or something else” more than a few times. Table 13 page 82 full report

This is just a sampling of the sorts of findings in the full report. It is obvious that their survey clearly indicated that teen relationship violence was not gender based and both the victims and the perpetrators were both boys and girls. However, what I found after reading both the full report and the executive summary was that the full report had data that showed boys to be victims and girls to be perpetrators but the executive summary seemed to have considerably less information about male victims and female perpetrators. In fact the executive summary seemed to focus more on female victims and male perpetrators.

I found myself wondering how this transition could take place. Boys were shown to be victims in the original study, often not in as great a number as the girls but victims all the same. Generally the boys comprised about 25-42% of the victims. Certainly not the majority but also not a small number that could be ignored. But ignore them they did!

The NSPCC introduced this research to the media via a press release. We can see the same tendency of moving away from focusing on boys when looking at the words in the press release. What started in the full report as an apparently egalitarian look into teen relationship violence progressively looked less so in the Executive Summary and now with the press release it looks to have moved one more step towards focusing solely on girls. Here’s the opening of the press release. Note the focus on “girls only” in both the headline and the first paragraphs:

Teen girls abused by boyfriends warns NSPCC
Press releases
01 September 2009
A third of teenage girls in a relationship suffer unwanted sexual acts and a quarter physical violence, reveals new research(1) launched today (01 September 2009) by the NSPCC(2) and the University of Bristol(3).


The survey of 13 to 17-year-olds found that nearly nine out of ten girls had been in an intimate relationship. Of these, one in six said they had been pressured into sexual intercourse and 1 in 16 said they had been raped. Others had been pressured or forced to kiss or sexually touch.


A quarter of girls had suffered physical violence such as being slapped, punched, or beaten by their boyfriends.

Girls are highlighted repeatedly in the press release. If one only read the press release you might assume that the boys were incidental and that the girls were clearly the identified victims of teen relationship violence. The boys actually did get mentioned in one paragraph (one out of 18 paragraphs, eleven of which were about girls). Here it is:

Nearly nine out of ten boys also said they had been in a relationship. A smaller number reported pressure or violence from girls. (Only one in seventeen boys in a relationship reported being pressured or forced into sexual activity and almost one in five suffered physical violence in a relationship).

Note how the boys victimization is minimized with words like “a smaller number” and “only one in seventeen.” Keep in mind that the “smaller number” referred to in the second sentence was 18% versus 25% which had been the figure for girls. While 18 is smaller than 25, it is not that much smaller. Another important difference is that the girls 25% stat was mentioned in the opening sentence of the document (and indirectly in the headline) while the boys 18% stat was mentioned as an afterthought in parentheses. Yes, the boys percentage was smaller but it seems very obvious that this press release is trying to marginalize the victimization of boys.

Note that the press release mentions that one in 17 girls had been raped. This works out to about 5.8% of the females surveyed. What they don’t mention is that the same table in the full report that showed that 5.8% of girls were raped also showed that 3.3% of the boys were also raped. This stat never made it beyond the full report. The press release mentions the rape of girls but is completely silent on the shocking statistic that 3.3% of the boys were raped. The fact is that their data from the full report shows boys comprised over one third of the rape victims. Not a word about this.

It now seems easy to understand how the media articles focused so exclusively on girls and ignored the needs of boys. They likely only read the press release and maybe a part of the executive summary. The press release might very well have been the only document they read about the study and it clearly focused almost exclusively on girls while ignoring the needs of boys. How bad did it get in focusing on just girls? Here is a sampling of typical headlines from actual news articles on this research and ad campaign:


Many Girls’ Abused by Boyfriends
 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8230844.stm

Third of teenage girls forced into sex, NSPCC survey finds
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/sep/01/teenage-sexual-abuse-nspcc-report

1 in 3 Teenage Girls Tell of Sexual Abuse by Their Boyfriends
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1210375/One-teenage-girls-physically-abused-boyfriend.html

Teen Girls Abused by Boyfriends Warns NSPCC 
 http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2009/6524.html

 

Almost every headline I found focused on girls as victims. I never found one headline that focused on boys. The articles would occasionally mention that boys were vulnerable but the main thrust was surely the girls vulnerability and victimhood.
The ad campaign is the real world response to the findings of this research using TV, radio, internet and poster ads in attempts to change behaviours of teen relationship violence. It is where the theoretical ends and the actual support and tax dollars begin. Inexplicably, the focus of the ad campaign is entirely on girls as victims of relationship violence while boys are seen as the problem and are taught to not abuse their girlfriends. Somehow the original research had shown that both boys and girls were victims of relationship violence and by the time we made our way to the media articles and then to the ad campaign we find that the original data is all but forgotten.
How did this happen?

The Full Report and then boys disappear

The full report offers an abundance of data that shows that boys are victims of teen partner violence but somehow the recommendations of both the full report and the executive summary seem to focus primarily on girls. Here’s a quick summary extrapolated from the full report:

According to their survey:

72% girls reported experiencing emotional violence
51% of boys reported emotional violence
BOYS WERE 41% of the victims of emotional violence in teen relationships

25% of girls experienced physical partner violence
18% of the boys experienced physical partner violence
BOYS WERE 42% of the victims of physical partner violence in teen relationships

31% of girls experienced sexual partner violence
16% of boys experienced sexual partner violence
BOYS WERE 34% of the victims of sexual partner violence in teen relationships.

So the boys ranged between 34-42% of the victims as recorded in the survey, The full report states this loud and clear in the data but then with the recommendations of both the full report and the executive summary and then the press release the boys seems to simply disappear. Why could that be? The researchers fail to explain fully the reasons for this but if you read between the lines you can find that they offer two reasons. The first is that the survey responses indicate that girls are more “impacted” by relationship violence than the boys. There is a question on the survey that asks about emotional reactions to the violence and the girls were much more likely to check the boxes that indicated they were scared/upset/humiliated. The boys were more likely to check boxes that said they were angry/annoyed or the box that said there was no effect on them. The researchers seem to have taken this difference and decided that since the girls were more “impacted” from the experience of violence that they should be the ones to get the attention and services. There are a number of places in the full report where this is implied. Here is one:

This research has demonstrated that a fundamental divide exists in relation to how girls and boys are affected by partner violence, and this divide needs to be a central component in the development of professional responses to this issue.

