EDDi XXX
January 2021 (Gender Thinking, Dr Stephen Whitehead)
GENDER THINKING? APPARENTLY SO - THANKFULLY
If you have any doubts about the continuing tensions over gender and sexuality in schools, look no further than the recent dismissal of Will Knowland, English teacher at Eton College.
In what quickly fired up into a heated and very public debate about free speech, independent thinking, intellectual freedom, but for some at Eton was a direct kickback against “so-called progressive ideology at the school”, the dismissal of Knowland exposed fundamental tensions within Eton College over gender identity, and specifically, male identity.
As such events are nowadays prone to do, Knowland’s dismissal shook up an establishment organisation thereby forcing its leaders to speak out against what many would see as entrenched sexist practices, toxic/traditional values, and an outdated non-inclusive educational system, though in Eton’s case a school at least trying to get in touch with the 21st century zeitgeist.
“The row has caused widespread disquiet in the Eton community. According to the Telegraph, which broke the story, more than 2,000 signatures have been collected from current and former pupils who oppose the dismissal, describing it as a “gross abuse of the duty of the school to protect the freedoms of the individual.”
And what was all this fuss about?
Toxic Masculinity
In most instances of tensions over the introduction of progressive (e.g. inclusive and liberal) thinking in schools, one might expect resistance to be at the top and the impulse for positive change to come from further down the school hierarchy. Not so in Eton’s case where the drive for change is being led by the Head, Simon Henderson.
“I went into education because I believe in the values of a liberal education and importance of independent thinking and intellectual freedom. Eton’s belief in these values inspired me during my eight years as a teacher there from 2001 and were a key reason I was so proud to return as headmaster in 2015.”
So how has this row come about?
Apparently because Will Knowland insisted on dismissing the concept of patriarchy, and toxic masculinity, in his YouTube video ‘The Patriachy Paradox’., in which he also claims that attacks in prison mean men are raped more often than women.
Despite repeated quests to do so and warnings from a barrister who advised the school the video breached both school policy and the UK Equality Act, Knowland refused to remove the video from YouTube.
For those on the right of identity politics, Knowland’s stance was “a much-needed antidote to this relentless political correctness”.
For more aware observers, those who recognise that patriarchy and toxic masculinity have been around even longer than Eton, and therefore recognise it’s about time we challenged these values, what Knowland’s video represented was a political standpoint at odds with where Eton is trying to head under the Head.
As an academic and researcher on men and masculinities for over 30 years (I trust some of my books are in Eton’s esteemed library and that Knowland especially has read them), I welcome the fact that Eton is pushing back the gender boundaries and has a Head Teacher as brave and intelligent as Simon Henderson to lead this revolution. It may even end up with Eton dropping its male-only status and becoming co-ed. I sincerely hope so, because one only has to look at those current UK political leaders who went to Eton and similar UK ‘public’ schools to see the damaged results of the traditional toxic patriarchal Eton culture.
Private and independent schools in the UK, indeed around the world, have a very long journey ahead of them if they are to become truly inclusive establishments, producing young adults able and equipped to be global minded citizens with empathy, awareness, and an appreciation of diversity in all its richness. If anyone imagines this process of change will be easy, quick, or indeed, unresisted, they are living in the clouds.
Centuries of educational elitism encased in a system which tries to justify (white) male and female gender inequalities on the basis of ‘natural biological differences’, cannot be changed over-night. The very fact that Simon Henderson, clearly a progressive 21st century Headmaster, was appointed to lead Eton, is encouraging because it shows that school governors and leaders are well aware of the direction the school needs to be heading.
Any school, private or state, which emphasises wellbeing, emotional intelligence, mental health, and encourages critical discussions on vital topics such as everyday sexism, white privilege, the BLM movement, LGBTQ awareness and different types of masculinity, certainly has my support and should be supported by all educationalists. Henderson has taken on an immense task in trying to change the dated Eton culture. If I were in his shoes I’d be very happy to see resisters and reactionaries leave the premises.
I can well appreciate the frustration that Henderson and other progressive teachers at Eton felt when faced with a teacher intent on trying to turn the clock back, because despite all Knowland’s rhetoric about “stimulating debate by presenting some views contrary to prevailing orthodoxy” the fact is his ant-feminist, male-centric viewpoint is the problem that needs to be named and exposed.
