---
author: Big Think
date: '2026-01-12'
guest: ''
layout: post.njk
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET5amBYuwxk
speaker: Big Think
tags:
  - online-influence
  - male-role-models
  - real-life-mentorship
  - single-sex-spaces
  - male-communication
title: 现实榜样与网络迷雾：重塑男性成长路径
summary: 探讨了网络男性影响者（如Andrew Tate）的崛起，并强调现实生活中男性榜样（教师、教练、父亲）的不可替代性。文章指出，家长应以好奇心而非恐惧回应孩子接触负面内容，并强调单性别空间和男性导师在培养健全人格中的关键作用，以及男性特有的沟通方式如何影响其心理健康与社会连接。
insight: ''
draft: true
series: ''
category: politics-society
area: society-thinking
project: []
people: []
companies_orgs:
  - American Institute for Boys and Men
  - Boy Scouts
  - Girl Scouts
products_models: []
media_books:
  - 'Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why That Matters, and What to Do About It.'
  - Adolescence
  - Arnold Schwarzenegger's Pump Club
status: evergreen
---
### 网络影响与现实榜样的鸿沟

当前在线上塑造全球性影响力的模式，并非简单地“创造”一个“进步版”的安德鲁·泰特（Andrew Tate）就能实现。这种模式的运作方式远比此复杂，它依赖于有机增长、算法推荐和用户互动。然而，对于一个不严肃的男性网络榜样，其最佳的解药并非另一个网络形象，而是现实生活中真实存在、有血有肉的男性。通过拥有男性教师、教练、父亲、叔伯、邻居等，他们本身就是男性气质的生动体现，这才是男孩和年轻男性真正会相信的。当现实生活中缺乏展示而非仅仅是告知“如何成为一个男人”的榜样时，就会产生一个真空，而这个真空恰恰会被网络人物所填补。**理查德·里夫斯**（Richard Reeves），**美国男孩与男性研究所**（American Institute for Boys and Men）所长、《**男孩与男人：现代男性为何挣扎、为何重要以及如何应对**》（Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why That Matters, and What to Do About It.）一书的作者，强调了这一点的重要性。

<details>
<summary>Original English</summary>
I think the idea that you
can somehow just invent
like a progressive version
of Andrew Tate or somebody
and just throw them online, add water,
and here's this new, suddenly
globally famous alternative,
that's not how online influence works.
but the bigger issue for me
is that the best antidote
to an unserious online male role model,
I'm using that term advisedly,
is an in real life flesh
and blood actual man.
By having male teachers,
male coaches, fathers, uncles,
neighbors, et cetera, just being a living
and breathing version of
what it means to be a man.
I continue to believe that
in the long run, boys,
young men will believe their
eyes more than their ears.
If there's a lack of real life men
showing what it means to be
a man rather than telling you
how to be a man, then I
think that creates a vacuum,
which then gets filled by online figures.
(light music)
I'm Richard Reeves.
I'm President of the American
Institute for Boys and Men.
I'm also the author of
the book "Of Boys and Men:
Why the Modern Male Is Struggling,
Why That Matters, and
What to Do About It."
(light music)
(graphics clicking)
</details>

### 应对负面网络内容：好奇心而非恐惧

在讨论“有毒男性影响者”（toxic male influencers）时，我们必须警惕那些可能关闭而非开启男孩和年轻男性对话的言论方式。当父母发现儿子沉迷于类似**安德鲁·泰特**（Andrew Tate）这样的厌女症网络影响者时，他们的反应往往是惊恐的，如同发现孩子在观看“硬核色情内容”一般，会带着道德的狂热猛地关上笔记本电脑。然而，这是一种错误的回应方式，尽管它很自然。正确的做法是保持好奇心，去理解“你为什么对此感兴趣？”并展开对话。许多成功的“反动派”网络人物正是利用这一点，他们告诉追随者，没有人会鼓励他们谈论或观看这些内容，并鼓励他们观察身边人（如母亲、学校）的反应。如果父母的反应是立即的、带有谴责的，那么就恰恰印证了这些网络人物的观点。作为家长，面对这种情况，需要深呼吸，保持开放心态，不妥协自身价值观，而是带着好奇心，尝试成为儿子在复杂网络世界和现实世界中的盟友与伙伴。许多中年政策制定者对这些网络问题的反应往往显得脱节且缺乏信息，这不仅让他们看起来与时代脱节，更会产生一种寒蝉效应，阻碍了对真实情况的开放讨论，并将男孩和年轻男性进一步推向网络的深处。

<details>
<summary>Original English</summary>
The antidote to toxic male influencers
If we're not careful,
these conversations can shut
the conversation down with boys
and young men, rather than opening it up.