Just what does “professional responses to this issue” mean? They don’t say but we can only assume that they are suggesting that girls receive more attention and services due to their being more impacted by the violence. Considering the recommendations focus on girls and ignore the needs of boys I think the above assumption is a good one. I would be happy to be corrected on this assumption if I am incorrect.

The researchers seem willing to basically ignore their own substantial evidence that boys are victims of violence simply because the girls have a greater emotional reaction. Here’s another quote:

These findings are further elaborated on in the interview data where girls consistently described the harmful impact that the violence had on their welfare, often long term, while boy victims routinely stated they were unaffected or, at the very worst, annoyed. These results provide the wider context in which teenage partner violence needs to be viewed.

Let’s keep in mind that the above quoted interview data, which we will examine later, included only 62 hand-selected girls and 29 similarly selected boys. Importantly, only one of the 29 boys was a victim of non-reciprocal violence so making generalizations based on the interview data is likely unreliable especially considering the survey data was collected from over 1300 teens. Note also that by saying “the wider context in which teenage partner violence needs to be viewed” we can only assume the researchers are again suggesting that girls be given preference in services and aid. What we do know is that the data on violence against boys is ignored in the recommendation sections and also in the ad campaign. The following quote gives us a bit more clarity regarding the views of the researchers:

Intervention programmes need to reflect this fundamental difference by ensuring that the significant impact of violence on girls’ wellbeing is recognised and responded to, while enabling boys to recognise the implications of partner violence for their partners and themselves.

This statement clearly shows that the researchers believe that the girls should be treated differently and intervention programs need to “reflect” the difference that girls are more impacted by the violence.

But are girls more impacted? I am not so sure. Let’s start by looking at the actual question on the survey:

3 How did it make you feel when force was used against you? 

scared/frightened 
angry/annoyed 
humiliated 
upset/unhappy 
loved/protected 
thought it was funny 
no effect

“If you don’t see it, it must not exist.”

The researchers stated that the answers to this question showed a big difference in boys and girls responses about the impact that the violence had on them. They don’t give the raw data about the responses and don’t offer the numbers each sex chose for each answer but they give us the summary saying that girls were much more “impacted.” There are very good reasons for that. This question is a set up since boys and girls will naturally answer it very differently. The creators of this question seem to fail to understand the hierarchical nature of boys and their strong natural reluctance to show any lack of independence. If the boys had checked “scared/frightened”, “humiliated” or “upset/unhappy” they would be admitting that they were less than independent. This is usually avoided while a choice such as “no effect” or “angry/annoyed” would be much more likely in order to maintain their image. As Warren Farrell would say “The weakness of men is the facade of strength: the strength of women is the facade of weakness.”

The men and boys are much more likely to choose a response that will portray them as strong. If this is correct it is easy to understand how boys’ responses might not accurately convey their degree of hurt or upset. It is very possible that the boys who checked the “no effect” box were just as impacted by the violence as their female counterparts. With these sorts of questions it leaves us simply not knowing. To suggest the direction of future services based on the responses to this question would be very risky and likely give very poor results.

I wonder if the researchers would think that a rape victim who claimed there there was no impact on her would not need support services? Would clinicians simply ignore her? No, I would bet they wouldn’t. If a group of domestic violence victims claimed that the violence had no impact on them would they quickly assume that group did not need support services? No. Then why would they dismiss the trauma of boys simply because they have marked a survey question differently and reported to be less upset? They would realize that people have very unique responses to trauma and that not having an immediate or verbal emotional reaction to a trauma does not in any way indicate that that person should be ignored. That is simply ridiculous.

Having worked with trauma victims for many years I know very well that some people will sometimes not even begin to feel the negative impact of a trauma for months and others for years. Restricting services for victims of trauma due to their response seeming to show less emotional impact is one of the zaniest ideas I have heard for some time. Denying services to a birth group for this reason seems to simply be bigoted.

Are the researchers biased against boys?

There are numerous indications, in addition to what has already been described, that the researchers have an anti-boy bias. There are the obvious dismissals of the survey data that shows boys to be victims of partner violence and the complete focus on girls as victims. But there are a number of more subtle clues in the study that seem to indicate a disdain for boys.

When they did mention boys as victims the report tended to minimize their experience. Here is a quote:

Boys’ experiences of violence
Little evidence existed to support the possibility that boys, although they were negatively affected by their partner’s violence, felt unable either to voice or to recognise their vulnerability. Boys minimised their own use of violence as “messing around”. Boys also reported the violence as mutual, although they often used disproportionate force compared to their female partners.

Rather than comment on the experience of the boys to violence the researchers focus on whether they could “give voice” to the negative affects of their partners violence. This seems to be a weak attempt to show that boys could indeed voice their concerns about being victims of violence and since they were able to voice that response they must not be “held back” by traditional masculinity from being able to express their vulnerability. The unspoken assumption seems to be that since they can voice the pain they are not holding back due to traditional masculinity and simply aren’t impacted by the violence. It just doesn’t matter while for the girls it really does matter. These seem to be distractions from the reality that the boys have been victimized. Reading the above paragraph will give the reader a sense of how the boys were treated differently in this study. Their pain was minimized and rationalized by claiming the were really not so impacted. The thrust is to say that boys do experience violence from their female partners but they aren’t so negatively impacted! They are able to voice or recognize their vulnerability. It is well known that men and boys will try to minimize any sort of hurt or injury and try to maintain an independent stance. This by no means indicates they are not impacted, it just means that will try to not let you know it. It is for this very reason that we need to take a different approach with boys who may be victimized but this study seems to prefer to simply ignore the pain of boys and focus just on the girls.

