{"id":10008,"date":"2026-06-11T22:47:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T21:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/?p=10008"},"modified":"2026-06-11T22:47:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T21:47:17","slug":"boys-want-to-challenge-harmful-ideas-about-manhood-working-with-them-not-lecturing-them-is-the-key","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/boys-want-to-challenge-harmful-ideas-about-manhood-working-with-them-not-lecturing-them-is-the-key\/","title":{"rendered":"Boys want to challenge harmful ideas about manhood \u2013 working with them, not lecturing them, is the key"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Professor Maria Lohan.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a recent BBC documentary, former England men\u2019s football manager Gareth Southgate explored the challenges facing young men in Britain, including low school attainment, declining employment opportunities, low self-esteem and poor mental health. The positive masculinity Southgate promotes focuses on ambition to achieve, emotional openness, resilience and learning from setbacks, advocating for the role of positive male role models.<\/p>\n<p>But there is a part of boys\u2019 lives where low expectations cause the most lasting damage and where the consequences fall hardest on girls and women as well as on boys themselves. That part is intimate relationships. Too often sex education misses the deeper opportunity to examine the messages about male-female relationships young men absorb \u2013 be tough, don\u2019t show emotion, pursue sex as conquest.<\/p>\n<p>To continue reading, <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/boys-want-to-challenge-harmful-ideas-about-manhood-working-with-them-not-lecturing-them-is-the-key-284751\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">please click here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Article originally appeared in <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/boys-want-to-challenge-harmful-ideas-about-manhood-working-with-them-not-lecturing-them-is-the-key-284751\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Conversation.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/dbang\/3339139273\/in\/photolist-ige1G5-BxMRBD-BWHAYU-igibHs-foWRih-5UwMuu-8hxthm-A6mXFr-7niBfr-6siYd-9qYNMg-y5srha-D2mHp2-2nqNR22-igdSec-ym2B1W-ymXiBT-rAsoX-664XLM-ynEcNn-igerdh-Dezjsx-y5kAbY-9NDqno-2qGwWci-n8Ytc-bsUheQ-yjDns7-93YZC9-5P4Jv9-igeaoF-foGAmV-LaryE-y5kyNY-xq55NR-efiEF9-CULZJE-foGx6F-3jxe1-foWQ8J-xq4TFF-bQ2xsR-DrUzwF-dEd9bh-y5kFgs-5gxRv1-foWSLj-2mEnE6L-8p49LF-v7LGiz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The featured image<\/a> appears courtesy of a Creative Commons Licence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article, by Prof Maria Lohan, originally appeared in The Conversation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2417,"featured_media":10010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[250],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-and-society"],"mb":[],"acf":{"authors":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":9774,"key":"field_66d0cbf58f930","label":"Authors","name":"authors","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"relationship","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"post_type":["authors"],"post_status":["publish"],"taxonomy":"","filters":["search"],"return_format":"id","min":0,"max":10,"allow_in_bindings":0,"elements":["featured_image"],"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"authors","_valid":1}},"description":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":9776,"key":"field_66d2183027749","label":"Description","name":"description","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":3,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","allow_in_bindings":0,"tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":1,"_name":"description","_valid":1}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/76\/2026\/06\/3339139273_9415af0b89_c.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"mfb_rest_fields":["title","jetpack_featured_media_url","jetpack_sharing_enabled","amp_enabled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2417"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10008"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10012,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10008\/revisions\/10012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}