How to save boys from masculinity

Article here. Excerpt:

'But what she found is that, despite considerable progress on gender in society, the way we raise boys hasn’t changed much — and the collision of expectations has created a crisis for boys that has fed the crisis for young men that has, in turn, fed the crisis of democracy that’s facing the world today.

We talked with Whippman about BoyMom, her forthcoming book on what it means to parent boys in an America that’s largely failed to equip its boys and men with a way to deal with change; how both the left and the right get boys wrong, with disastrous results; and how progressives actually interested in building a real alternative might get away from the notion of masculinity to make a better world for everyone.
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But when we brought in these new social expectations for boys, we never quite got rid of the old ones. The traditional pressures of masculinity are still very much in circulation: boys are still expected to be assertive and domineering and aggressive and manly, and to never appear effeminate in any way. The social costs of falling short of this standard are also high for boys, who are taught to fear looking weak. And if anything, in the age of CGI muscles and superhero epics and online “masculinity influencers,” the prevailing model for manhood has become even more cartoonishly masculine and aggressive over the years. Many boys I interviewed still felt they had to perform a kind of rigid, posturing masculinity in front of their friends and often feared that they were constantly only one step away from being labeled a wuss or a pussy.'