And so when we're talking
about online influencers,
we're talking about some
of the kinda more
reactionary figures online,
sometimes parents sort
of react to discovering
that their son, for example,
is consuming video content
from somebody like Andrew Tate,
pretty well known misogynist influencer.
It's almost like they're
watching hardcore porn.
They slam the laptop with
the same kind of moral fervor
as if they caught them looking
at some pretty kind of horrible porn.
And that's the wrong response.
It's a natural response,
but it's the wrong response.
Instead, you've gotta have curiosity.
You've gotta figure out like,
"Well, why are you interested in this?"
Let's have that argument
because one of the things
that the most successful
reactionary online figures say is,
"Nobody will want you to
talk about watching my stuff
or listening to my stuff.
If you even mention to somebody
that you're interested in
this, watch how they react.
Watch how your mom reacts.
Watch how your school reacts,
and see how they react."
They said it as a test,
and then so sure enough,
if you raise this issue,
you say to your mom
that you've been consuming
some of this content
or you're doubting some of
what you've been taught,
and if the reaction is immediately, like,
"How dare you watch that (chuckling),"
you've just proved the point
that the reactionary was making.
And this is one of those
moments where it's hard,
but I'm speaking here as a
parent as much as a policy wonk,
is that you take some deep breaths,
you try to be open-minded,
you don't in any way
compromise your own values,
and you have some curiosity,
and you try to become an ally
and a partner to your son
as they navigate this
difficult online world
and offline world.
And I worry sometimes that the uninformed,
frankly, reaction that many
middle-aged policy makers
are having to some of these issues online,
A, they look out of touch
and they sound out of touch,
but it also, it has this
really chilling effect
on an open conversation
about what's really going on.
And that then just drives these boys
and young men even further
into the recesses of what's online.
The question is, who's having an honest
and good faith conversation about this?
And I don't think that forcing boys
and girls to kind of watch a
fictional drama in schools,
which is by definition fictional and, no,
not true to life in many ways,
is going to open up that conversation.
At least it won't open
it up for most boys.
So I worry that it will actually
backfire and be unhelpful.
There's a big difference between
a show like "Adolescence"
becoming a big Netflix hit
for people watching it,
and governments, as the UK government has,
proposing showing that in
in every secondary school.
Then it's a matter of policy,
and therefore I think it becomes an issue
that we should pay more attention to.
And there's a real danger
that you take something
that's fictional and
assume that it's more true
to life than it really is.
It can create a moral panic.
It can make many parents fear
that they're kind of
inadvertently raising a monster,
which is almost certainly not true.
So the good news about something like
a show like "Adolescence"
is that it draws attention
to some of the kind of risks online,
some of the more
reactionary figures online.
It's good. It's good.
Parents should be thoughtful about that,
but the downside is that it can run
into this common problem we have
when we're discussing the
issues of boys and men,
which is that they're
just, you know, a couple
of clicks away from
becoming kind of an incel,
violent criminal, and
that's just not true.
And the presumption that
that might be about to happen
can actually shut the conversation down.
