One of the biggest threats to gender equality today is the views of younger men. Research from King’s College London’s Policy Institute and Global Institute for Women’s Leadership and IPSOS shows that the gender split is the starkest amongst young people, around how helpful the term toxic masculinity is.

Archaic attitudes towards gender still prevail. A UN Gender Equality attitudes study found that 40% of people believe it's a man's job to earn money, while 51% believe women should work less and devote more time to family.

Young men have been left confused about the role of masculinity and despite younger men being more socially liberal, they are no more likely than older men to support gender equality.

At Creative Equal’s RISE event, Sara Denby, Head of Unstereotype Alliance Secretaria, sat down with Rachel Lowenstein, Inclusive Innovation at Mindshare, Tom D’Souza, Global Innovation at Movember, Dr Rebecca Swift, VP Creative at Getty Images, Samori Gambrah, Global Brand Director at Captain Morgan and Fernando Desouches, Managing Director, New Macho, BBD Perfect Storm, to consider how to reframe boys and young men in marketing.

The Manosphere

Gender-based stereotypes act as a barrier for progress in every aspect of society. Rachel Lowenstein, Inclusive Innovation at Mindshare, contextualised this issue by painting a picture of the extremism and internet radicalisation that young boys face, with many trends online born from disenfranchisement.

Online, ‘The Manosphere’ sees young men presented with an array of polarizing content that reinforces archaic stereotypes and extremist views around women. “While there is no unifying idea they have a unified belief that women are the cause of mens pain”, explains Lowenstein. At present, Andrew Tate has become a poster boy for this side of extremism. Yet Lowenstein stresses that “Andrew Tate is just one of the figures that came out, there were many men that came before him and there will be others that take his place.”

Entrance into ‘Manosphere’ spaces often comes from self-help search terms which expose young boys to more and more radical content over time. These spaces exploit men's insecurities. “Men's algorithms are not mirrors but funhouse mirrors distorting their beliefs about society failing them,” says Lowenstein.

Where womanhood is presented in a more expansive way, the media persists with a more monolithic view of masculinity. Lowenstein urges us to broaden the representation of men to present new pathways and more options for young men.

Masculinity and mental health in crisis

Gender is an unavoidable lens through which to look at mental health. In the UK, suicide is the number one killer of young men, with one man taking his own life each minute.

Despite the breadth of the issue, stereotypes and taboos around men's mental health stop men from speaking out when they are struggling. “Movember gets guys to use the moustache as a bit of a trojan horse to talk about men's mental health”, says Tom D’Souza, Global Innovation at Movember.

Social norms are having a negative impact on mental health and making it hard for men to be themselves, but a problem shared is a problem halved, so finding ways to encourage men to speak can be life-saving.

“There's no rule book for a form of healthy masculinity, it comes in many different shapes and forms,” says D’Souza. He urges us to think about the different versions of masculinity to encourage men to have the confidence to be themselves and not live in ways in which they think society wants them to. At current there is a huge perception gap between what men think and what they think society wants them to think.

“We need more versions of men that celebrate vulnerability, empathy, diversity and our capacity for kindness,” adds D’Souza.

Better representation leads to better engagement

Fernando Desouches, Managing Director at New Macho, BBD Perfect Storm, shares that a study of 3500 men in 10 countries, found that men have been raised to perform their masculinity instead of live it.

“Success is to men what beauty was to women. It objectifies them,” says Desouches.

The way men are presented in advertising currently is causing them to compare their own achievements to those of ‘successful’ men on screen, resulting in self-esteem issues. While the media presents success to be about making money and having material things, real markers of success for modern men are about being happy and content, and having good relationships. The media must keep up with society's changing values rather than pushing the materialistic values rooted in the past. Research shows that today, men engage best with brands that make them feel happy, motivated and inspired. The values that engage them the least are: respected, powerful and rich.

“Through new stories and new ways of showing what success can be, we open up new stories from different perspectives”, says Denby.

What modern men look like

Looking at widening the lens to depict men more accurately, Dr Rebecca Swift, VP Creative at Getty Images, considered how men have been portrayed in imagery over the past decades.

Swift shares that in the 1940s men were shown to be older and wiser and in the 1950s men were shown coming in or going out to work. There was a notion that a man was only in the home once he’d finished work, a stereotype still alive today.

The 1960s brought an explorative trend with men on the moon, while the 70s added women as an accessory. Calvin Klein and Abercrombie and Fitch put men's bodies in the spotlight in imagery of the 90s, while the 2000s brought the pressure of athleticism and sport, showing that winning was the goal. The decades build a picture of pressure upon pressure.

Stock imagery of the 2010s only further perpetuates these pressures. Be it men in business situations wearing blue shirts and delivering lectures, with leadership as a goal, or running to show athleticism, the same stereotypes have been reinforced time and time again.

The imagery of today must be more diverse. The aim is to take men out of the boardroom, show them in healthy relationships and vulnerable situations, to showcase different stories.

There is no ideal man

The alcohol industry has also been guilty of contributing to harmful versions of masculinity as Samori Gambrah, Global Brand Director at Captain Morgan, stresses, “limited versions of what it means to be male can be harmful”.

To better represent consumers and what they want to see, Gambrah advocates for looking at the men within culture today and embracing new role models. Whether they be ‘Game of Thrones’ stars, or Ken from ‘Barbie’, shifts are constantly taking place.

Being in touch with the changing needs of consumers, Gambrah says that now, “Captain Morgan is a brand for everyone - encouraging everyone to embrace and celebrate their own spice,” which means the brand has retired some of the old values of masculinity that Captain Morgan himself was once associated with. “The time has come for Captain Morgan to transform, in communications and in spirit,” says Gambrah.

Challenging expectations of past norms and shunning stereotypes, the brand has launched an Alcohol-Free version to best serve the consumers it seeks to connect with today.

From harmful stereotypes about what it means to be a successful man, the challenges lies within broadening the lens to show more versions of masculinity and drive change.

To close the session, Denby challenged the audience to “reject the expected, open the aperture, create new stories of success” and introduce new, more progressive role models to help young men and boys navigate new versions of masculinity.

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Photo credit: Bronac McNeill