Do I have any sympathy for Will Knowland, and those of his ilk who find the very concept of patriarchy, and toxic masculinity problematic, who would prefer to argue that men are the marginalised gender and that feminists in challenging male violence and abuse are denying ‘natural’ gender attributes? Yes, but only in so far as they are clearly unaware of what masculinity really is.
So, in the spirit of progressive teaching and learning, allow me to enlighten all those who mistakenly imagine that educational progressives such as Simon Henderson and myself are set on diminishing men. What we are actually set on doing is helping men (and boys) change and adapt to the 21st century, so that they are no longer a problem to themselves and the rest of society.
Let me start by defining masculinity.
WHAT IS MASCULINITY?
In the introduction to my co-edited book ‘The Masculinities Reader’ (Polity, 2001), I define masculinities as follows:
“In line with all the contributors to this volume, the case we make is for recognizing differences between men, and thus seeing masculinities as plural, changing, and historically informed around dominant discourses or ideologies of masculinism. In this respect, we cannot answer, in any absolute sense, the question ‘What is masculinity’? The nearest that we can get to an ‘answer’ is to state that masculinities are those behaviours, languages and practices, existing in specific cultural and organizational locations, which are commonly associated with males and thus culturally defined as not feminine.” (p. 15–16)
Since the late 1980s, sociologists and theorists of gender studies, have generally accepted to use the term ‘hegemonic masculinity’ when referring to what most laypeople would likely consider to be traditional or ‘normal’ masculinity, at least in Western cultures.
More recently, the term ‘toxic masculinity’ has also been employed to define and categorise traditional and hegemonic masculinity.
One of the first sociologists to introduce the notion of multiple masculinities was Raewyn Connell. She argued that ‘no masculinity arises except in a system of social relations’ (1995) and that one of the consequences of the historic social relation of patriarchy is to privilege a performance of masculinity which Connell terms ‘hegemonic masculinity’. This expression of masculinity can be considered ‘idealised’ in so much as most men cannot achieve it, but the very act of attempting to achieve it can be emotionally, if not physically, damaging to them and to those around them.
The key characteristics of hegemonic masculinity are homophobia, aggression, violence, stoicism, emotional dysfunctionality, misogyny, sexism, physical toughness, competitiveness and risk-taking. A male who has invested their sense of manliness in hegemonic masculinity will demonstrate a disgust of homosexuality, a tendency towards violent and aggressive behaviour, low emotional intelligence, a ‘fear’ of the feminine, and an inability to critically reflect on this behaviour as a prelude to changing it.
Toxic masculinity is, in effect, the public/media term for hegemonic masculinity.
However, if in the past the ‘John Wayne’, ‘Rambo’ or even the ‘Weinstein’ type of masculinity was considered by many men to be aspirational, increasingly, largely thanks to the #MeToo Movement, it is not.
This movement and the stories of women who’ve been abused by men, exposes how problematic if not dangerous this type of masculinity actually is. Certainly, toxic masculinity and men’s emotional dysfunctionality are factors in the rising global divorce rates and the decline of marriage, male suicide, male depression, male domestic violence, male self-imposed reclusiveness (hikikomori) and the acts of autogenic massacre increasingly carried out by males of all ages around the world. Such problems are leading many researchers to look for solutions, including a team of psychologists from Oxford University and UCL who have recently embarked on a seven-year trial of mindfulness meditation training with over 7,000 primary and secondary students in 76 UK schools in an attempt to improve students’ mental health and reduce aggressive and negative behaviour.
The combination of changing gender norms, diminution if not rejection of toxic masculinity, the emergence of global feminism, and the rise of the female as an aspirational symbol, challenges males to rethink what they are, who they are, and how they are. This can and does lead to a severe identity crisis for those men who continue to invest in traditional masculine values. The resulting crisis of masculinity is now very apparent, globally.
THREE GLOBAL MASCULINITIES
In my most recent book on gender identity, Toxic Masculinity (Andrews, 2019), I not only define and describe toxic masculinity, I also define and describe what I identify as the other two globally dominant masculinities - progressive masculinity and collapsed masculinity.