</details>

### 单性别空间：平衡发展的催化剂

试图在线上“创造”一个“进步版”的安德鲁·泰特，并期望其迅速成为全球知名替代品，这种想法过于天真，也忽视了网络影响力的真实运作机制——它是有机生长、通过算法和点击累积的。更根本的问题在于，对抗不严肃的网络男性榜样，最有效的手段是现实生活中真实存在的男性。当男孩们缺乏来自教师、教练、父亲、叔伯等身边男性的榜样示范时，就会形成一个真空，被网络人物填补。因此，我认为击败网络世界的方式在于线下，在于现实生活。这并非否定线上活动的重要性，而是强调现实连接的优先性。例如，**阿诺德·施瓦辛格**（Arnold Schwarzenegger）的“**Pump Club**”虽然是线上内容，但其温暖鼓励的风格，特别是对初学者（如只做一两个俯卧撑）的积极反馈，展现了积极的线上互动。然而，长远来看，一个课堂练习或一次与童子军的徒步，远比一个安德鲁·泰特式的视频更能产生积极影响。

当年轻男性接触到一些可能带有厌女倾向的内容时，他们需要一个可以倾诉和检验这些想法的对象。这个对象很可能是男性——父亲、老师或导师。他们会观察这些现实生活中的男性榜样是否像安德鲁·泰特那样行事，是否是好人，以及自己是否愿意成为那样的人。

此外，关于“单性别空间”的讨论至关重要。与职场中可能涉及权力交易的“老男孩俱乐部”不同，**童子军**（Boy Scouts）和**女童子军**（Girl Scouts）等青年组织，以及单性别课堂或体育项目，在运作得当时，能帮助平衡男性或女性的刻板特质。例如，**女童子军**强调领导力、STEM领域和更具进取心的姿态，而非仅仅是关怀和情感表达。而**童子军**则侧重于团队合作、关爱他人和互相服务，以平衡男孩天生更强的竞争性和攻击性。这种平衡有助于培养更完整的人。男孩空间并非让男孩“更男孩气”，而是帮助他们学习爱、关怀和服务他人。同样，运作良好的女孩空间也能帮助她们发展其他技能。因此，适当的单性别空间是有意义的，尤其要避免出现只有女孩有单性别空间而男孩的则被取消的情况。

<details>
<summary>Original English</summary>
I think the idea that you
can somehow just invent
like a progressive version
of Andrew Tate or somebody
and just throw them online, add water,
and here's this new, suddenly
globally famous alternative,
that's not how online influence works.
It grows organically.
It grows through algorithms.
It grows through clicks.
And so I think it's just unrealistic
to think you can somehow
just create these.
Things don't get created that way.
So first of all, it's very naive, I think,
but the bigger issue for me
is that the best antidote
to an unserious online male role model,
I'm using that term advisedly,
is an in real life flesh
and blood actual man in the lives of boys.
The way to beat the online version of it
is by having male teachers,
male coaches, fathers, uncles,
neighbors, et cetera, just being a living
and breathing version of
what it means to be a man.
I continue to believe that
in the long run, boys,
young men will believe their
eyes more than their ears.
And so if there isn't enough of a sense
of, "What does it mean to
be a man in my community,
in my home, in my school?" et cetera,
if there's a lack of real life men
showing what it means to be
a man rather than telling you
how to be a man, then I
think that creates a vacuum,
which then gets filled by online figures.
I honestly believe that the
way to beat the online world
is offline, is in real life.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't be online.
It doesn't mean we shouldn't, of course,
support the people who are,
and there are lots of people
in the so-called manosphere,
a term I think is probably now redundant
because I dunno who's
included in it anymore,
but there are lots of guys
online, lots doing fitness stuff,
doing kind of motivational stuff.
I really love, for example,
Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Pump Club."
I dunno if you've seen any of that,
and what's great about that is that, like,
(chuckling) and probably
I sympathize with this,
like somebody will show a video
of themselves doing their
first pushup, right?
And they manage to do like
(chuckling) one or two pushups,
and then Arnold himself will come on
and say, "That's great,
go for it," et cetera.
It's incredibly warm,
and it's like welcoming,
and so there's a lot of
really great stuff happening
around this stuff online.
But in the long run, you can
beat an Andrew Tate video
with a classroom exercise
or a hike up a mountain
with your scout group any day of the week.
If there's a young man,
and he kind of watches some stuff online,
and it drifts into kind of
misogynist stuff or whatever,
then first of all, which
man is he gonna talk to
about that, right?
Maybe the father.
Certainly, it's something
I spoke to my sons about,
but like who are they
gonna talk to about that?