Messing Around

The quote above states that “Boys minimised their own use of violence as “messing around.” The full report affirms that boys label their own violence as “messing around” 56% of the time. This is given later in the recommendations section as a reason that boys should be taught about being aware of their violence. (see below) But what about the girls? When you see that boys are singled out for this perception of “messing around” you would think that the girls would not explain their own violence in that manner. Not in the Alice in Wonderland environment of this study. Actually by the researchers own numbers the girls labelled their own violence as “messing around” 43% of the time. Just 13% points below the boys. You would think that both boys and girls would need to learn about their own violence but somehow the only ones that need to learn are the boys! That is an anti-boy bias.

Here is the quote:

“However, although intervention programmes should ensure that the needs of both girls and boys are recognised, it is important that the wider experiences of girls remain a focus. In addition, boys’ minimisation of their own use of violence – by dismissing it as “messing around” and justifications based on mutual aggression – needs to be challenged.”

Why would the boys need to be challenged about this and the girls not? The boys said their violence was “messing around” 56% of the time and the girls said their violence was a slightly lower “messing around” 43% of the time. Clearly a strong bias in favor of girls and anti-boys.

The researchers went a step farther than just recommending that girls victimisation should be the focus. The researchers made the claim that boys lower scores on the impact question actually made them more dangerous to their female partners. Here is a quote:

If boys view the impact of their victimisation as negligible, they may also apply this understanding to their own actions. Thus, they may believe that their partners are also unaffected by their use of violence.

The implication here is that the boys ignorance/insensitivity of the impact of violence against them shows that they would be less than sensitive to their own violence used against a partner. I don’t believe that for a second considering almost every boy has had it drilled into their brains that they are never to hit a girl. Let’s use the same sort of reasoning but apply it instead to girls. According to the survey the girls suffer a much greater emotional impact from being victims of violence. Yet by the girls report, they use violence three times MORE in relationships than boys even though they know it’s negative impact and is hurtful. This would lead us to believe that girls are aware of the power to hurt others with violence and choose to do so far more often than boys. This doesn’t put the girls in a particularly good light now does it?

Thus, from these findings it seems conclusive that partner sexual violence
represents a problem for girls, while boys report being unaffected.

That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it?

Boys are more violent! When the subjective trumps the objective

The survey was supposed to be the main source of data but in some ways the researchers seem to put much more stock in the subjective information they had obtained via the interviews. While the survey in the full report showed clearly that the girls were three times more likely to report using violence in relationship suddenly the researchers are exclaiming that there was a clear consensus from the girls that boys used physical violence in relationship more often than girls. Here’s the quote:

“There was a clear consensus within girls’ accounts that boys used physical violence in relationships more often than girls. This common understanding regarding the gendered nature of physical violence was reported by almost all girls, whether they themselves had experienced violence or not.”

This is from page 94 of the full report and shows the researchers evaluations of the girls interviews. The most glaring part of this is that the survey portion of the study showed clearly that girls were 3-6 times more likely to report being violent in relationships and yet the subjective data drawn from the interviews claims that there was a “common understanding regarding the gendered nature of physical violence” for “almost all girls” that “boys used physical violence in relationships more often than girls.” This is a huge discrepancy when one half of the study shows girls to report being much more inclined to be violent than the boys and the other half claiming that “boys used physical violence in relationship more often than girls.” This demands an explanation but there was little to be found. The closest the researchers come is to use the hackneyed claim that girls high rates of violence in relationships is due to their using violence as self defense. But if you look at the numbers this claim falls flat on its face. The facts are that 25% of the girls reported being violent in relationship compared to 8% of the boys. When you subtract the percentages of violence claimed to be in self defense from both boys (30%) and girls (44%) you find that 14% of girls were violent in relationship and 5.6% of the boys for reasons other than self defense. That’s nearly three times more girls than boys. (-30% of 8%= 5.6% and -44% of 25%= 14%) Not making this an important point in this research is very suspect. This difference is huge. Girls reported almost three times as often that they perpetrated violence in their relationships and yet there is a claim that almost all girls believed boys used “physical violence in relationship more often” and this leads us to the idea that girls are in need of services and boys in need of changing their behaviors? Baffling. Clearly misandry.

One partial explanation of this is shown in the following quote:

Only 6 per cent of boys, compared to a third of girls, claimed that they were negatively affected by the emotional violence they experienced. This gendered impact disparity upholds Stark’s (2007) contention that coercive control, which many of our components of emotional violence reflect, is made meaningful only when placed within a gendered power understanding of intimate violence. Thus, although girls had used emotional violence, without it being underpinned by other forms of inequality and power, their attempts were rendered largely ineffectual.

Incredibly, this section seems to be giving girls a pass for their emotional violence. The pattern continues: When girls are perpetrators they are given excuses, when boys are victims they are ignored and minimized.

Reporting oddities

When you look closely at the section about girls reporting more frequent perpetration of violence in relationship you notice something very odd.  Look at the following paragraph and note the researchers choice of words.  Note that girls “report” and boys “admit” (emphasis mine):

Page 74 More girls reported using physical violence against their partner than did boys; this represented a significant difference (x2 (1) = 60.804, p<.001). A quarter (n=148) of girls compared to 8 per cent (n=44) of boys stated that they had used some form of physical violence against their partner. Looking first at less severe physical violence (see table 10), the vast majority of girls (89 per cent) reporting the use of physical violence had used it once or a few times. Only a few (11 per cent) used it more frequently. Similarly, the small proportion of boys who admitted using physical violence also generally used it infrequently (83 per cent).

Perhaps the words “report” and “admit” have different meanings in Great Britain but here in the US they aren’t usually the same.  Report generally means to make a statement or announcement.  The word admit however has a different spin.  Often it has more to do with conceding or confessing.  One assumption from the wording the researchers  have chosen would be to think that they simply didn’t believe what the boys reported.  In other words they would only concede or admit to a certain amount of violence.  Basically, implying that they are not telling the entire story. This is of course conjecture on my part but it simply seems like more anti-boy bias.

The Interview Section

As was previously explained the research had both a quantitative section and qualitative section. The qualitative section consisted of semi-structured interviews which included the utilization of five vignettes. The vignettes were stories that were told to the participant and then the stories relevance was discussed as a part of the interview. The stated goals of the researchers was to use the quantitative survey to gain data and use the interviews to enhance their understanding.