Toxic Masculinity:
Dominating, controlling, aggressive, emotionally stunted, unreflective, sexist male behaviour that is fundamentally corrosive to society and to individuals, including those who perform it: such behaviour continues to be expressed by, indeed attracts to it, males of all ages, cultures, ethnicities and social statuses. This hyper-masculine performance is in truth a parody of male identity but one which has traditionally come to define what it means to be a ‘proper man’. It is signified by high levels of aggressive behaviour and low levels of empathy and compassion. It invariably combines with racist, xenophobic, and homophobic attitudes.
Progressive Masculinity:
Liberal, open-minded, emotionally intelligent, empathetic, reflective and embracing modern gender values. It is a performance of masculinity which supports equality and equal rights in all forms and is essentially (pro)feminist. It is pro-LGBTQ, anti-racist, and unlikely to espouse radical nationalistic values. Such men may act violently under particular circumstances, but violence and aggressive behaviour do not define their sense of themselves as men. These men do not feel threatened by the global rise of women, nor by critical discussions about their masculinity. This masculine performance is rooted not in the expression of power over women (and ‘others’) but in the equitable embrace of the other.
Collapsed Masculinity:
Collapsed masculinity results from the inability, or unwillingness, of men to continue contributing to the myths which have historically sustained notions of traditional manliness. Collapsed masculinity infers an implosion, wherein the edifice of maleness and all supporting imagery, is revealed to be an artifice; a linguistic trickery which has long influenced the behaviours of men but is subsequently recognised as being artificial, inauthentic. This form of masculinity is currently most visible in East Asia (Japan, South Korea) among Gen. Z and Millennials, though it is spreading worldwide and especially so in Hong Kong, South East Asia, and the major conurbations of Eastern China. The two most common expressions of collapsed masculinity are self-imposed physical isolation (e.g. Japanese hikikomori) and celibacy/androgyny (e.g. Herbivore, ‘grass-eater’ males in Asia).
Of these three paradigmatic global (alternative) ways of being a male, traditional (aka toxic, hegemonic) is probably still numerically dominant, though less so than it used to be.
What is unique about this current epoch in gender identity is the contestation over different masculinities, notably in the West but increasingly across Asia. There is a more explicit and unapologetic plurality to male behaviour alongside a greater willingness in men to question and reject the traditional masculine behaviours and assumptions of the past – this is in fact the crux of the dilemma facing the leaders of Eton College as they attempt, quite rightly, to introduce a non-masculinist culture into the school.
This global challenge to traditional masculine values and attitudes, together with the emergence of progressive ways of being a male, makes for a more dynamic reading of masculinities (and male identity) together with a greater inability to predict masculine behaviour in any individual man, or indeed generation, cohort, community or organisation of men.
Historically, male and female identities have existed in a duality, a relational state. Which means that so long as femininity and masculinity remain culturally seen as opposites, so will females and males be forced, at least to some degree, to correspond with those opposites in terms of their respective identity. Even when doing so contradicts or directly confronts an individual’s own sense of gender being.
Which is why it is safer, healthier and more equitable to allow an individual to reject the gender binary in favour of creating their own gender identity in a way which suits their subjective sense of self, so long as in so doing that gender identity does not rely on the oppression of others in order to acquire (self) validation.
But masculinities don’t exist separate to other key human identities, especially sex and sexuality, in which case we have to ask…
WHAT ARE SEX AND SEXUALITY?
“Sexuality is who you go to bed with, gender is who you go to bed as”
While gender identity has no biological basis to it and is entirely learned behaviour, sexuality is most definitely biological – it is a given. We cannot fundamentally change where we are located on the straight-gay continuum. We can experiment, and how we express our sexuality is heavily linked to our social experiences, but when it comes to what we desire, who we are attracted to, we are what we are: Gay, Straight, Lesbian, Bi, Asexual.
