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Naomi Torres-Mackie Ed.M., Ph.D.
Raising Sons in the #MeToo Era
A Surprising Source of Expanded Male Gender Roles
Posted Jul 07, 2019
Fourth-wave feminism, colloquially referred to as the #MeToo movement, has spawned many important questions, one of which is how to effectively raise sons in an era of accountability and mutual respect across genders. Authors writing for many major media outlets have offered insights into how to handle this task (e.g., The New Yorker’s “How to Raise a Boy”, The Cut’s “How I raised 5 Sons to Respect Women”, The New York Times’ “In the #MeToo era, raising boys to be good guys,” and most notably, New York magazine’s cover story, “How to Raise a Boy”); however, none have touched on a concept developed from my own research termed “Gender Role Agency.” The findings on this construct came from an unlikely place: a Columbia University-based study on the experiences of managing stigma while growing up in a single-mother household.
The normative experience of single mothers and their families is that of receiving stigma and negative attitudes, like they are missing something, socially deviant, or are subpar family units. Take, for example, the title of a 1996 scholarly book: Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society (Popenoe). The title says it all, and the flawed data it presents reflects other psychological literature that deems single-mother families as “broken” without a male parent (Sidel, 2006; Whitehead, 1993). What the present study found, however, was that the single-mother family structure offers numerous opportunities for children to develop strengths. One of these is Gender Role Agency, or the mechanism in which individuals gain agency over their ideas of gender, rather than being “constricted” by conventional norms, as one participant described it.
Gender Role Agency
Through participant interviews about their experiences growing up with a single mother, narratives emerged about how, with one female parent, an “omni-model” of gender emerged in which the head of household—Mom—embodied male roles, female roles, and everything in between. Participants explained how they absorbed this model, finding themselves with a certain level of agency over the gender roles they embodied in their own lives both during childhood and throughout their lifespan. This led to what was called “freedom from convention” among adult children of single mothers, who appreciated the non-traditional model of gender offered by their upbringing.
Such freedom from convention meant that those who grew up with a single mother developed unique ideas about gender. These were understood to be distinct from what is typically modeled in the “traditional family” with two parents who are heterosexual and married. These atypical ideas about gender are encapsulated by the umbrella construct “Gender Role Agency” that houses four distinct concepts: democratized gender roles, expanded masculinity and femininity, gender self-efficacy, and gender self-sufficiency. Each of these speaks to the unique and gendered experience of growing up with one female parent in a way that defies tradition. As the latter two were specific to female participants overcoming gender-based low expectations, the focus here is on how democratized gender roles and expanded masculinity impacted male participants who grew up with single mothers. It can also be inferred that boys growing up in any household can develop these capacities if provided similar circumstances to that which participants experienced.
Democratized Gender Roles
This concept emerged during study interviews when participants spoke to the way in which, in their single-mother household, they did not have a model for male dominance or female submissiveness that their peers from two-parent heterosexual households observed. Many spoke to the way in which this currently impacts their adult lives, and some explained how, in their adult domestic lives, they experience shared responsibility with others at home, regardless of gender. For instance, one male participant spoke to this when he said,
“Because my mom played this ambiguous role, it impacted the role that I would [otherwise] assume, which is the protector, the breadwinner. [Now,] I do the dishes, right? [My wife] cooks, but I do the dishes. I do laundry… So we don’t have typical gender roles. That’s because my mom—that was a model for me.”
Another participant emphatically referred to his democratized gender roles as “an unintended and beautiful gift.”
Expanded Masculinity
The second concept beneath the umbrella of male Gender Role Agency—Expanded Masculinity—addresses the way in which participants felt that they understand masculinity and femininity in a “balanced” and “free” manner. This is distinct from Democratized Gender Roles, which pertains more specifically to shared roles at home or other spheres of life.
Noting his acquired expanded masculinity, one male participant shared that he has “a more fluid concept of gender,” because his mother embodied both masculinity and femininity. Another participant stated that he feels “untethered” to the traditional view that a woman cannot independently head a household. Male participants also talked about having little interest in excessive competition and being more comfortable expressing emotion than their two-parent, male peers.
It is important to note that some male participants discussed their awareness that others may not see these capacities as assets, particularly those who ascribe to highly “traditional” views of gender roles. All male participants did, however, indicate that gender role agency provided them with what they saw as five clear assets: balance, authenticity, liberty, self-governance, and empowerment.
This means that with gender role agency and its associated democratized gender roles and expanded masculinity, the men in this study felt that they experienced the opportunity to live authentically in a freer, more balanced way that provided them with satisfaction in feeling that they can self-determine their own choices, behaviors, and interests, rather than being constricted by what they “ought” to do as men. Rather, in having a parental model of “unified gender roles,” as one participant said, these men were afforded a level of empowerment over their gender roles which enabled them to empathize with others, feel comfortable with a woman in charge, and not be pulled toward excessive competition that can impair relationships with men and women alike.
In this way, men growing up with single mothers may have a gendered edge in the #MeToo era.