Who are they gonna test those ideas on?
Probably a man.
So is there a man in their
lives they can test that on?
But also then, they're
gonna look at the guys,
and they're gonna say, "Does
my teacher or my scout leader
or my uncle act like Andrew Tate?"
No.
Is he a good guy?
Yes.
Would I rather be more like him?
Well, hopefully the answer is yes.
Well, there is a big question.
"Should we have any single-sex space?"
Should we have male-only
spaces or female-only spaces?
Maybe we should just get
rid of them all together.
I think as a general point,
we don't want them in
the workplace as places
where power and favors are traded, right?
There's a reasonable suspicion
of what was called the old boys club
and the idea that kind
of men were congregating
in male spaces,
and that power and
influence were being shared
in those spaces.
We've quite rightly tried
to turn against that,
but that's very different
to the Boy Scouts
and the Girl Scouts.
It's very different to
youth organizations,
and I think it's a mistake to
move from the correct claim
that we shouldn't have an old boys club
to saying that we
shouldn't have Boy Scouts
or we shouldn't have single-sex classes
or even single-sex sports
for both boys and girls.
I'm quite angry
at the scouts for giving up Boy Scouts.
Boy Scouts of America no longer exists.
It's now called Scouting for America,
and girls are allowed in.
Girl Scouts remains Girl
Scouts and single sex.
And the reason I'm angry about
that is because I've been
a scout leader, I was a scout, et cetera,
is I think for pretty progressive reasons,
which is that single-sex
spaces when done well,
they don't amplify the
more stereotypically male
or female characteristics.
They help to balance them out.
And so in Girl Scouts, for example,
there's a huge emphasis
on things like leadership
and going into STEM,
taking more assertive
positions, et cetera.
So they're kind of working.
Girl Scouts don't spend a huge
amount of time with the girls
talking about the need to be
more caring or more nurturing
or to open up emotionally to each other
or be there for each other.
They spend a lot more time on things
like being more competitive,
being more aggressive,
being more assertive, right?
And I think as a result of that,
Girl Scouts has done a
really good job of actually
kind of helping girls to
kind of balance out some
of those perhaps
more naturally occurring
tendencies with others.
In Boy Scouts, this is
certainly my experience
as a scout leader,
you don't have to typically
work very hard with boys
to make them more competitive.
Boys will turn throwing
trash into a trash can
into a competition.
You don't generally have to go this idea
of more being more aggressive
'cause that's a little bit
more on average baked in.
But what you do instead
is you work on teamwork.
You work on how to care for the
other people in your patrol.
You learn how to love each
other and to serve each other.
And so you balance out so
that hopefully as a result
of those single-sex spaces,
you actually end up
with both men and women
who are somewhat more fully filled out.
There's like a stereotype of like,
boys' spaces will make boys more boyish.
But actually I think the opposite's true.
I think that boys' spaces,
whether it's teams or scouts,
actually help boys learn
to love, learn to care,
learn to be of service,
think about other people.
And the same with like
girl spaces done well,
they don't make girls girlier.
They actually help them to
kind of develop other skills,
and so done properly and
in the right balance,
I actually think that single-sex
spaces make a lot of sense.
I certainly don't think we
want to end up with a world
where we think that it is necessary
or good to have single-sex
spaces only for girls,
and we get rid of all of the
ones that existed for boys.
It's pretty clear to most people
that when boys are around girls,
the presence of the girls
affects how the boys behave,
(chuckling) including towards
each other and vice versa.
It's one of the strong
arguments that's been made,
for example, for kind of
single-sex girls' schools,
is to get girls away from
some of the kind of presence
of boys and what that means.
In practice in an all-boys space,
what it allows you to do
is work more on skills
around emotion, sharing,
caring, et cetera.
You may not use that language,
particularly if it's like
a team sport or something.
It'll be more around,
maybe use more masculine language, right,
the other fellow first or
the team first or whatever.
But what you are really
learning about is love
and care and nurturing.
I just think some of that's easier to do
if you're not feeling the
gaze of your female peers
and vice versa too.
