If we let young boys look up to misogynistic, transphobic men, we are in danger of transgressing back to prejudice and hatred. Take Jordan Peterson’s take on transgender people for example: “if I don’t know whether you’re male or female, what the hell should I do with you? The simplest thing for me to do is go find someone else who’s a hell of a lot less trouble”. How about just treating people as people? He is openly admitting that he would discriminate against trans or non-standard gendered people in favour of someone who fits the social norms. This is a scary rhetoric to place into struggling and vulnerable young people’s minds, especially if boys feel that they are being ‘overtaken’ by minorities.
What’s more, Andrew Tate has managed to influence so many young boys, that even after his arrest for human trafficking and rape, they still defended him. I was recently with some male friends, discussing Tate: one of them said he was the “greatest of all time” and I was in complete shock. He is accused of imprisoning women and forcing them to film porn; I’m not sure what’s great about that. People who hold this belief are either seriously uneducated or worse - they believe Tate’s opinion to be funny and somewhat true. Some young men are lured into his ideology because it makes them feel powerful in a world where they feel they’re losing power. The consequences to this are unbelievably harmful. Rape culture still perpetrates our locker rooms and school corridors. If young men think these comments are acceptable, where does the line get drawn?
Whilst there is absolutely nothing wrong with young men having feminine role models, we cannot take away masculine role models. Take Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. The Rock, who has tackled ideas of negative masculinity and suffering in silence. Something crucial about The Rock is that he is also a symbol of classic masculinity; we don’t need to be telling young men that they all need to start painting their nails and wearing pink: you can be strong and ‘masculine’ while also encouraging women and respecting trans people. The main lesson is that the two ideologies are not mutually exclusive. Another outstanding role model is Lewis Hamilton. Undisputed champion of F1, with 103 pole positions and 7 world titles, Hamilton is an incredible athletic figure of masculinity. He also advocates for gay rights, especially by his helmet designs in the countries he races in with anti-gay rights laws. It is men like this, who show young boys that masculinity is powerful and respectful, who they should aspire to be like, rather than the toxic masculine hero that saves boys from the terrors of political correctness.
