HAVANA TIMES – I work in Recoleta, a sector of Santiago, Chile, as a professional with SENDA, the National Service for Prevention and Recovery from Drug and Alcohol abuse. Part of my work involves conducting workshops on masculinity for students and also training sessions for educational personnel and assistants. Certain situations I’ve encountered during these activities have made me wonder why we speak so little about how we learned to be men.
I once asked a student what it meant to be a man. He answered: “to be strong.” Another asked me whether talking about masculinity meant you were gay. I remember those responses because they show how difficult it still is to speak about these topics in an unprejudiced way.
In the workshops I do in the Recoleta schools, I’ve often seen the females participating more, while some of the men make jokes or remain silent. This doesn’t always happen, but it’s something I’ve noticed. Talking in front of peers about what we feel, or questioning certain ideas about being a man can still be a source of shame.
This is also related to the prevention of alcohol and drug abuse. In some groups, drinking a lot or doing risky things is a way to show your bravery. Saying you don’t want to participate can mean enduring the mockery of your peers. If we don’t talk about these pressures, we’re left with just a slice of what young people have to deal with.
During a conversation, a safe schools coordinator in Chile told me that almost all the people who approached his team to talk were women. The men mostly appeared when forced to do so due to a fight. I can’t generalize based on this, but it struck me that with the males there seemed to be more space for punishment than for talking about what’s going on with them.
Meanwhile, on the internet, the manosphere offers its own answers to the youth who feel isolated or rejected.
Some of the influencers there tell them that women or feminism is to blame, and that they must assert their dominance to gain respect. It worries me that such rhetoric finds its place among young men who don’t always have other places to vent their frustrations or talk about their relations with others.
In the workshops I carry out in Recoleta for educational personnel and assistants, it worries me that the topic of masculinity ends up reduced to one quick activity. A workshop is held, a conversation takes place for a short time, and after that everything continues the same. Really addressing these topics takes continuity, not just the initiative of a professional who succeeds in opening a space to talk about it.
I’ve also seen that it’s often the women who speak up when we talk about gender and masculinity. The female teachers and students participate, while some of the men remain on the margins. We adult men also must get involved. We can’t continue leaving in women’s hands the task of questioning ideas that we men ourselves learn and reproduce.
In Chilean schools, as in other educational contexts, to speak of getting along together and preventing substance abuse should also involve talking about the ideas we have acquired about being a man. Peer pressure, fear of looking foolish or the need to demonstrate strength don’t come out of nowhere. However, it would be a mistake to assume that all the schools and all young people live out these experiences in the same way.
Speaking from the perspective of my work with Recolecta’s SENDA Prevention group, I think that talking about masculinity is part of prevention. Not because being a man necessarily leads to substance abuse or violence, but because certain demands about how we should behave can end up harmful to ourselves and those around us. My experience in the Recoleta schools has convinced me that these conversations shouldn’t depend on an isolated activity; it needs a more permanent place in the educational process.