I'm David Brockway. I'm the manager of the Great Men Project.
We deliver workshops on gender equality
to teenage boys in schools across London and the South East.
Our topics include sexual harassment, homophobia, pornography and consent.
But especially, we talk about masculinity, feminism
and what it really means to be a man.
Adult men don't really talk about these issues very much.
We want to get that conversation normalised
starting at an early age.
We use participatory activities, such as word association games.
These allow the boys to explore stereotypes
that might be in their heads.
We'll ask them to talk about the first word that comes into their head
when they think of a certain topic.
For instance, when they're asked to think about men
they may come up with brave, strong or daring.
For women, they may come up with gentle, kind and caring.
So then we ask how and why?
What causes these stereotypes?
Where do the boys get ideas like
it's weak for men to cry, or men are strong, women are weak.
Most of the boys have never had conversations like this before.
Our most powerful moments are when we have lightbulb moments.
When boys have the opportunity, through talking to each other,
to realise that some of these ideas that they think they know
are actually a result of conditioning and the world around them.
Toxic masculinity is talked about a lot these days.
We would define it as..
On top of the litany of negative consequences
that these behaviours have for women and girls,
there are also many negative consequences for men and boys.
At the top of this list would be mental ill health and suicide.
Suicide rates in this country
are currently much higher for men than they are for women.
In our workshops we find that boys have a lot of difficulty
expressing their emotions, accepting emotional vulnerability
and admitting to any form of weakness.
Our workshops encourage boys to critique phrases such as,
"Man up" and "Take it like a man."
Which are really saying boys don’t cry,
and boys don’t ask for help when they're feeling down.
The phrase "Man up" is particularly important for us.
It's two words that, put together, mean absolutely nothing,
but any man can tell you that, when told to do so,
they know exactly what was expected of them at that time.
For years, the responsibility of dealing with these problems
has been on women.
Grappling with sexism, sexual harassment and harassment at work.
We feel that solving these issues is equally the responsibility of men.
That's why it's so important to get these conversations started early,
to bring boys into this discussion so they can have a chance
to not take forward those negative ideas and stereotypes.
One of our most difficult topics is pornography.
Our approach is not to shame anyone, but to ask questions such as,
"is this a good place to learn about sex?",
"Can this be degrading?" and "Where's the consent in this?"
We aim to educate the boys about the porn industry
to tell them that it can often be unsafe and coercive for women,
that the things on display are rarely representative
of a mutually pleasurable sexual experience.
Sometimes the boys we work with
go back to a home environment
that is contrary to all of the things we've discussed.
What they are taught and learn from the media
is the total opposite of discussions they had with us.
Healthy relationships are about respecting, caring and communicating.
Our aim is to plant a seed
that will allow the boys we work with to start questioning these things
and create their own version of being a man.