[0:01]I'm David Brockway, I'm the manager of the Great Men project. We deliver workshops on gender equality to teenage boys in schools across London and the Southeast. Our topics include sexual harassment, homophobia, pornography, and consent. But especially we talk about masculinity, feminism, and what it really means to be a man.
[0:27]Adult men don't really talk about these issues very much. We want to get that conversation normalized starting at an early age. We use participatory activities such as word association games. These allow the boys to explore the stereotypes that might be in their head. We'll ask them to talk about the first words that come into their head when they think of a certain topic. For instance, when asked to think about men, they may come up with brave, strong or daring. For women, they may come up with gentle, kind and caring. So then we ask how and why, what causes these stereotypes? Where do the boys get ideas like it's weak for men to cry or men are strong, women are weak? Most of the boys have never had conversations like this before. Our most powerful moments are when we have light bulb moments, when boys have the opportunity through talking to each other to realize that some of these ideas that they think they know are actually a result of conditioning and the world around them. Toxic masculinity is talked about a lot these days. We would define it as a set of negative behaviours that men think they have to follow in order to be proper men. On top of the litany of negative consequences that these behaviors have for women and girls, there are also many negative consequences for men and boys. At the top of this list would be mental ill health and suicide. Suicide rates in this country are currently much higher for men than they are for women. In our workshops, we find that boys have a lot of difficulty expressing their emotions, accepting emotional vulnerability and admitting to any form of weakness. Our workshops encourage boys to critique phrases such as man up and take it like a man. Which are really saying boys don't cry and boys don't ask for help when they're feeling down. The phrase "man up" is particularly important for us. It's two words that put together mean absolutely nothing. But any man can tell you that when told to do so, they know exactly what was expected of them at that time. For years, the responsibility of dealing with these problems has been on women. grappling with sexism, sexual harassment and harassment at work. We feel that solving these issues is equally the responsibility of men. That's why it's so important to get these conversation started early. To bring boys into this discussion, so that they can have a chance to not take forward those negative ideas and stereotypes. One of our most difficult topics is pornography. Our approach is not to shame anyone, but to ask questions such as, is this a good place to learn about sex? Can it be degrading and where's the consent in this? We aim to educate the boys about the porn industry. To tell them that it can often be unsafe and coercive for women. That the things on display are rarely representative of a mutually pleasurable sexual experience. Sometimes, the boys you work with go back to a home environment that is contrary to all of the things we've discussed. What they are taught and learn from the media is the total opposite of the discussions they had with us. Healthy relationships are about respecting, caring and communicating. Our aim is to plant a seed that will allow the boys we work with to start questioning these things and create their own version of being a man.
