Like, you see Brexit, yeah ... I can't even lie to you.
I laugh at Brexit, I think it's funny. – I can’t lie to you.
I've been watching Brexit lately, yeah, and it's looking kind of live, still.
You just said Brexit is kind of live, still?
Yeah!
It's funny.
Watching them argue is actually funny.
You guys actually follow Brexit?
Yeah.
Really?
What do you follow on? Do you read the Guardian?
Yeah.
Guardian?
Yeah.
You can say no.
This is the fourth episode in our series on modern masculinity.
In the first three episodes, we've spoken to lots of different men
about the potential causes for this crisis in masculinity
which is so hotly debated.
And in the next few episodes, I'd like to look at some of the solutions.
There are lots of individuals and organisations who are trying to create support networks to men
and one of those groups is Football Beyond Borders.
So I've got a personal relationship with Football Beyond Borders.
Last year, I chaperoned a trip that they did to Paris
and I've worked with several of their different groups doing mentoring and workshops around the media.
And it's in doing that work that I've spoken to these guys
and just thought: 'wow, these guys have so much to say around masculinity'
and they're really not given the platform to speak for themselves.
We seem to be very concerned with what's going on with teenage boys at the moment
but we don't exactly rush to hear what they think.
So I went to speak to a group of them and asked them what they think it takes to be a man.
As a 13-year-old, what do you think it takes to be a man as opposed to a boy?
Being a man for me is like, protecting your family, making sure everyone is happy before you are.
To have character, to be hopeful and to stand up for what you think is right.
I feel like masculinity is misinterpreted these days.
People, like, just go for stereotypes as in, like, strength and protection.
Masculinity is not what you see on TV, not what you see in magazines …
It's not like having the best figure, having all the females or smelling the greatest,
it's about integrity, about being yourself, doing the right thing when no one's there.
Being a man, being masculine is like being able to be caring
and have self-awareness of the people around you and the world around you as well.
What are the things that you think that make young people kind of stressed out?
Especially young boys … what do you think are the main things that people get stressed or worried about?
Society, and what they think that young boys have to be
or what they have to do.
I think it's just society that makes people anxious and it kind of sends them into a dark place
where they don't know what to do.
They don't want to depend on someone else to tell them what to do
but then again, they don't know what to do.
Young men like me or Fernando might be scared to try and fit into society as well,
like, people judging them by how they look and how they act.
I think that would definitely be something which young people would be quite nervous of.
Am I going to fit in? Am I going to be able to get friends?
At the end of the day, it's just about being who you are
and not what people are trying to force you to be.
FBB uses football as a way of reaching out to young people
and there are similarly professional players who use their platform in a sport to speak on issues like,
like mental health.
I feel like Danny Rose is a good role model.
It's because he suffers from mental health like me but he kind of
uses football to get away with it ... or get away from it, so yeah.
What are his kind of issues? I am not sure about.
I think it's kind of like anxiety and depression and I have anxiety so it's kind of like,
it's nice to have someone who can speak about it, so I don't have to be scared when I talk about myself.
I play football to get out of anxiety.
You play football to get over anxiety?
Football is kind of like, how ever much time I am playing, it's just that much time away from the world,
and just enjoying the football.
Yeah, it's a good release for frustration. I go to the gym.
Whenever I can, I just talk to my mom, she always helps me out.
Every time I'm anxious or if I've got something on my mind which I need to spill out,
my mom's always there for me.
That's really good!
You know what it is?
There's a big thing about finding the things that make you feel better in a moment.
I mean, you'll laugh but I get my nails done.
And I'm stressed because I can't be on my phone because they've got my hands,
so I've just got to like zone out and be like, OK, take my hands, get my nails done
which is very different to football but you know I mean?
We've all got our own things.
At this point, I can't help but ask myself questions about that space of time
between school and between home when it comes to young men.
There's a lot of discussion about the fact that there aren't provisions for youth groups.
We're missing out on vital hours of interaction with boys outside of school time.
Where they could be learning about social interaction and what it takes to be a man.
Stefan?
Yeah.
Could you just explain to me a little bit about the work that you guys have been doing together?
Yeah, so this term or rather last term at Totteridge Academy,
we've been working with the boys on a programme which is really about exploring masculine identity.
The programme started with us kind of unpicking what masculinity meant
as a term and then moving on to thinking about,
how the pressures to conform to certain masculine stereotypes
have impacted them already even at their age, in year eight.
OK, cool.
So guys, could you start off by telling me a little bit about the stereotypes around masculinity
that you guys know about?
That you have to be strong and you have to be bad at school, something like that.
To not be able to cry or anything like that because
you'll show your weakness and stuff.
You have to get all the girls.
All of them.
You have to always go to the gym and you have to be big and strong and hench.
OK, all right.
So can you just tell me what's the work that you've done from the idea
of having these stereotypes, what we've done with those stereotypes?
What's the kind of work you guys have been doing with Stefan?
Do you remember the mask we live in?
We've talked about the front and the back of the mask.
What's the mask we live in?
So, it was, one side of the mask, we wrote what we show to people we are,
and that was the side we show us, and then on the back of the mask
we wrote who we actually are, and what we actually want to do.
And what did you put on your mask?
So for the front, I said I was like, trying to act big and be like a roadman
but on the back I said that, like, I'm very emotional and …
Shy?
