Through WiseGuyz we have learned how deeply disconnected some adolescent boys feel from themselves and from people in their lives because of the cultural expectations of masculine ideologies to be stoic, invulnerable, and autonomous. Niobe Way claims that at this pivotal point in development for adolescent boys, they experience great loss of intimacy in friendships, homophobia, and conventions of masculinity begin to create âgender straightjacketsâ for boys. She proposes that these confines can be linked to suicide and depression rates of boys being double that of girls.
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When asked what they would carry forward most from WiseGuyz, the boys unanimously stated healthy relationships and awareness of the âman-box.â They shared that at the age of 14 they feel intense pressure about the âman-boxâ and that âyou canât show emotionâ and that âyou gotta be tough. You gotta be mean.â
In WiseGuyz, the boys learn to unlearn by undressing the armour of disconnection and stoicism. They redress with comfort in emotion and feeling safe to ask questions in their intimate relationships.
The opening of emotionality through WiseGuyz is a kind of permission for boys âto have an internal life, approached for the full range of human emotions, and help in developing an emotional vocabulary so that they may better understand themselves and communities more effectively with others.â The centrality of fulsome emotion is fundamental to the psychological well-being of adolescent boys, to sustaining healthy male norms and to their ability to engage in healthy relationships.
Debb Hurlock, âBoys Returning to Themselves: Healthy Masculinities and Adolescent Boys,â WiseGuyz Research Report #3