The researchers claimed that they had problems in getting participants for the interviews in the manner they had originally planned so they switched mid-stream to a different approach described below:

“We therefore moved to a system whereby researchers observed which young people seemed to be engaging with the survey. They then asked those young people if they would like to take part in the interview stage.”

So they hand picked the interview participants based on their own subjective impression of whether the young person was “engaging with the survey.” This sounds to me to be a direct invitation to a very biased sample.  Then you find out that the choices they made of those who were “engaging in the survey” were 62 girls but only 29 boys.  You also find that of the 29 boys only one had experienced being a victim of non reciprocal violence in relationship! Makes you wonder about their ideas of “engaging in the survey.” Needless to say the boys section describing the interviews was only 22 pages long while the section about the girls was over 60 pages.  Even with such a short section for the boys most of the writing was about boys violence not their reaction to being victims of violence. Girls victimization was highlighted as was boys violence. Even in the section on boys as victims.

The Vignettes

When I first started looking at the issue of this survey I emailed the folks at NSPCC and asked for a copy of the original questionnaire and copies of the vignettes.  They were kind enough to email me both.  I had suspected that the vignettes would be slanted towards the girls and so I was not surprised to see that the stories were mostly about boys possessiveness, shouting, name calling, violence, and sexual pressuring.  Only one story of the five portrayed the female as the perpetrator and in that story the perpetrated act was very mild.  The girl (and her cronies) stole the boys cell phone, made unkind comments the next day and then apologized.  In the other vignettes we see boys being violent or pushing girls into sexual behaviors that they don’t want.  In one we see the girls using violence, but in self defense.  To the researchers credit the first three vignettes have questions following the story which ask if this sort of behavior might also exist in the opposite sex.  Inexplicably they omit that important question on the final two vignettes which focus on sexual demands.  This is highly suspect and leads one to guess that their ideological bias may have disallowed them to see boys as sexual victims and/or the girls as perpetrators.  Interestingly their data from the full report shows that girls freely admit to sexually pressuring their male boyfriends so this again leaves us wondering why they would avoid the question in the interview section.

Would the researchers tolerate a set of vignettes that showed 80% of the perpetrators to be female and the only male perpetrator was portrayed as having stolen a cell phone and then apologized? I would bet we would hear loud rants about inclusiveness and marginalization and they would be correct!  It seems to me that these vignettes seriously marginalized the boys in this survey and likely left them feeling misunderstood and left out since their situations were simply not portrayed, acknowledged or included.

I was thinking that an alternative to these five stories could have easily been to keep the five stories as is but for the girls tell the story with female victims and male perpetrators and for the boys  use the same stories but do the opposite and tell it from the boys perspective.  It would take a little bit of editing but I think it would have been much more effective and would have left both boys and girls with a sense that their side of the story was heard and understood to exist. Victims are much more likely to come forward when they see that their plight is acknowledged. Maybe a possibility would have been to use neutral names for all parties in the stories and therefore not even know the sex of the offender or victim!   Another option might have been to have six stories with three being male perpetrators and three being female perpetrators.  One story each for the three categories of violence.  I think any of the above would have been an improvement over what they used.

The fact that girls were portrayed in four of five vignettes more as victims and boys more as perpetrators and that any suggestion about girls perpetration of sexual pressuring was absent seems to be more evidence that the project has been impacted by an ideology that prefers to see women/girls as victims and men/boys as perpetrators.  If we allow this sort of bias to continue in our midst we are failing both our boys and our girls.   If we allow it to continue in social science research literature then we are surely in trouble.

Recommendation Section

Here’s a brief look at the recommendations section of the executive summary.  There is only one paragraph in the recommendation section that mentions boys.  Here it is:

Impact of teenage partner violence – the gender divide
The impact of partner violence is indisputably differentiated by gender; girl victims report much higher levels of negative impact than do boys. This is not to imply that boys’ experiences of victimisation should be ignored. It may be that boys minimise the impact of the violence due to the need to portray a certain form of masculinity. However, although intervention programmes should ensure that the needs of both girls and boys are recognised, it is important that the wider experiences of girls remain a focus. In addition, boys’ minimisation of their own use of violence – by dismissing it as “messing around” and justifications based on mutual aggression – needs to be challenged.

This paragraph is baffling. Let’s break it down. Here is the first section:

The impact of partner violence is indisputably differentiated by gender; girl victims report much higher levels of negative impact than do boys. This is not to imply that boys’ experiences of victimisation should be ignored.

It first makes a claim that partner violence is differentiated by gender and that girls experience more negative impact, implying that boys should be ignored. Then they deny that they mean to ignore boys.

It may be that boys minimise the impact of the violence due to the need to portray a certain form of masculinity.

They offer a possibility for an explanation.

However, although intervention programmes should ensure that the needs of both girls and boys are recognised, it is important that the wider experiences of girls remain a focus

Then they ignore their own explanation and aver that the “wider experiences of girls” (whatever that means) should take precedence.

In addition, boys’ minimisation of their own use of violence – by dismissing it as “messing around” and justifications based on mutual aggression – needs to be challenged.

Then they finalize things by saying that the emphasis on boys should be their violence and especially their minimization of their own violence as has been previously discussed.

I find this paragraph to be very vague and unclear. I am guessing this is intentional since what they really want to say is likely girls are worthy victims and boys are not is hard for them to put into words since it would clearly leave them looking bigoted. Being vague and obfuscating is a much safer strategy and it still gets the job done! One thing is clear after reading it: The reader is sure that for whatever reasons, girls need to get the lions share of services and help and boys need to shape up!

Is the ideology of the researchers driving their focus on girls?

If you look at this from purely a marketing standpoint these researchers have accomplished a remarkable feat. They have been able to create a document that has been labelled a “study” which has found objective data and then made conclusions and recommendations that ignore their own data. They took it a step farther and got the conclusions and recommendations printed in a vast number of media articles which established to millions of viewers, listeners and readers that their “half-stories” were actually facts. Truly amazing when you think about it.

