Tough Guise

    I'm not sure what I was expecting when I first heard of the film "Tough Guise", I knew that it was generally about toxic masculinity but I was unsure of the deeper meaning. Within the first 5 minutes of watching it, I was completely astonished at the statistics that were about hateful crimes committed between genders. All of these crimes were over 80% caused by boys. While the film goes on, the narrater also explains the hardships that boys are put through because of their gender. Everyone always tells them to "be a man" or to "act tougher" because people always think that every boy should fit the textbook definition of "masculine" but that is not the case anymore.

    After watching that film, I had the chance to read "Not Your Father's Masculinity" by Matt Labash and "The Boys Are Not All Right" by Michael Ian Black and their articles were also tied in to toxic masculinity. They both talk about how awful boy's mental health is becoming because they are held to such a high standard with how they're supposed to look, act, feel, think and speak and it's killing their self image. 

    While I've always known that something didn't feel right about the way adults talk to young boys, these articles and the film really opened my eyes. As a girl, I was raised to be strong willed and have big dreams because women were so suppressed for so long but now the roles are being reversed. Boys are never told that they can do what they want with their life because they're told to grow up to be big and strong and provide for their family one day. Men that are from older generations sound like robots with all of their built up sadness that they weren't raised to cope with properly because they were raised to "be a man". I hope that our generation now will raise our boys to just be kind and tell them it's okay to cry, because boys don't have to be angry all the time.