For Teen Boys, Traditional Masculinity Is Evolving — But It Still Has a Long Way To Go

Strong. Emotionless. Powerful. Dominant. Muscular. Those are just a few words used by teens to describe traditional manhood. If a male doesn’t fit into those categories, what then? What messages about masculinity are being sent to young men in our society, and — more importantly — which of those messages are our teenage sons taking to heart?

In an eye-opening conversation for SheKnows’s ‘Be a Man’ series, we talked to teen boys and girls about what masculinity and “being a man” means to them. For the boys, especially, there’s a sense of juggling their desire to forge their own unique identities while still being highly aware of (and feeling some pressure to conform to) traditional masculine ideals.

All the boys seemed to agree that men should be pillars of strength and dependability — in fact, 75 percent of our teen respondents listed “strong” as a traditional masculine trait — but it’s a view of masculinity that leaves little to no room for the vulnerable and emotional moments that every human faces.

“There’s a negative stigma around crying, or being seen as weak,” says 17-year-old Ajani. And for Ajani, who is Black, there’s a heartbreaking extra layer: “When people make jokes that are prejudiced or racist in some way, I kind of have to be the bigger person by, like, just pushing it down and not really saying as much as I want to say … I also don’t want to be, like, the angry Black teenage boy. The label around that is not very good.”

The traditional perception of “real” men as stoic and unemotional isn’t the only pressure teenage boys are facing; there are ongoing conversations about body image and how profoundly it affects girls, but boys are also laboring under certain (often unrealistic) expectations of how they should look.

“One of the challenges of being a teen boy is seeing other boys start to become men as well in high school,” reveals Jack, 18. “For me, I’m pretty short. Seeing other kids start to become taller is especially hard, ’cause you feel like you’re getting left in the dust of the whole ‘manhood’ thing.”

There’s also a sense of feeling the expectation to know exactly what path they’re on — when in reality, very few teenagers have a firm grasp on their future plans.

“There is a lot of pressure on myself, and I think a lot of others too, to have their entire lives figured out, knowing what they have to do in this next chapter of their lives,” says 19-year-old Maverick. “We don’t have all the answers.” That raises the question: Why do boys feel like it isn’t OK to admit they need some guidance?

It’s a problem regularly addressed by professor, author, and podcast host Scott Galloway, who says that young men in America are struggling — and it is partly due to a lack of positive male role models and mentors. “There’s a reflex gag notion when you suggest that a man get involved in a young boy’s life,” Galloway pointed out during a panel at SXSW’s SHE Media Co-Lab, referencing the misconception that there’s something “weird” or “suspicious” about it — when actually, it could be a great help in making these boys feel a little less unmoored.

These issues and more are what SheKnows is examining throughout the “Be a Man” series; looking at the idea of modern masculinity through the unique lens of the teen boys navigating it. For more, check out our full ‘Inside the Lives of Teen Boys’ digital issue.