And so if you're trying
to kind of incubate spaces
where you can really kind of
develop full human beings,
there is something to be
said for at least some spaces
where you're doing that in
a single-sex environment.
The share of boys playing
sports is going down,
and that's for all kinds of reasons.
But a big problem there is
the loss of team sports.
I think team sports for boys is a place
and a space within
which they kind of learn
to think about each other,
to be part of a bigger whole.
They learn to love each other.
There's a real solidarity and
camaraderie in team sports
that I think is very
good for girls and boys
but looks especially good for boys,
that that's a safe space
within which they learn a lot
of the skills, including
those social skills,
those teamwork skills, those caring skills
that they're gonna need
to be good fathers,
to be good husbands,
and to be good workers.
I also think that coaches
are mental health
professionals in disguise.
They're sitting shoulder
to shoulder on a bench
or in a group.
They're working with
boys or with young men,
and they're very often noticing
that they're struggling.
And they can, in a very, very safe way,
in a non-threatening way,
they can open up a conversation with them.
And there's a reason I think
why so many men will say
that a coach played an hugely
important part in their role,
especially if they didn't
have a strong relationship
with their father.
It's a trope at this point to say
that coaches are father figures,
but it's also a truth that for many boys
they absolutely do play that role for men.
I've seen this.
I have this image in my
mind of a coach sitting
next to a young man, a boy or a young man,
and they're just sitting like
this shoulder to shoulder,
and the coach is saying, "How are you?
You seem a little bit off today.
Everything okay?
How's stuff at home?
How are things with your mom?
Did you sort that thing out," right?
And they're probably
watching the game a bit too,
and what's really interesting
about that is it's beautiful,
but it's also they're
shoulder to shoulder.
And one of the things we know
is that men communicate more
comfortably with each other
shoulder to shoulder as
opposed to face to face.
When men are face to face with each other,
that's quite a threatening position.
Now if I tell you this, you
won't be able to unsee it.
Where every time you go to a social event,
look at the way that the men are standing
in relation to each other.
They're always slightly
cattycorner with each other.
They're always at an angle
because being face to
face is a threat posture.
And it also means that if
you want to communicate
with young men, go fishing,
go for a drive, go for a hike.
A lot of psychologists
now will do the walk
and talk therapy.
Do not sit them down and
stare them in the face.
That is not a very
comfortable way for most men
to communicate with each other.
They are gonna communicate
much more comfortably
with each other when they're
doing something else,
when they are shoulder to shoulder.
And so there's something
also about those activities,
whether it's sports or hiking
or building something
or hammering something
or fishing for something, or...
It's the only explanation for golf
that I've been able to
come up with is this sense
of like you're doing something together
shoulder to shoulder,
but what you're actually
doing then is communicating.
And I think that's fine.
You could roll your eyes at it and say,
"Oh, well, why can't men
just sit in a coffee shop
and stare at each other?
Why do they have to go and do something?
Why do they have to pretend
to be doing something else
or be doing something else
when they're communicating?"
I don't roll my eyes at it.
It's just true, and if it's
true, then we should create more
and more spaces where men
feel able to be shoulder
to shoulder with each other,
communicating each other in a way
that is just a little bit
more friendly towards men.
And if that means Boy Scouts
and it means boys'
sports teams, then good.
I mean there are these groups
now, the men's sheds movement,
which is basically just a bunch of guys
that kind of get together.
It started in Australia.
They get together and kind
of fix stuff together, right?
So they're fixing engines,
or they're doing something.
And the guys are tinkering or whatever,
and it just does seem to
be true that, on average,
men communicate a little bit
more easily with each other
when they are doing
kind of something else,
when they are in the
shoulder-to-shoulder phase.
And that's what a coach will do.
That's what these activities
will do, is create that space,
which is actually
incredibly therapeutic space
but where there is no
therapist to be seen,
at least not officially.
And so that's also one of the reasons
why I'm borderline obsessed with the share
of men in mental health professions
and in healthcare professions
because they kind of know that naturally.
I have a friend that
volunteers in a school,
and he goes into the school, and he says,
"Which boy are you having
the most trouble with?"
They identify the boy, and
he just takes him for a walk.
He doesn't sit down with him.
