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BOY ZONE - boys talk about girls and masculinity
Researchers Rob Pattman, Stephen Frosh and Ann Phoenix argue that boys' views on masculinity and femininity are fluid rather than fixed, and dependent on the situation boys find themselves in. This has implications for those who work with teenage boys
Something of a crisis over boys and masculinity has developed in Britain over recent years, constructed around increasing crime figures and boys' deteriorating educational performance when compared to girls. Boys have been criticised for being anti-intellectual, emotionally illiterate, uncommunicative, antisocial and delinquent - characteristics that have been seen to mark them out as different from girls.
Current theories view identities as 'relational' and as 'marked by difference'1; in support of this, research suggests that boys view masculinity as the opposite of femininity.2,3 Yet we know relatively little about how boys themselves construct their identities, what motivates them to do so and how they feel about masculinity in relation to femininity.
This article, which is based on interviews with 11 to 14 year old London boys about their experiences and identities, focuses on how the boys speak about girls. We conclude by discussing the broad implications of our findings for working with boys.
The study
We interviewed 11-14 year-old boys in 12 London schools in the late 1990s. Rob Pattman conducted 45 group interviews on the topic of 'growing up as a man', with groups of (usually) four to six young people. Thirty-six of these group interviews were with boys in single-sex groups; nine interviews were with mixed groups of boys and girls. Seventy-eight volunteers from the boys who had taken part in the groups were selected for individual interviews; 12 of these were of South Asian descent, 16 were black, six were of mixed parentage and 44 were white.
While being led by issues raised by the interviewees, the interviewer made sure that the following topics were addressed with all boys who were interviewed individually: boys' self-definition as male/masculine; identificatory models; relationships with boys and girls; intimacy and friendship; media interests; and relations with adults. Boys spoke a great deal about girls, both in answer to our questions and spontaneously.
Sport and humour
When comparing themselves with girls, thirty-three boys claimed an important difference was that they were interested in sport whereas girls were not. Indeed, girls' activities - particularly conversations - were seen as aimless and incomprehensible, amounting to a waste of time. Nine boys prefaced their account of what girls did with the word 'just', contrasting this with their own active and purposeful pursuit of sport, especially football. As Dean put it: 'Boys like sports...if you're a girl, you stay in one place and just talk.'
'Just' talking was understood as talk for its own sake, as having no other purpose and therefore as pointless. As part of the process of dismissing girls' activity as meaningless and second-rate, the explanation for why girls 'just' talk instead of playing football was generally given as to do with essential sex differences. They were simply not up to it, being physiologically and temperamentally unsuited for football.
Liking football, messing around and having a laugh were frequently mentioned when boys were asked to say what they, or boys in general, liked doing. This was often presented as a capacity lacking in girls and 'boffs' (conscientious boys). 'Having a laugh' was a way of being a boy in relation to adult authority and classroom learning, and was part of an oppositional culture around which high status could be constructed.
Praising girls
Though girls were characterised by boys as lacking a sense of humour, useless at football and inclined to 'just talk' with one another, boys did not necessarily consider girls to be subordinate. Twenty-one boys in our sample of seventy-eight spoke highly of girls as sensitive and caring, willing to talk and listen, as well as more responsible and committed to academic work. In contrast, boys were characterised as thoughtless, insensitive and lacking in concentration.
Moreover, the same supposed 'feminine' characteristics of girls which boys spoke about in patronising ways under some conditions, seemed to become virtues when boys were sexualising girls. They could not imagine having girlfriends who were 'funny' or played football. They wanted girlfriends who were different to themselves, not 'geezerbirds'; for example, they wanted girlfriends who were unsporty, unfunny and good and sympathetic conversationalists.
Homophobia
This idea that gender difference and sexual desire run together was a popular assumption among boys, which often found expression in homophobia. Thus boys were called 'gay' for being seen to be too feminine - for possessing the characteristics they denigrated in girls.
Although we did not introduce the topic of homophobia ourselves, about a third of the boys we interviewed individually mentioned boys being called gay, as well as 'woosie' and 'girl'. Often 'gay' was used as a 'jokey' insult between friends. Sometimes, however, it was used in a more serious way to put down those boys who were seen as being too committed to school work, or who mixed with girls as friends rather than playing football, or who were physically small or not sporty.
The effect of this homophobic culture was to restrict seriously what boys could be like. Many of the boys we interviewed individually spoke (sometimes, though not always, with a sense of loss and frustration) of what they could not do for fear of being called gay. For example, they felt they could not tell other boys about anxieties and problems at home or about being bullied, nor ask another boy for advice about hairstyles or discuss schoolwork.