One can only assume that the researchers are aging feminists who are addicted to the outdated and disproven idea that domestic violence is simply dominated by males who batter and women who are victims. We have seen from the Straus article how grossly inaccurate that ideology has been and the extent to which its adherents would go to propagate such mis-information.

I have always thought that science was designed to gather data and then use that data to adjust your theory and ideology based on the new discoveries and information.  It seems to me in this case that rather than science being used to shift ones ideology it is the ideology that is governing science and determining which data should come forward and which not.  This is very dangerous ground for humanitarians and those who want the best for all victims.

In the case of this study it seems likely that the researchers had a pre-conceived idea that girls were victims and boys the perpetrators. When their own data didn’t affirm such stereotypical assumptions they strained to find a way to convert their data into a message that was harmonious with their pre-conceived ideas about violence (girls are worthy victims and boys are perpetrators). This was done by making the repeated claims that girls are more impacted by the violence and because of this the girls needed to be the focus of attention and services. This claim is hollow and anemic. Most any thinking person can look at that idea and see that because one group gets more upset by a problem that in itself should not negate some victims from getting services and attention.

There were so many parts of this study that seemed misandrist to me that I literally could have written another twenty or thirty pages. I will spare the reader such a burden and leave it to others to have a detailed look and make their own comments. Leave it to say that this study is a shining example of the evils of letting an ideology steer research and the resulting public services and the manner in which the general public is brainwashed by hearing only half the story.

I think that this study also shows the dangers involved in allowing ideological zealots a platform to intentionally mold public opinion to their own version of what is real. We need to use caution when accepting studies as being “scientific” and have a much finer net to discover which studies may be biased due to the ideological underpinnings of its authors. Frankly, any high school science student should be able to read this study and and explain clearly how it is lacking. Our media and our governments are sorely failing to do just that.

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August 20, 2025
Meet TheTinMen

In this conversation, I sit down with George from The Tin Men—a powerful voice bringing clarity, humor, and hard-hitting truth to men’s issues. George has a unique talent for condensing complex topics like male loneliness, the dismantling of men’s spaces, suicide, and the gender pay gap into short, sharp, and digestible messages. Together, we react to some of his videos and dive into everything from fatherlessness and gangs, to the “man vs. bear” debate, to the failures of therapy for men, and even the overlooked crisis of suicide in construction. It’s a wide-ranging discussion that highlights both the challenges men face and the hope we’re starting to see for real change.

Georges Links!

Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/thetinmen/

Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/@TheTinMenBlog

LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/gohorne/

X— https://x.com/TheTinMenBlog

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Are Men Great of Good? Yes!

Time for a male-positive message. I created this video a while back, but its message remains as important and timeless as ever. I’d love for it to reach boys who’ve been told—explicitly or implicitly—that there’s something wrong with being male. After so much negativity about men and masculinity, they need to hear something different. They need to hear something true, strong, and affirming.

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Engineered Fatherlessness Creates Chaos

This 2021 video explores the growing issue of fatherlessness, questioning whether it’s been deliberately engineered or simply allowed to happen. It exposes the fact that we knew even in the 1960’s the devastating impact of not having fathers in the home. It shows some little known, and basically ignored research about this issue. Yes, Dan Quayle was correct!

Social Structure and Criminal Victimizationhttps://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022427888025001003

Moynihan Reporthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_National_Action

McClanahan researchhttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3904543/Murphy Brownhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Brown

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The Way Boys Play and the Biological Underpinnings

My apologies for the last empty post. My mistake. Let's hope this one works.

Tom takes a stab at using the podcast function. Let's see how it goes.

The Way Boys Play and the Biological Underpinnings
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Boys and Rough Play

This is a short excerpt from Helping Mothers be Closer to their Sons. The book was meant for single mothers who really don't know much about boy's nature. They also don't have a man in the house who can stand up for the boy and his unique nature. It tries to give them some ideas about how boys and girls are different. This excerpt is about play behaviors.

Boys and Rough Play

Another great video from Gabby on how Radical Feminism dehumanizes Men. And she showed a pic of Paul Elam and Tom Golden with others. As people trying to humanize and help men.

Worth a watch

August 04, 2025
False Accuser Exposed in World Junior Hockey Trial Verdict - Janice Fiamengo

Janices essay brings to life the idea that when falsely accused men are found not guilty they still lose. Worse yet, the false accuser reaps benefits. Thank you Janice for pulling this informative and infuriating piece together. Men Are Good.

https://fiamengofile.substack.com/cp/170141035

July 28, 2025
DAVIA Press Release: Around the World, Feminists Have Become the New Extremists

This is the latest press release from DAVIA, a coalition of 192 organizations across 35 countries dedicated to bringing balance to a domestic violence system that too often ignores male victims. DAVIA regularly issues press releases shared globally and has become a strong voice advocating for male victims of domestic abuse. You can find all of their press releases here: https://endtodv.org/press-room/

https://endtodv.org/pr/around-the-world-feminists-have-become-the-new-extremists/

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August 14, 2025
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The Price of Needing Help: How Men Lose the Right to It

The Price of Needing Help: How Men Lose the Right to It

In a powerful essay on men and homelessness, Peter Marin put into words something most people never stop to see:

“To put it simply: men are neither supposed nor allowed to be dependent. They are expected to take care of others and themselves. And when they cannot or will not do it, then the assumption at the heart of the culture is that they are somehow less than men and therefore unworthy of help. An irony asserts itself: by being in need of help, men forfeit the right to it.”

Marin’s words capture an unspoken cultural law: a man’s value is measured by his independence and ability to provide—not by his humanity. This isn’t just a philosophical problem; it’s a practical one that plays out every day in men’s lives.


The Double Standard of Dependency

When women are in need, the language society uses is sympathetic—“vulnerable,” “at risk,” “deserving.” For men, the same situation draws terms like “lazy,” “weak,” or “failure.” That double standard is so ingrained that when a man reaches a point of real need—whether after a job loss, a divorce, a health crisis, or a mental breakdown—he is often met with judgment before compassion.