If the conditions in which gender role agency, democratized gender roles and expanded masculinity and femininity can be reproduced across diverse family structures, not just single-mother households, this would be a true asset to the fourth-wave feminist and social justice movements. Such movements are only as good as the generations that carry on their values, and raising young men to embody gender role agency, democratized gender roles, and expanded masculinity is one stepping stone to a legacy of equality.
Drawing broader awareness of how gender role agency is developed would also finally provide a counter-narrative to political and social rhetoric that places blame on single-mother families for the ills of society (Caragata and Alcalde, 2014; Dowd, 1997; Shur, 1984; Sidel, 2006). Instead, we have an opportunity to learn from an undervalued group just how they manage to create assets in the midst of challenges.
References
Caragata, L., & Alcalde, J. (2014). Not the whole story: Challenging the single mother narrative. Ontario, Canada: Wilfried Laurier University Press.
Dowd, N. E. (1997). In defense of single-parent families. New York, NY: New York University Press.
Leitch, W. (2018). How to raise a boy: I’m not sure what to think about what my dad tried to teach me. So what should I teach my sons? Retrieved from https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/will-leitch-on-raising-sons-in-2018.html#_ga=2.186584297.150439871.1557496537-186223873.1557496537
Marikar, S. (2018). How to raise a boy: Fatherly, a platform for dads, threw a brunch to talk about men in the age of #MeToo. Retrieved from http://nymag.com/press/2018/03/on-the-cover-how-to-raise-a-boy.html
McGlynn, D. (2018). In the #MeToo era, raising boys to be good guys. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/01/well/family/metoo-sons-sexual-harassment-parenting-boys.html
Popenoe, D. (1996). Life without father: Compelling new evidence that fatherhood and marriage are indispensable for the good of children and society. New York, NY: Free Press.
Shur, E. M. (1984). Labeling women as deviant: Gender, stigma, and social control. Random House: New York, NY.
Sidel, R. (2006). Unsung heroines: Single mothers and the American dream. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Tsoulis-Reay, A. (2018). How I raised 5 sons to respect women. Retrieved from https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/how-to-raise-a-boy-taught-my-5-sons-to-respect-women.html
Whitehead, B. D. (1993). Dan Quayle was right. Atlantic Monthly, April, 47-84.
You betcha
The ghettoes of America are filled with men raised by single moms, and they are every feminist's dream! They treat women so respectfully!
Stop by San Quentin and interview some!
Raising sons
I totally disagree with this article!
My daughter is a single mother of a teenage son. She has done a beautiful job with raising a responsible, caring and happy boy. However, his father is in his life part-time. He spends his summers with us and he's very close to my husband (his grandfather). He gets mentoring from healthy male models from men in his life. My daughter couldn't possibly be a "father" to her son anymore than my husband could be a "mother" to our daughters.
Biology is a factor in gender role models.
What a warped baseless idea
If a son grows up in the absence of a father or any male role model for that matter, that simply amounts to severe deprivation of proper parenting and failure to provide optimal care that ensures adequate development of mental, emotional and physical well being of a child. This can have detrimental effects in a person's normal functioning as an adult in society. In my book, I consider such acts as child abuse. Period.
And no amount of hoodwinking, sugar coating or perpetuating false "feminist" hopes and expectations are going to change these truthful facts. It is a total disgrace for any human with an intact cognition to advocate such perverse views that damages the very fundamental social foundation of a society.
Sons who are raised in an environment that severely deprive them of a male role model or of adequate paternal care have increased risk of involvement juvenile delinquency, low academic performance, lack of discipline and tendency to act impulsively. On the whole, it results in a person to have a disturbed well being.
Likewise, daughters are equally affected, if not worse than sons, because the lack of male role model or absence of a father in a home will increased girls to sexually promiscuous, and unknowingly desire to be in abusive violent relationships.
This then would be the perfect combination for increased incidents of domestic abuse, rape, violence against women, male-male violence, in essence, a life governed by jungle law---might is right and survival of the fittest. Literally it is a phenomenon of human evolution in reverse, which is guaranteed to cause social regression.
Consequently, single motherhood will become a vicious cycle with every subsequent generation, in time have the high potential of transforming a civilized community into an unruly ghetto. In fact it's predicted in the near future, single motherhood phenomenon, will be one of the major attributing factor to the increasing prevalence of social ills and decreasing quality of living from rising crime rates. Many features of such social occurrence are already observable today. Basically, pervasive crime filled ghettos where 'jungle rule' predominates will be the future "norm", in what was once the "modern cities". It seems Life truly is a cycle, after all.
The crucial need for paternal care or bi-parenting due to high cost of raising a human offspring stemming from the evolutionary tradeoff of acquiring high intelligence. This is a unique feature is only seen in humans as up to 97% of species do not have sustained paternal care per se including many of the socially complex primates. Thus this can be somewhat considered not only the epitome of human being's superior biological accomplishment but also the brilliant hallmark of the evolution of Life in wholeness.
