![]() At a life stage when masculine identity is forming, schools are ideal environments for interventions promoting healthy and equitable notions of gender relations, particularly in group settings where students experience connections and imbibe social values. Some of the most encouraging examples of transforming gender norms and practices come from interventions with adolescents in schools. ![]() At the same time, interventions must also address the intersections of men’s gender identities with other social diversities and hierarchies (such as race, class, sexual orientation) that shape the health practices of young men and boys. 14 This helps young men and boys to recognise and question the power and privileges afforded to them, while acknowledging and dealing with the pressures associated with masculine norms and the stigma arising from deviation from these norms. 2 9 13 Gender transformative approaches aim to examine, question, and transform unequal gender norms and their attendant behaviours and attitudes through the creation of safe spaces for critical thinking and reflection. These include group education, campaigns, and changes in institutional practices and policies to promote gender equality. International evidence shows that approaches combining strategies at the individual, social, and structural levels are key to promoting gender equitable attitudes and behaviours during adolescence. 12 Given the socialisation and consolidation of gendered attitudes and behaviours during these years of life, adolescence represents a critical opportunity to promote healthy notions of masculinity and build equitable norms that contribute to improved health and wellbeing. 9 10 11 At this stage of life, boys also begin to disengage from healthcare services and face additional barriers to care, with stigma and shame making them reluctant to seek help, particularly for mental health problems. They are also more likely than girls to endorse inequitable gender norms such as the belief that women are primarily homemakers and men are primarily breadwinners. 9 As they grow from adolescence into adulthood, boys are faced with heightened pressures to prove their manhood. Young men and boys are particularly at risk, and exhibit health and service engagement profiles that differ from those of adult men and young women. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Health behaviours associated with masculinity-including poor diet, tobacco use, alcohol use, occupational hazards, unsafe sex, drug use, and limited help seeking-have been shown to account for more than half of all premature male deaths and 70% of men’s illnesses. ![]() 1 2 Research and evidence clearly suggest that such norms have long been prevalent worldwide and that adherence is harmful for men’s health and wellbeing. Masculinity related norms that define the socially accepted ways of “being a man” place value on behaviours and attitudes that are characterised by control, stoicism, emotional rigidity and inhibition, risk taking, hypersexuality, and aggression. The Tate case also raises important questions around the conceptualisation and operationalisation of “toxic” and “healthy” masculinities, and the value of gendered typologies and framings underpinning approaches to promote gender equity and wellbeing within health settings and broader society. Tate’s rise as a major influencer across online spaces-particularly the “manosphere,” a network of communities within which male supremacist and antiwomen discourses flourish-has revived global attention to the need to engender progressive, healthy forms of masculinity, especially among young men and boys. Alongside much global condemnation, Tate has received a massive wave of support-millions of young men and boys look up to him as a model of masculinity and a positive force for men. Andrew Tate, the British-American social media personality and self-proclaimed misogynist, recently made headlines for his arrest on charges of rape and human trafficking.
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