And this bias doesn’t stop at individual attitudes. It’s baked into how our systems are built:

  • Domestic Violence Services – Shelters, funding, and awareness campaigns overwhelmingly target female victims. Male victims are treated as rare anomalies, even though research consistently shows that a significant portion of domestic violence victims are men.

  • Suicide Prevention – Men make up the majority of suicide deaths, yet crisis messaging, outreach, and resources often use language and imagery that doesn’t resonate with how men process distress.

  • Mental Health Services – Therapy culture often centers emotional expression in ways that align more naturally with women’s coping styles, leaving men feeling out of place or misunderstood.

  • Divorce Court – Fathers asking for equal custody can find themselves treated as if they are asking for a special privilege rather than a natural right.

  • Homelessness Support – Shelters for men are fewer in number, and services can be harder to access because their need is perceived as a personal failing rather than an unfortunate circumstance.


The Cost of Appearing Dependent

Dependency is seen as a violation of the masculine role. That’s why so many men mask their pain behind stoicism, anger, humor, or action—they know that if they show vulnerability, they risk losing respect, opportunities, and even relationships.

The tragedy is that emotional pain is almost impossible to express without appearing dependent. That means men are often forced into a no-win choice: suffer silently, or risk the stigma of asking for help.


One Man’s Story

Consider Mark, a 48-year-old father of two. After a factory closure, he lost his job of 20 years. The bills piled up, and the stress began eating away at his health. He started waking up at 3 a.m. with his chest tight, wondering if this was the heart attack that would leave his kids without a father.

When he finally called a suicide prevention line, the volunteer on the other end told him, “Maybe you should take some time off work.” She didn’t realize he’d been out of work for eight months. When he explained his situation, she gently suggested a men’s support group—only to discover there wasn’t one in his county. The nearest was 90 miles away.

Mark’s wife suggested therapy, but when he went, the counselor asked about his feelings toward his father and childhood rather than the urgent crisis of how to keep the lights on. Mark stopped going after two sessions.

Soon, he stopped asking for help altogether. “I felt like the more I said I needed help, the more I was proving everyone right—that I was a failure.”


Breaking the Iron Rule

Marin’s observation should make us uncomfortable, because it forces us to see the quiet cruelty built into our expectations of men. The irony he points out—that the moment a man needs help is the moment we believe he doesn’t deserve it—isn’t just about homelessness. It’s about domestic violence, suicide services, mental health care, the courts, and every system that assumes men should take care of themselves, no matter the cost.

If we want a healthier culture, we need to dismantle that rule—not by demanding men change who they are, but by changing the way all of us respond to men in need. The problem isn’t men’s nature; it’s the reflex to see their struggles as weakness. We need to make it acceptable for men to ask for help without forfeiting their dignity, and we need to build systems that meet men where they are—not where tradition says they’re supposed to be.
 

Because the truth is simple: men don’t stop being worthy of help the moment they need it.

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August 11, 2025
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Why do Women Cling to Feminism?


Why do Women Cling to Feminism?

There's a powerful force at play that binds both men and women to the belief that feminism stands for equality. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, public perception remains steadfast. This strong adhesive, I believe, is gynocentrism—an often unnoticed bias that influences both genders to avoid confronting the truth.

But what exactly is gynocentrism? It's the pervasive belief that women's needs, desires, and perspectives should take precedence. This societal tendency elevates women's experiences to a central position in discussions of justice, equality, and societal norms. Remarkably, many are unaware of this bias within themselves; it operates subtly yet significantly in everyday life.

Feminists, whether knowingly or not, have harnessed gynocentrism as a tool to shield their ideology from scrutiny. By framing their movement around the principle that women's well-being and viewpoints must be prioritized—a core tenet of gynocentrism—they've built an ideology that resonates not just with women, but also with men who unwittingly accept this framework.

1. Emotional Investment and Identity

Feminism offers an emotionally charged, identity-affirming cause that, for many women, becomes central to how they define themselves and their place in the world. Gynocentrism amplifies this by creating a cultural framework in which women’s experiences are not just important, but inherently more valid and deserving of attention than men’s. Within this framework, feminist ideology is elevated from a political stance to a moral imperative — a movement that feels inseparable from one’s personal worth and identity.

Because gynocentrism positions women’s struggles as uniquely significant, feminism is perceived not simply as one of many social causes, but as the cause — the rightful focal point of empathy, policy, and moral concern. This emotional elevation makes feminist beliefs harder to question, because doing so feels like a denial of women’s legitimacy or suffering. For women, this gynocentric framing allows personal grievances to be folded into a broader, sanctified struggle, making feminism both empowering and emotionally protective.

Men, too, are drawn into this framework. Socialized to prioritize women’s needs and seek moral approval through deference, many adopt feminist ideals not out of conviction, but out of a sense of duty or fear of moral condemnation. Biology also plays a role, as evolutionary pressures have shaped men to be caretakers and protectors, further reinforcing this inclination. In this way, gynocentrism doesn’t just support feminism—it shields it, fuels it, and emotionally compels loyalty to it, even in the face of contradictory evidence or unfair outcomes.

2. The Power of Groupthink and Social Reinforcement

Feminism thrives on social reinforcement, and groupthink plays a significant role in maintaining this ideological strength. In a gynocentric society, the idea that women’s perspectives should dominate is not only normalized but encouraged, creating an environment where challenging feminist ideals feels uncomfortable or even socially unacceptable. This dynamic is further amplified by women’s strong in-group bias—a well-documented psychological tendency to show loyalty, empathy, and moral deference to other women, often at the expense of fairness to those outside the group. In feminist circles, this in-group loyalty reinforces a collective identity centered on shared grievances and moral superiority, making dissent feel like betrayal. The power of groupthink is sustained by constant affirmation that women’s needs are paramount, and anyone questioning this premise risks social ostracism—or worse, being labeled a misogynist. This creates an atmosphere where individuals—especially men—find it difficult to voice opposition, as doing so is perceived not as a critique of ideas, but as an attack on women themselves and the gynocentric norms that have been so deeply entrenched in society.