Therefore, for anyone to have the audacity to perpetuate a contradictory and an absolutely appalling concept by condoning or propagating repulsive as well as fallacious notions, that can jeopardize the social progress, harmony and stability of a society, is truly an outrageous conduct to have, especially in 2019. No wonder several radical gender based sociopolitical ideologies that advocate such toxic social ideas are viewed with immense contempt by many people nowadays.
Deeply misguided article
This article manages not to mention that being raised by a single mother is a strong prdictor of poor educational achievement and increased liklihood of involvement in crime.
Gender Role Agency is perhaps a benefit although no evidence is provided as to whether this has a net benefit, deleterious or neutral impact on a child but what we do know is that bringing up a child without a father has on average negative consequences to the future life prospects of that child.
Huh?
History and statistics have shown that the negatives of growing up in a single parent household far outweigh the benefits. Sure the child may learn to be more independent but it is also linked to higher levels of violence, substance abuse and crime in men as well as higher levels of substance abuse and sexual promiscuity (teen pregnancy etc.) in women. To say that a child growing up in a single parent household is a good thing is absolutely absurd and lacks much insight.
Good Grief.
"one of which is how to effectively raise sons in an era of accountability and mutual respect across genders."
No, how to raise safe boys in an environment of accusation and lynch mobs, denial of simply rights to due process, made to fear women more than the writer assumes women fear men.
The feminist narrative is the most dangerous and destructive entity known to modern day boys. Ending that, eliminating the vast and glaring discrimination against father's will end what feminist thought police have created for our boys, a hostile environment from home, to education, to employment.
Our most dangerous criminals in our prisons today, our rapist, murderers, even school shooters are being raised in the single parent female head of household, pushed through a feminist educational system, released into the wild confused, hurt, and angry.
With that, I will not declare women at fault, as I'm not a feminist and do not play the gender war game. Boys need the feminine, the mother, but without the father, when the boy begins to break from the feminine, seek out his own Identity, he is left to learn from feminist rants of guilt, other dysfunctional boys, and video games (see the Kruger park elephant experiment), in a sort of lord of the flies scenario.
Rosalind Miles wrote, almost 40 years ago, in her book, "Love, Sex, Death, and the making of the male, "Bring the father of every boy into the close circle of care so as to break the oedipal knot (and the violence of getting even with the mother) and give the child a parent worth modeling themselves after.
We are still failing, still listening to the Sirens song, still harming our boys...and therefore our society.
This article is not the cure, it's the problem.
Ah, Yes . . .
Do you detect the strained panic underpinning this well-meaning article, struggling to re-assert hallowed dogmas, the dedicated systematic applications of which have resulted in the increasing exodus of young men from the field of play, from this endeavor that is Society?
But fear not. Press on!
The application of more of what is not working, will eventually make it all work Just Fine.
Believing fervently -- nay, even shouting the earth is flat -- does not make it so.
I was raised in a single mother, male free, feminist household.
I was raised in a single mother, male free, feminist household and it has left me a broken down husk of a man. For me a single mother upbringing meant abandonment and neglect. Being raised with no male influence meant never learning what it means to be a man and what is expected of men. Being raised under the feminist narrative meant growing up with a skewed understanding of male/female dynamics that has left me alone and unloved most of my life. This gender neutral utopia that you fantasize of is a living hell for me. If you only knew the kind of damage this ideology can cause a young boy growing up in it. I don’t think the damage caused to me can ever be undone. There is not a single day that goes by that I don’t want to die.
Fabrication
This comment is so obviously phony. Lucifer A needed to prove his point by creating a character.
A story told a hundred
A story told a hundred thousand times, by hundreds of thousands of young men...and it is a tragedy that society seeks to both continue, and blame the man himself...never seeking the cause.
They may not hear you, society may not want to hear you, but the MRM hears you...and it is growing stronger every day.
Not another generation of boys are going to have to endure this hateful, anti-male society warped by what amounts to a dysfunctional hate group.
Wish you the best.
To the first comment, I can
To the first comment, I can assure you that I and my life are real. I have no idea who LuciferA is. To the second comment, thanks for having some understanding of what I have and am currently going through, but I’m wary of the men’s rights movement. When I hear what some in the MRM espouse is see the same kind of fallacies in thought that many in the feminist camp are guilty of. I know that I don’t have all the answers, but I see a sort of horse shoe pattern in in ideology with both the feminist and MRAs. The more extreme both side get the more they tend to mirror each other. I personally feel that what is most missing is a proper dialectic between both sides. People are to prone to extremes of thought, especially with such a personal and emotionally charged topic as gender politics. But I think that might be an impossible thing to hope for. Apart from that, thanks also for your word of encouragement.
Second.
It is indeed worrisome that there will always be a mirror mirror effect from one camp to another. I also agree that there needs to be greater discussion and involvement of both with fair hearings in the public square. If for nothing else but in hope's not allow for such bifrication to get so far appart that neither is willing to hear out the other.
History is littered with evidence to what happens after the talking stops.
Best of luck to us all, and with the greatest of respect.
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