He doesn't pull up a
chair in the classroom.
He certainly doesn't sit opposite him.
They go for a walk,
and he finds that they're
much more likely to open up.
Say, "Oh, let's just take
a walk and then talk."
And again, you could
roll your eyes at that
and just say, "Oh, what's wrong with men?"
But we have to be really careful generally
not to treat men like defective women
or vice versa.
It's just that there are
some of these differences
between us that we
don't really think about
until it becomes an issue
and which should just be part
of just a natural difference between us
that doesn't in any way
trap anybody, right?
I'm not saying that some women
don't also communicate better
shoulder to shoulder,
and many men probably
are fine face to face,
but overall, there is
a pretty big difference
between those two.
And it's one reason why the right kind
of male-only space is a good thing
and not just a good thing for men
but a good thing for women
because if men come out of those spaces
with better relational
skills, better soft skills,
et cetera, that's good for the
women in their lives as well.
And I think I'm seeing a growing
sense among kind of women
that they want their partners, sons,
to have more opportunities
to hang out with other men.
And the reason
for that is not just
because they want them
out of the house, although
that may be part of it.
I think it's because they recognize
that actually for men to
be flourishing as men,
it's great for them to
have time with other men,
just as it is for women.
Any spaces that have
boys and girls in them,
young men and young women
in 'em should be safe.
And Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts,
youth organizations generally
have really done a very
good job of ensuring
that they're doing
everything in their power
to make those spaces as safe as possible.
We should continue to do that,
but it's a good example of a space
where we can't let the very,
very small risk, even today,
of there something bad
happening in those spaces
to blind us to the
overall positive benefits
of those spaces more generally.
Look, there have been plenty
of scandals in institutions,
including Boy Scouts and others,
where quite rightly the result has been
to really be much more careful
about the safety of kids
and have the right rules
and the right practices.
So we have to acknowledge that.
But we also, we don't
want to react in a way
that just closes all those spaces down,
any more than we want to say that,
because there are tragically
always gonna be some examples
of kids being abused at schools,
we don't send 'em to school
or that we don't want any
men in our classrooms.
I've actually had people say to me, like,
"Well, I don't think we want any men
in early years education," right?
I think there's something
a bit fishy about that,
and, "Didn't you hear
that story of the male
from state X where there
was some horrific story?"
And the danger with the
argument is that it has no end.
In the end, what we're saying
is that even the slightest risk
of something horrific happening,
such as something like abuse,
then we shouldn't have
these institutions at all.
It would be a tragic mistake
to take the correct concerns
of every parent, myself
included, to want their kids
to be safe and to be safe in
whichever spaces they're in
and to say that the way to do that
is to shut all those spaces down
or to say that those
spaces can only be co-ed.
It's always been true
that men have been underrepresented
in elementary school
where it's only one in five.
And actually, there's
now been a big decline
in secondary school where men
have now dropped below half,
and we see actually men
actually make up the minority
of teachers in basically
every subject now,
including career and technical education.
I think it's a perfectly
reasonable question to ask,
"Does it matter?"
Would it matter if our
entire K12 teaching workforce
was female or male?
Does it matter?
I think it does matter.
It matters because it sends
a message that this is more
of a female enterprise
than a male enterprise.
It codes education and
educational success.
Also, I think that the
presence of men in schools
and in classrooms acts as a way
to have some actual role models
that are a good alternative
to the ones online,
perhaps especially for boys
who don't have a father
figure in their lives
or a good relationship with their father.
So my own son teaches
fifth grade in Baltimore,
and he's doing great.
He loves it, but also,
this is probably something
about the fact of him
at the front of that
fifth grade classroom,
which is powerful, sends a strong signal.
You don't have to have a
curriculum on positive masculinity
if you've got (chuckling) positive men
at the front of the classroom.
There is something very
important about boys and girls
seeing education as
something that both men
and women value and do.
And I really struggled in English.
I was in remedial English for a while.
I was the kid who would like
never bring the book home,
and my mom would march
me back to the school
to get the book and read it.
But the whole words, writing, books thing,
it just didn't come naturally to me.