3. Fear of Losing Hard-Won Progress

For many women, feminism is not just a political or social movement — they have been led to believe that it’s the framework that secured their rights, safety, and dignity in a historically male-dominated world. This association makes feminism deeply personal and emotionally charged. Gynocentrism reinforces this by framing women’s societal gains not merely as important milestones, but as personal validations of their identity and worth — making feminist progress feel inseparable from female value itself. It casts any challenge to feminist orthodoxy — even a measured critique — as a threat to women’s safety, freedom, or status.

As a result, the push to prioritize women’s rights over men’s is not just about fairness or equality; it becomes a reflexive act of self-preservation. For women who have internalized feminism as synonymous with progress and protection, any perceived rollback is existential. The fear is not just that rights might be lost, but that their societal value might be diminished.

Gynocentrism amplifies this anxiety by maintaining a singular focus on women’s needs, portraying them as the perpetual underdogs, regardless of social context or material advantage. This selective lens obscures male suffering, sidelines men’s rights, and downplays the unintended consequences of a one-sided narrative. In doing so, it creates an emotional and moral environment where any call for balance or shared empathy is viewed with suspicion — or even hostility — because it feels like a threat to hard-won ground.

4. Media and Cultural Narratives

The media and cultural narratives overwhelmingly reflect and reinforce gynocentrism, often framing women as the default victims and men as the default perpetrators. Feminism, which aligns itself with this framework, benefits from the widespread acceptance of these skewed narratives. Media portrayals of gender dynamics rarely include nuanced views on how both men and women can suffer from societal issues. Instead, they lean heavily on the gynocentric view that women’s needs—whether related to equality, protection, or support—should always take precedence. By embedding this perspective into the cultural psyche, feminism gains more followers and becomes harder to challenge.

5. Victimhood and Empowerment


Feminism often draws strength from a narrative of victimhood, positioning women as the oppressed group within a patriarchal system. Gynocentrism powerfully reinforces this narrative by casting women not only as victims, but as noble underdogs—vulnerable, morally righteous, and inherently deserving of society’s protection and focus. In Western culture, the underdog holds a revered place; their struggle evokes sympathy, support, and a moral imperative to act. Feminism thrives within this framing, as it leverages the societal instinct to champion the underdog and victim, to advance its ideological goals.By elevating women's struggles above all others, gynocentrism ensures that women's issues dominate the discourse, while simultaneously portraying any challenge to that focus as callous or regressive. This dynamic plays directly into feminism’s hands, enabling it to cloak itself in moral legitimacy while resisting scrutiny or balance. The victim-centric framing doesn’t just protect feminism—it empowers it, converting women’s suffering into a cultural rallying point that demands continuous attention and policy response.Meanwhile, men’s struggles are minimized or ignored, as their pain does not fit the underdog narrative gynocentrism upholds. As a result, feminism benefits from a cultural lens that shields it from criticism and maintains women’s narratives as central, unquestionable, and morally superior, while men are relegated to the margins of empathy and policy.

Gynocentrism not only elevates women's suffering—it also provides cover for open hostility toward men. In a cultural context where women are presumed morally superior and perpetually victimized, attacks on men are rarely seen for what they are: expressions of contempt, generalization, and at times outright hate. Feminist rhetoric that blames men collectively for societal problems is tolerated—even celebrated—because gynocentrism flips the moral lens. Where fairness would demand reciprocity and empathy for all, gynocentrism excuses misandry as justified outrage. Without this protective framing, the vilification of men that often occurs in feminist discourse would be seen clearly as morally bankrupt and socially destructive.

6. Unconscious Bias and Cognitive Dissonance

Feminism, when viewed through the lens of gynocentrism, creates a powerful cognitive dissonance for those who challenge it. Cognitive dissonance refers to the mental discomfort that arises when a person is confronted with information that conflicts with their deeply held beliefs or values. In this case, gynocentrism shifts the framework to one where women’s needs and experiences are always considered more important than men’s. When people are faced with information that contradicts this bias—such as evidence of men’s suffering—cognitive dissonance kicks in. It becomes difficult to argue otherwise without being labeled as misogynistic or unsympathetic to women’s issues. This bias makes it easy for people to ignore or rationalize evidence that challenges feminist ideas, because doing so would force them to confront the deeply held belief that women’s perspectives should always come first. As a result, cognitive dissonance leads many to dismiss the realities of male suffering—such as the high rates of male suicide or domestic violence against men—without any corresponding societal change, reinforcing the gynocentric framework.

7. The Sense of Solidarity and Collective Purpose

Feminism offers solidarity, a sense of purpose, and a collective identity for many women. The gynocentric framework supports this by positioning women as a collective group with a shared cause that is viewed as morally righteous. Feminism becomes more than just a political movement—it is a personal and communal experience where women rally around the belief that their needs are paramount and have been neglected by men. Gynocentrism ensures that this solidarity remains intact by consistently placing women’s rights and experiences at the center, leaving little room for other perspectives that might dilute or challenge this collective purpose.

8. Social Media and Confirmation Bias

Social media platforms, with their emphasis on viral content and quick engagement, amplify gynocentric narratives by perpetuating the idea that women’s voices and concerns should dominate. These platforms often create echo chambers where feminist ideas are not just accepted but celebrated, reinforcing the idea that women’s needs should always take precedence. Gynocentrism drives this reinforcement, making it difficult for people—especially men—to challenge feminist narratives without facing backlash. The confirmation bias that exists on these platforms further cements the dominance of the feminist narrative, as users are more likely to encounter content that supports the gynocentric view of gender dynamics.


Conclusion

Gynocentrism is not a side effect of feminist ideology — it is its lifeblood. It provides the cultural scaffolding that shields feminism from scrutiny, fortifies its moral authority, and ensures its dominance in public discourse. By placing women’s needs, perspectives, and grievances at the emotional and ethical center of society, gynocentrism makes feminism feel not like an ideology, but like common sense — even when its claims defy evidence or fairness.