Indeed, girls were idealised by boys precisely because the boys could discuss (or imagine discussing) these things with them and expect care and support. Yet by splitting girls and boys in these ways, they denied the possibility of experiencing with boys the closeness and sensitivity they attributed to girls.
It was usually in individual interviews, rather than in single sex group interviews, that boys praised girls for being different from boys in general. As many boys indicated, boys were more 'silly' and 'dirty' in groups than they were on their own. In group interviews with boys, but rarely in individual interviews, boys ridiculed girls for imagining they were more mature or more clever than boys, for being favoured by teachers, for liking 'girl power' and for wanting to play football with boys.
It was striking how boys were not only more 'funny' and loud, but also more misogynistic, in group interviews. We do not want to suggest that because they tended to be more serious in individual interviews, boys were revealing their 'real selves' there and 'acting' more when in a group. Rather, our view is that the identities the boys were constructing in relation to the ways they were talking about girls were flexible and dependent on the situation they were in.
Mixed groups
Those boys who took part in the nine mixed gender interviews were surprised that girls and boys were able to engage with each other without hostility, having indicated in the single sex interviews that they had little in common with girls. For though the girls seemed quite elitist, acting like teachers and addressing boys as rather slow and stupid pupils, they also related to them as (potential) friends.
It appeared that boys in these interviews were not, as in many single sex interviews we conducted (notably group ones), patronising, nor did they attack girls for being 'soft'. To some extent at least, the boys identified with the girls' concerns. For example, in one group, girls complained about the ways in which the boys asserted themselves through football, monopolising football and playground space - as well as treating football so competitively and bullying those boys who they saw as uninterested in or incompetent at it.
Under the conditions of the group discussion, the boys became quite thoughtful and critical of boys' football practices. In the course of the discussion, some alternative masculinities - more sensitive, more contained, less bullying and obsessed - emerged.
What to do
Boys' accounts of gendered relations were not just descriptions but ways of positioning themselves among the array of possible masculinities - an activity that was often full of highly charged emotion. We found that boys commonly constructed boys as tough (physically and emotionally), funny and immature, and this often entailed powerful disparaging of girls as well as mockery of 'effeminate' boys.
We also witnessed, especially in individual interviews with boys, opposition to the effects of the gender-polarised identities which boys in general were described as having. This took the form of praising mature, relational girls (in opposition to tough and immature boys) as well as regretting what boys could not do for fear of being rendered effeminate. So, what are the implications of our findings for working with boys, and especially for addressing boys' homophobia, sexism and disruptive behaviour?
While we would argue that these aspects of masculinity should not be tolerated in schools - indeed, we would argue for a stronger response to it - we think that simply blaming boys is likely to be counterproductive and will reinforce their opposition to teachers' authority and girls. Rather, we suggest that people working with boys can (and should) build upon the sorts of anxieties expressed by many of the boys we interviewed - for example, wanting to do well academically without wanting to be seen to be working too hard by other boys.
The fact that boys were not simply invested in denigrating characteristics which they constructed as feminine, but also idealised these in opposition to popular forms of masculinity, opens up possibilities for working with boys. These possibilities entail appealing to boys' self interest, as it were, focusing on opportunities lost as a result of the association of male popularity with physical 'hardness' and emotional insensitivity.
But in encouraging boys to be critical of popular masculinities, we would stress that it is important not to idealise and align with boys on their own in opposition to boys in groups, but instead to highlight the contradictory ways boys act in groups of boys and 'on their own'. That is, we need to think of these contradictions as key features characterising contemporary young masculinities, which boys should be encouraged to explore.
This can best be done working with boys in combinations of single sex and mixed groups. As noted above, boys could become very thoughtful when faced with girls' criticisms; however, if we confine 'working with boys' to boys in mixed groups, one danger is that this might reinforce the assumption that with girls (so long as there are not too many boys present) boys can be sensitive, but as soon as they are with their 'mates' they revert to their true, troublesome selves.
While the very identities of boys as active and energetic were being forged by the boys themselves - in part, by 'feminising' talk and dismissing this as a poor substitute for engaging in activities such as sport - ironically, the boys were thoughtful and articulate in the interviews we conducted with them. Our study demonstrated that boys were extremely engaged when being interviewed at length by an adult who listened to them and showed interest in them. We would advocate the active creation of discussion spaces of this kind in schools.
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