“There is no simple definition of sexuality, or explanation of its undoubted power. Sexuality as a concept…refers to the bundle of social phenomena that shape erotic life: laws, religion, domestic arrangements, diseases, violence and love – everything we evoke when we speak of the sexuality of a culture. And it refers to the level of the individual – to the pleasures and pains that can shape our lives for good or ill. Which is why our culture can’t quite let it [sexuality] go. It still fuels the personal and social imagination. (S. Seidman, 2011, 19)
Despite the very welcome global trends towards greater enlightenment and tolerance over homosexuality, severe tensions remain, with many cultures/countries increasingly resistant to any liberalising of sexual values. This can create real issues for international school teachers, because it is in the school that expressions of sexuality are being experimented with yet are particularly vulnerable to bullying and marginalisation. Which is why it is especially important that the teacher understands some key theories/concepts of sex and sexuality.
In terms of sex identity, and as identified by chromosomes, there are not just two biological sexes, but at least six.
The 6 Most Common Biological Sexes in Humans
Most commonly identified by chromosomes:
X 1 in 2000 to 5000 people
XX Most common form of female
XXY 1 in 500 to 1000 people
XY Most common form of male
XYY 1 in 1000 people
XXXY 1 in 20k to 55k people
This is further complicated by the fact that one’s brain, body, and reproductive organs can all have different biological sexes. In many cases, a person’s body is one sex, while their brain is wired as another. Add to this the 1 in 1500 people who have no typical genitalia (intersexed) and it is easy to see why there are most definitely tens of millions of people who are neither male or female. You will almost certainly have such students in your school.
Gender dysphoria (brain-body conflict) will be apparent in some transgendered students before puberty, and this can be especially distressing unless the individual receives full support and professional guidance. Most transgendered people take sex hormones and medication can start at 16. Puberty blockers can be taken from age 10 to 12 under medical supervision. The transition is social, psychological, medical and physical. A percentage of transgender students will, as adults, become transsexuals, having undergone full gender reassignment surgery (perhaps also voice surgery) together with legal identification as male or female.
Transgender and transsexual identity does not, however, automatically correlate to a particular sexual orientation. In my book ‘My Dark Side’, the biography of Ally Taylor, a British transsexual, I describe the process that led him to experience gender dysphoria after the death of his British wife in his early 50s. At the age of 58, and after having legally changed sex under UK law, Ally went to Thailand for full gender reassignment surgery. She is now living in Chiang Mai and married to a Thai woman. Their sexual relationship can be described as bisexual. Prior to her gender identity change, Ally’s sexuality was fundamentally bisexual and this has not changed as a result of her transsexuality, even while on the sex hormone, oestrogen.
What all this should reveal to you is that there is no gender binary. But we think in binary ways because it is historic, comfortable and easy to do so. This is how we have been traditionally taught and it is vital that progressive educationalists (and I am happy to include Simon Henderson and his team at Eton School in that cohort) are supported in their brave efforts to educate children into the multiplicity of gender and sexual identities, thereby raising critical awareness regards human diversity.
If educationalists don’t do this then frankly human society is going to remain in the dark ages.
The world is not binary, it is fluid, complex, multiple, just as you are. You may feel male or female but your gender identity is a performance. It can change, it will change, even if your core sexuality does not.
Do not imagine that your brain is fixed at birth. The brain is plastic. It moulds according to the information it receives. Up to puberty there is no major difference in the brains of boys or girls, and no difference in their physical strength. But by the time they reach puberty a child’s brain will have absorbed the binary gender coding, messaging, instruction, socialisation.
What progressive educationalists must do is ensure this binary messaging does not take root in a child’s mind to the point that males slip into toxic/traditional expressions of maleness and females becoming willing (or unwitting) accomplices in this political gendering process.
WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT YOUR STUDENTS’ SEXUALITY?
Below are some questions and answers about youth sexuality experience which all teachers need to be aware of.
Q. At what age are your students first experiencing their sense of sexuality?
A. Around age 7 - 8
Q. What percentage of your students are LGBT+ (lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual, Queer)
A. Approximately 7-10%
Q. What percentage of LGBT+ students report harassment, bullying and feelings of suicide because of their sexual orientation?
A. Approximately 85%
Q. What percentage of your students first learn about their sexuality online and come to express it online?
A. 100%
Also, note that LGBTQ identity is on the rise and becoming more acceptable with Generation Z and young Millennials. Less than 90% of 16-24 year olds now (openly) identify as straight.