This framing is so deeply embedded in our institutions, our media, and our social instincts that most people — including many well-meaning women and men — defend feminism reflexively, without realizing they’re defending a worldview that demands moral deference to one sex while marginalizing the other. The emotional, social, and psychological incentives to protect feminism are all reinforced by the gynocentric lens through which we view gender.

It also enables something more corrosive: the normalization of male-blame. Gynocentrism allows feminists to attack men collectively—assigning them guilt, privilege, or violence by default—without triggering the moral backlash such generalizations would provoke if directed at women. In this way, gynocentrism not only shields feminism from criticism; it also empowers it to wound others without accountability.

Until we recognize this hidden framework, genuine conversations about equality will remain impossible. So long as gynocentrism goes unexamined, feminism will continue to operate with cultural impunity, upheld by a society that mistakes favoritism for fairness and silence for justice.

The first step to restoring balance is to see the bias — and name it. Gynocentrism must be brought out of the shadows if we are ever to build a society where the needs of both men and women are heard, honored, and held to the same moral standard.

Men Are Good.

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July 30, 2025
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Why Is Masculine Maturity So Hard to Talk About Today?


Why Is Masculine Maturity So Hard to Talk About Today?

In the early 1990s, you could walk into a bookstore and find entire tables devoted to the male journey. Robert Bly’s Iron John was a bestseller. Sam Keen, James Hillman, Michael Meade,​ Robert Moore, Richard Rohr — all were offering soulful, intelligent takes on what it meant to be a man. It wasn’t about domination. It wasn’t about “reclaiming power.” It was about emotional honesty, growth, and purpose. In other words: maturity.

Fast forward to today, and you’ll find… almost nothing. Talk about masculinity now and the conversation quickly turns to toxicity, privilege, or fragile male egos. Where once there was myth, poetry, and psychology, we now get slogans and shame.

Why did this happen? Why is masculine maturity such a neglected subject?

Here are a few answers — and a couple of stories that may help explain why the silence around men runs so deep.


1. The Cultural Suspicion Toward Masculinity

Over the last fifty years, masculinity has been treated less as a stage of growth and more as a problem to be managed. Many institutions — academic, psychological, media-driven — have become allergic to the idea that men might have unique struggles, let alone a need for support. Masculinity is often reduced to a stereotype: aggressive, emotionally stunted, dangerous. So it’s not surprising that serious explorations of mature masculinity are viewed with skepticism — or simply ignored.

I experienced this firsthand when I joined the American Psychological Association’s Division 51, the group supposedly devoted to studying men and masculinities. Initially, I was welcomed. A few of the men there had read Swallowed by a Snake, my first book, and treated me with respect.

But over time, it became clear this wasn’t a group focused on men. It was a feminist-aligned group focused on monitoring men. That would have been fine if it had also been balanced — but it wasn’t.

One moment still sticks with me. I asked the group — these were top psychologists, many regularly quoted in national media — if they had ever heard of Robert Moore, the Jungian analyst who literally co-wrote King, Warrior, Magician, Lover, one of the most influential models of the mature masculine ever created.

Not one of them had heard of him.

These were the gatekeepers of psychological discourse around men, and they had never encountered one of the most insightful thinkers on the subject. That’s when I realized: this wasn’t a field seeking to understand men — it was a field managing a narrative about men.

They later kicked me out of the group.


2. The Disappearance of Mentorship and Male Space

The maturation of men has always required something very simple but essential: older men guiding younger men. That doesn’t mean domination or militaristic hierarchy — it means real mentorship. Time together. Shared wisdom. A hand on the shoulder.

But today, male-only spaces are either disappearing or treated with suspicion. Most institutions that once created these bonds — churches, trades, father-son traditions — are either crumbling or feminized. Men don’t know where to go, and the culture doesn’t really care that they’re drifting.


3. The Mythopoetic Movement Was Shamed Out of Existence

In the 1990s, the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement made a serious attempt to give men a space to grow, reflect, and feel. Men gathered, sometimes in the woods. They drummed. They told stories. They cried. They got honest.

They did exactly what the culture — and women — had been begging men to do for decades: engage emotionally, get their priorities straight, and connect with other men in a non-competitive, supportive environment.

So what happened?

The media mocked them. Relentlessly. Headlines rolled out: “Men Go Into Woods to Beat Drums and Take Off Their Clothes.” Late-night shows made jokes. These men weren’t harming anyone. They were healing. But that seemed to frighten people — especially the idea that men were coming together in a community that wasn’t controlled or mediated by women.

Instead of being praised, they were ridiculed and dismissed. The movement, shamed out of existence, faded.


4. No Urgency for Male Development

When girls or women face emotional hardship, society responds — with programs, policies, and public empathy. But when boys or men face disconnection, despair, or aimlessness, the response is often: “Toughen up.” Or worse: silence.

There’s a deep-rooted empathy gap when it comes to men. The assumption seems to be that men don’t need emotional depth, spiritual development, or mentorship. They just need to behave. This assumption is not only wrong — it’s dangerous. Because without maturity, all you get is drift, anger, or collapse.


5. Fear of Being Labeled

Today, if you talk too much about men’s needs, you risk being labeled “anti-feminist” or “reactionary.” Even well-meaning men tiptoe around the topic for fear of being misunderstood. As a result, the public conversation is cautious, shallow, or entirely missing.

And yet, quietly, the hunger remains.

Men are looking for guidance — not from social media influencers or political ideologues, but from grounded voices who actually understand what male development looks like from the inside.


So Where Does This Leave Us?

We’re in a strange place. The world criticizes men constantly, but offers no real path to growth. It tells men to “do better,” but doesn’t explain how — or even what “better” means, other than being more like women.

Masculine maturity isn't about dominance, nor is it about submission. It's about becoming whole — integrating strength with compassion, solitude with connection, responsibility with joy.

That journey still matters. In fact, it may matter now more than ever.

And those of us who have walked part of that road — and seen its value — need to keep the conversation alive.

Even when it's inconvenient.

Even when it's mocked.

Even when it's lonely.

Because the silence around men has never been a sign of health. It’s a sign that something sacred has been neglected.

And it’s time we returned to it.

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