Young men rejecting 'cookie-cutter' masculinity but many still feel pressure to act tough, study finds

Isaiah Gee remembers all too well the tough transition from boyhood to manhood.

"I was a pretty insecure teenager, I was pretty afraid of rejection, not just romantically but probably on a larger scale by my peers," the 22-year-old said.

He felt pressure from friends and the internet — but even more so from himself — to be hyper-masculine in order to be accepted and to smother his identity as a person of colour.

Attending an all-boys school, he felt surrounded by "acts of masculinity".

"Whether that was how many girls you could meet, or how loud you could be, how good you were at school or how disruptive you could be," he said.

Mikey D felt many of the same pressures, which persisted into his early adulthood, where he turned to online spaces to find answers to his problems.

"I just wanted help with getting a girlfriend and getting women to notice me as a young man, so I went online, harmlessly just looking up how to get a girl to respond," the now 27-year-old said.

"Very quickly, those tips just turn to anger and hatred about women and that they were playing some sort of game that men weren't in on."

At the time, Mikey felt seen and validated by these digital platforms, which are hostile to women and sometimes referred to as the "manosphere".

He said once he got hooked, he thought they had the "secrets".

"I was bought in and the algorithms were also just recommending harsher and more extreme titles," he said

"I noticed a change [in myself] as I was reflecting in my journals and just page by page seeing myself get a bit darker."

Both Mikey and Isaiah now want to show other young men that manhood does not need to fit a stereotypical checklist.

Young people's views towards male behaviour, relationships and the influence of apps, pornography and social media have been unpacked in a major new report.

'Herculean cookie-cutter mould' of masculinity still exists

Some teenagers still believe there is significant pressure on boys to act tough, strong and heterosexual, the Adolescent Man Box Study from the Jesuit Social Services has revealed.

While there is "good news", with most rejecting those views, the new survey of 1,400 boys, girls and non-binary teenagers highlights some boys still hold rigid ideas of masculinity that impact their wellbeing and behaviour.

"Overwhelmingly, boys told us that they want a more gender-equal world," said Matt Tyler, the executive director of the Men's Project at Jesuit Social Services.

But the survey paints a concerning picture for the boys who endorse these views.

It found 44 per cent of teenage boys personally agreed they must always appear confident, while 43 per cent agreed no matter what happened, a teenage boy should appear strong to others.

Young women were much less supportive of these views, with only 15 per cent agreeing boys must appear confident and 13 per cent believed they should appear strong.

"They've told us boys are expected to show up as confident, regardless of the circumstances, to always act tough, never backing down from a challenge … or to look gay or girly," Mr Tyler said.

"Those young men [that personally endorse these beliefs] are more likely to support attitudes that condone violence against women, self-report sexual harassment, and retaliate when they're rejected."

Both Isaiah and Mikey said they had been able to let go of the pressure, influences and attitudes they felt as younger men.

"I think what masculinity is turning into today is kind and empathetic and having really strong friendships … and to exhibit a lot of love and softness and curiosity."

Isaiah credits leaving his all-boys high school and forming genuine friendships with women at university for helping him change how he views masculinity.

"Just spending time with [girls], simple as it sounds, was pretty radical for me," he said.

But both young men have warnings about the online influences that led them down a dark path.

Warnings of pornography's 'catastrophic' influence

The Adolescent Man Box report found 59 per cent of adolescent boys had viewed pornography, and of these, around half viewed pornography once a month or more.

"Increasingly, the pornography that adolescents are viewing is violent, it's depicting choking and other deeply degrading acts of women," Matt Tyler said.

"This is influencing adolescents' perspectives of relationships as well as what's expected with regards to sex."

The survey found 9 per cent of boys had seen sexually explicit deepfakes of people they knew, and 13 per cent reported having friends who would create such material.

Isaiah said he turned to the world of porn for answers when he was a teen and curious about how to approach sexuality.

He said it had a "catastrophic" impact on his early dating experiences, mental health and sense of identity.

"It definitely distorted my perception of women generally. I think [it] made me sexualise most of my relations to even female friends or coworkers."

'How to deal with rejection' key issue for young men

A key call to action from the report's findings is better support for young men on one specific topic: rejection.

"The idea that, you know, at times in your life, you'll be told no, and how you respond in those mad moments," Mr Tyler said.

Mikey wishes he got this kind of help; he felt fear of rejection from women but even more so from his friends.

He said it "stems from wanting to fit in" and the pressure on teenage boys to kiss a girl before the end of high school.

"What would have really benefited me as a young man would have been kind of guided through how to deal with that rejection," he said.

"What it could look like and what your emotions could look like afterwards and how to process those."

Mikey said he believed unresolved anger could be most dangerous to young men.

"Young men, we tap into anger pretty quickly … for me it was just internally angry, 'Oh you're stupid for acting that way, for saying those things or putting your heart out there' and it would all turn inwards," he said.

"I guess how I eventually fell into the online world was because I was just so angry that I wasn't succeeding."

The majority of young women were not supportive of rigid and strict views of masculinity, the report found, but experts said this was not understood by their male peers.

Mikey is now a well-known DJ and said he observed the dynamic between young men and women in nightclub settings.

"The Herculean man that we were sold to as the dream of what women longed for, I am seeing more and more get rejected in the club scene," he said.

"[Men] seem to put that front on to impress other men and women certainly do not enjoy that approach at all.

"I get to watch that play out week in, week out whereas the softer, kinder, more thoughtful man is by and large getting treated with a lot more respect and invited into dance circles."

Call to action for parents and leaders

Young people are looking to an extremely wide variety of online material for advice and guidance, which experts believe leaves space for families to intervene.

"We asked boys who they are turning to in terms of seeking advice online: over 400 different online content creators came up … few were mentioned more than once," Mr Tyler said.

The report found many young men still prioritised getting support from family and friends.

"We've got to make sure that we're giving parents the support they need to address the contemporary issues in adolescents' lives, issues like violent pornography, image-based abuse and digital surveillance," Mr Tyler said.

Parents need to educate themselves on how to best support their boys, said Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon, an expert in gender-based violence at Monash University.

"We hear from adolescent boys that they don't feel comfortable to seek help from services, or from family and friends or at school," she said.

"How are we teaching them to sit in the discomfort of being told no, but to do so safely, and to do so in a way that doesn't put others at risk?"

Experts say there is a role for government to provide greater support services, but also for large technology companies to create safer online environments.

Mikey sees a positive change in the men around him and has a simple message about the power of role models and young men holding each other to account.

"When there's good men in the club role-modelling great behaviour, the younger men are following suit," he said.

"I see men pulling other men aside and doing it in a respectful way that isn't trying to instigate a fight and they're seeing eye to eye and that's really cool.

"We want our core group to love us and we want to feel accepted into that core group. And when that core group doesn't agree with the decisions we're making, we're going to rectify those decisions because we want to still be a part of our group."