Harmful online messages about masculinity must be countered, violence expert says
Boys and young men have few outlets to talk about their emotions and healthy relationships, expert warns
Some boys and young men are being exposed to harmful messages about women and what it means to be a man — narratives that have to be countered before they lead to misogyny and intimate partner violence, the head of a London agency says.
Changing Ways, a non-profit that works with men who have been charged with domestic violence, as well as those trying to find non-abusive ways to resolve conflict, has just received $97,000 from the federal government's post-pandemic recovery fund to create programs that target men and boys.
"When I'm talking with teachers and with youth-based agencies, I'm hearing a really scary trend," said Tim Smuck, the agency's executive director. "A lot of our young boys, in the 12 to 17 age range, are really being influenced by this men's rights type of information that they're getting from social media. We want to work to create more male leadership, more positive, healthy, male role models. We want to have a larger conversation about what it actually means to be a healthy, positive man in 2023."
Changing Ways also has programs for women who are perpetrators of domestic violence, but men account for nine out of 10 clients the agency services.
Influencers such as Andrew Tate — a self-described misogynist with a massive online following until he was arrested in Romania for alleged human trafficking offences — are only the tip of the iceberg, Smuck said. There are many others, some more obscure, that are being beamed directly into the lives of boys and teens who live on social media.
'A shared goal'
It's important that violence against women is not just seen as a women's issue, said Jessie Rodger, the head of Anova, which helps survivors of gender-based violence.
"We know that sexual violence happens to one-in-four girls and one-in-six boys," they said. "One of the ways boys manage their trauma is by becoming perpetrators, and that has to do with shame, with toxic masculinity, with the expectations we put on men. If we don't talk to young people, we run the risk of setting them on a course where they're not going to get the support they need and they're also going to harm others."
All of the people Changing Ways serves have experienced trauma, many in early childhood where they were victims of abuse or witnessed it in their household, Smuck added.
Agencies such as Anova and Changing Ways have a common goal: to end gender-based violence, Smuck and Rodger say, and have to work together with limited resources.
"Violence against women is not just the work of women and those who have survived, it's also the job of those who perpetrate the violence," Rodger said. "I think the work Changing Ways is doing is exciting."
There are not many places for men and boys to go to ask questions about relationships, Smuck said. "We want boys and young men to be able to go to a place to have these conversations."
The funding — which was distributed by the United Way Elgin Middlesex — will be used to "build the foundation for long-term service," he added. "We are trying to reach all boys. We want this to be a place where we make this a well-known community issue. We want to start being louder about it, to talk about it, to talk to those who are at risk."
The agency will work with Western University and Fanshawe College, Smuck said.
"We want to create spaces for young men on campus to have conversations about what we've been taught by our dads, about patterns of abuse, about things in our society that we're all taught that we need to be called out on."
The trick will be to do it in a way that encourages boys and men to talk, but doesn't shame them, he said.
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