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Correspondence to: R K Verma [email protected]
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. 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. 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. 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.
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.12 Research and evidence clearly suggest that such norms have long been prevalent worldwide and that adherence is harmful for men’s health and wellbeing.2345678 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.5
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.9 As they grow from adolescence into adulthood, boys are faced with heightened pressures to prove their manhood. 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.91011 At this stage of life, boys also begin...