And I had a teacher in
secondary school, Mr. Wyatt,
and he was a Korean War veteran
and had been wounded in the Korean War.
He was a part-time bus driver.
I have no idea how old he was.
He seemed like a thousand years old,
but he was probably
(chuckling) my age as I am now,
a curmudgeon, real curmudgeon, like broody
and amazing English teacher,
and he had us reading poetry.
He had us reading metaphysical poetry,
Andrew Marvell and people like that.
And he had these kind of
mostly working class boys
just totally engaged in poetry
and actually being quite
moved by some of it.
He brought to life this idea that words
and literature was absolutely
not a female pursuit.
Every English teacher I'd
had up until that point
had been a woman.
I felt like it was very coded female,
and who knows, who knows
whether it was Mr. Wyatt
that did it, but I think about him often,
and I know that something
happened to me in that class,
which made me fall in love
with words and writing in a way
that I would previously
have thought unimaginable.
And I'm pretty sure that
the fact that he was a guy
helped me get through that.
Now you could roll your eyes and say,
"Well, what's wrong with Reeves,
that he couldn't get that from a woman?"
like what a trouble that
he needed a guy to kind of,
to make him think all of that.
Fine, I'm just sharing that
that was my experience.
I don't think it's that
unusual an experience.
And I do think it was
just as important for me
to have an amazing female math teacher.
And in the end, a good
teacher is a good teacher,
but there's something very
important about making sure
that we don't allow education itself
or particular kinds of
learning to just get coded.
It is just as important
that we don't allow the love
of language to become
coded as a female thing
as it was to really break
down the idea that math
or science was a male thing.
We're trying to get to a point
where we're trying to
see them as just things
that anyone can do, but
that gets harder and harder
if you don't have any guides doing it.
- [Announcer] Wanna support the channel,
join the Big Think Members Community
where you get access to
videos early, ad free.
(light music)
</details>

### 男性沟通模式与导师角色

男性在沟通时，倾向于“肩并肩”（shoulder to shoulder）而非“面对面”（face to face）的模式。当男性面对面交流时，这可能被视为一种威胁姿态。因此，与年轻男性沟通时，钓鱼、驾车旅行或徒步等共同进行某项活动的方式，比直接坐下对视更为有效。许多心理学家现在也采用“走谈疗法”（walk and talk therapy）。这种肩并肩的沟通方式，在体育教练、导师或“**男性互助社群**”（men's sheds movement）等群体中尤为明显。教练们在并肩而坐时，能更自然地观察并与年轻男性交流他们的困境，提供支持，这是一种非正式的心理健康干预。这种模式也解释了为何许多男性认为教练在其人生中扮演了重要角色，尤其是在他们缺乏父爱的情况下。共同参与活动，无论是在运动场上、修理物品，还是进行户外探险，都为男性提供了一个更舒适的交流空间，让他们在“做某事”的同时进行沟通。这种方式不仅对男性自身有益，也能帮助他们发展出更好的关系技能和软技能，从而惠及他们生活中的女性。

<details>
<summary>Original English</summary>
In practice in an all-boys space,
what it allows you to do
is work more on skills
around emotion, sharing,
caring, et cetera.
You may not use that language,
particularly if it's like
a team sport or something.
It'll be more around,
maybe use more masculine language, right,
the other fellow first or
the team first or whatever.
But what you are really
learning about is love
and care and nurturing.
I just think some of that's easier to do
if you're not feeling the
gaze of your female peers
and vice versa too.
And so if you're trying
to kind of incubate spaces
where you can really kind of
develop full human beings,
there is something to be
said for at least some spaces
where you're doing that in
a single-sex environment.
The share of boys playing
sports is going down,
and that's for all kinds of reasons.
But a big problem there is
the loss of team sports.
I think team sports for boys is a place
and a space within
which they kind of learn
to think about each other,
to be part of a bigger whole.
They learn to love each other.
There's a real solidarity and
camaraderie in team sports
that I think is very
good for girls and boys
but looks especially good for boys,
that that's a safe space
within which they learn a lot
of the skills, including
those social skills,
those teamwork skills, those caring skills
that they're gonna need
to be good fathers,
to be good husbands,
and to be good workers.