CONCLUSION
We all desire a gender identity of some description, even if it is ‘queer’ and completely outside male and female identity stereotypes. Indeed, such gender queering is becoming more common, more acceptable, leading to a profound loosening up of that most rigid of male identities – traditional (toxic) masculinity.
This is something any progressive and reflective educationalist should welcome.
But while we have the agentic capacity to change our way of being male or female, sexuality is an identity we must live with. Like the colour of our skin, we cannot fundamentally alter it. Yet it exists in a world which has historically insisted on a rigid sexual binary and which has developed and maintained some stability largely through the related institutions which validate it (e.g. marriage, public/private divide).
This is now changing, and in many ways international schools and independent schools and their teachers can and should be at the forefront of this change. For example, any school which purports to offer its students access to a ‘global citizenship’ is, by definition and default, claiming and highlighting the values of diversity, inclusiveness, respect, multiculturalism, liberalism and tolerance.
At the same time, teachers everywhere, not just at Eton, exist in a moral and social conundrum: on one side there is the cultural expectation to exclusively validate not only heterosexual relationships, but also monogamy, filial duty, marriage and such sexual behaviour as conforms to traditional social values. Masculinity, femininity, desirability, education, family values, even romance are all co-opted into this ‘conspiracy’ to deny the realities of 21st century life. In direct tension with this is the growing movement away from such social norms and towards more liberal and reflexive attitudes regards gender and sexuality. This movement is undoubtedly a large part of the shift from political ideology to identity politics which we see emerging around the world, and not least at schools such as Eton College.
Just do not imagine this issue is confined to Eton. These personal/political power dynamics are most definitely operating within your school.
Who gets to dictate and define the dominant (sexual and gender) discourses in your school is an act of power. For the simple reason that such discourses will influence the minds of the children and their sense of inclusiveness, belonging and becoming an independent adult. This is why the public turmoil recently experienced by Eton College is actually an indicator of positive change happening.
The worse thing any progressive, liberal educationalist can do is remain silent because to be silent is to allow the damaging and toxic masculine behaviours of the past to continue into this century.
“Education, may well be, as of right, the instrument whereby every individual, in a society like our own, can gain access to any kind of discourse. But we well know that in its distribution, in what it permits and in what it prevents, it follows the well-trodden battle-lines of social conflict. Every educational system is a political means of maintaining or of modifying the appropriation of discourse, with the knowledge and powers that it carries with it.”
(M. Foucault, (2012) The Archaeology of Knowledge, Vintage, p. 373)
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:
Whitehead, S.M. (2002) Men and Masculinities: key themes and new directions. Cambridge, Polity
Whitehead S. and Barrett, F. J. (eds) (2001) The Masculinities Reader. Cambridge, Polity.
Whitehead, S.M, Talahite, A. and Moodley, R. (2013) Gender and Identity. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Whitehead, S. (2014) My Dark Side London, Andrews Publishers
Whitehead, S. (2019) Toxic Masculinity: curing the virus, making men smarter, healthier, safer. Andrews, UK.
Connell, R.W. (1995) Masculinities. Cambridge, Polity.
Teem, D. T., Gibson, M.A. and Alexander, J.F. (2010) Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies. Thousand Oaks, Sage.
Beasley, C. (2005) Gender & Sexuality: Critical theories, critical thinkers. London, Sage.
Taylor, K. (2016) Gender Diversity and Inclusion in Early Years Education. London, Routledge.
Elliott, L. (2012) Pink Brain, Blue Brain. New York, Oneworld Publications.
Griffin, H. (2018) Gender Equality in Primary Schools. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Barnes, E. and Carlile, A. (2018) How to Transform Your School into an LGBT+ Friendly Place. London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Rodriguez, N., Martino, W. and Ingrey, J. (eds) Critical Concepts in Queer Studies and Education: An International Guide for the Twenty-First Century. London: Palgrave.
Seidman, S., N. Fischer, and C. Meeks (eds) (2011) New Sexuality Studies. New York, Routledge.
Lomas, T. (2014) Masculinity, Meditation and Mental Health. London, Routledge.
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