Shy, yeah.
On my mask, I put that you have to be rude to teachers,
you have to answer back, you have to fight …
That's the world that we live in.
But on the inside, I put that I'm quite shy in the inside.
What difference do you think it makes, somewhere like FBB,
like there's older guys that are you know, there's Stefan for example …
Do you feel like you can talk to them for example?
Yeah.
What kind of impact does it make on you, having them around?
It's kind of like, filling a role that you can't find in school,
kind of, if there's something in your mind,
you don't want to talk to teachers,
you want to talk to like Harry or Stefan or something.
And it's kind of like, it gets you away from what the teachers think,
it's kind of like, a different person that you can talk to,
instead of just normal teachers.
Yeah, you feel very safe when they're around as well.
They are always welcoming, they're always funny as well,
and it it just makes you fit definitely in, like, you're never left out.
It's more natural.
Yeah, yeah, we can speak to them without …
without worrying about like, the way that you're saying it.
You feel more comfortable when you talk to them as well, way more comfortable.
So, you boys know I worked as a teacher for six years right before I came to work over here.
I didn't know that.
One of the reasons I came over to do this kind of work was for the reasons we're talking about
because as a teacher, I didn't really have the time to put into their relationships
and they're really getting to know my pupils properly and that's kind of what
I cared about the most.
The word that comes to mind is space,
I feel like what we provide for these young men, you know, benefits us as well ...
It's not rushed, the emphasis is, there's not so much pressure on me or Harry
to deliver a certain set of results and I actually think young people may be consciously or
unconsciously, will like intuitively pick up on that,
they know that it's not a space where we're there judging them or trying to get something out of them.
Is that what you'd say?
Yeah.
Yeah?
I hope so.
Just checking, just checking.
Yeah, maybe that's how I see it.
I have one more thing to say, yeah?
Yeah, what?
Zoom in on my face, yeah?
Arsenal is better than Tottenham.
So, I really enjoyed speaking to Stefan and his boys,
and I wanted to go and have a chat with some of the older kids
who are in a different group in Football Beyond Borders
to ask them what it's like being a young man in London.
North [London] is dead, man.
We've got everything you've got in south.
Less chicken shops, yeah we've got less chicken shops.
I'd only go north if I wanted to feel safe, that's it.
Why do you say that?
No, I swear, if I wanted to feel safe I would go to Newcastle, I swear.
Newcastle?
Why do you think Newcastle is safe?
I don't know, it just sounds safe.
Why do you think Newcastle is safe? That's a weird place.
Say Oxford.
No, Oxford is dead.
That's not safe anyway.
That's country line.
Where do you want to go?
Boys our age sometimes don't really have that father figure
or that mother at home to make sure that their always on the right path
and always staying on track.
That's when we start to seek help from the outside world,
from old, from other men …
That leads to boys getting help from the wrong people.
It was like a lot of times when I've asked people about their role models,
they do kind of mention that footballers and things like that.
That's just unrealistic.
Are there other people, that you can think of?
Or not really?
Mr Walsh.
Who's Mr Walsh?
Is that a teacher?
Yeah, one of our PE teachers.
He's from Newcastle.
Is that why you said you felt safe in Newcastle?
OK.
And when you hear that one of our role models is Mr Walsh,
a guy from Newcastle,
you think to yourself, what?
We're not from similar backgrounds but with him it's like …
… so easy to talk to.
Yeah.
And he listens and understands.
I think with people like that, the thing I like the most is when
you tell them something …
… say I said to the teacher I don't care, don't make me repeat the situation and
remove 'I don't care' with something else like and then go over it,
… helping you find the solutions to try to stop that situation from happening again
or making it go differently.
I compare myself as the beast from Beauty and the Beast.
Even though he's a beast, you expect him to be scary,
like hard but he has a soft spot and that's like me.
People see me and think, right, he's big, scary, but when you get out,
I have actually a soft heart when you get to know me, that I'm actually a kind person.
So that leads to, you can't judge a book by its cover.
People need to communicate more, instead of moving when I come and sit down,
why do you ask me how's my day been going, or something like,
try to get to know me, don't judge me because I'm wearing a hood.
Maybe my head's cold, I don't know.
People don't like what they don't understand.
But then people aren't looking to try and understand the things that they don't like.
One of the questions that we ask guys, fully grown men,
we've been like, who do you have the best conversations with?
A lot of the times they are saying girls.
No.
Do you guys feel like you can show emotions with your friends?
Sometimes, not all the time.
No, with me, I can.
Because I know that … because they're my boys.
We have that friendship relationship.
Yeah, I know, if I was to start crying in front of them,
they're not going to be like, grow up.
Yeah!
They're going to ask me what's wrong.
I don't care who it is if I want to show emotion, I'll cry,
I'll cry if I want to cry.
But some people feel like they can't do that.
In the next episode, I am going to look further into these intergenerational relationships
and how networks can be created to provide men of different ages with support.
I connected with a group called a Band of Brothers
who work with men across the country coming from difficult backgrounds
and enable them to be the men that they want to be.
If you want to catch up on the rest of this series, make sure you like, comment and subscribe.
The generational gap ain't just youngsters against olders,
is olders against youngsters,
it's judgmental.
It's not being able to understand where a person is coming from or …
Do you mean, that's also because they never really have to be around each other to understand each other?