I also think that coaches
are mental health
professionals in disguise.
They're sitting shoulder
to shoulder on a bench
or in a group.
They're working with
boys or with young men,
and they're very often noticing
that they're struggling.
And they can, in a very, very safe way,
in a non-threatening way,
they can open up a conversation with them.
And there's a reason I think
why so many men will say
that a coach played an hugely
important part in their role,
especially if they didn't
have a strong relationship
with their father.
It's a trope at this point to say
that coaches are father figures,
but it's also a truth that for many boys
they absolutely do play that role for men.
I've seen this.
I have this image in my
mind of a coach sitting
next to a young man, a boy or a young man,
and they're just sitting like
this shoulder to shoulder,
and the coach is saying, "How are you?
You seem a little bit off today.
Everything okay?
How's stuff at home?
How are things with your mom?
Did you sort that thing out," right?
And they're probably
watching the game a bit too,
and what's really interesting
about that is it's beautiful,
but it's also they're
shoulder to shoulder.
And one of the things we know
is that men communicate more
comfortably with each other
shoulder to shoulder as
opposed to face to face.
When men are face to face with each other,
that's quite a threatening position.
Now if I tell you this, you
won't be able to unsee it.
Where every time you go to a social event,
look at the way that the men are standing
in relation to each other.
They're always slightly
cattycorner with each other.
They're always at an angle
because being face to
face is a threat posture.
And it also means that if
you want to communicate
with young men, go fishing,
go for a drive, go for a hike.
A lot of psychologists
now will do the walk
and talk therapy.
Do not sit them down and
stare them in the face.
That is not a very
comfortable way for most men
to communicate with each other.
They are gonna communicate
much more comfortably
with each other when they're
doing something else,
when they are shoulder to shoulder.
And so there's something
also about those activities,
whether it's sports or hiking
or building something
or hammering something
or fishing for something, or...
It's the only explanation for golf
that I've been able to
come up with is this sense
of like you're doing something together
shoulder to shoulder,
but what you're actually
doing then is communicating.
And I think that's fine.
You could roll your eyes at it and say,
"Oh, well, why can't men
just sit in a coffee shop
and stare at each other?
Why do they have to go and do something?
Why do they have to pretend
to be doing something else
or be doing something else
when they're communicating?"
I don't roll my eyes at it.
It's just true, and if it's
true, then we should create more
and more spaces where men
feel able to be shoulder
to shoulder with each other,
communicating each other in a way
that is just a little bit
more friendly towards men.
And if that means Boy Scouts
and it means boys'
sports teams, then good.
I mean there are these groups
now, the men's sheds movement,
which is basically just a bunch of guys
that kind of get together.
It started in Australia.
They get together and kind
of fix stuff together, right?
So they're fixing engines,
or they're doing something.
And the guys are tinkering or whatever,
and it just does seem to
be true that, on average,
men communicate a little bit
more easily with each other
when they are doing
kind of something else,
when they are in the
shoulder-to-shoulder phase.
And that's what a coach will do.
That's what these activities
will do, is create that space,
which is actually
incredibly therapeutic space
but where there is no
therapist to be seen,
at least not officially.
And so that's also one of the reasons
why I'm borderline obsessed with the share
of men in mental health professions
and in healthcare professions
because they kind of know that naturally.
I have a friend that
volunteers in a school,
and he goes into the school, and he says,
"Which boy are you having
the most trouble with?"
They identify the boy, and
he just takes him for a walk.
He doesn't sit down with him.
He doesn't pull up a
chair in the classroom.
He certainly doesn't sit opposite him.
They go for a walk,
and he finds that they're
much more likely to open up.
Say, "Oh, let's just take
a walk and then talk."
And again, you could
roll your eyes at that
and just say, "Oh, what's wrong with men?"
But we have to be really careful generally
not to treat men like defective women
or vice versa.
It's just that there are
some of these differences
between us that we
don't really think about
until it becomes an issue
and which should just be part
of just a natural difference between us
that doesn't in any way
trap anybody, right?
I'm not saying that some women
don't also communicate better
shoulder to shoulder,
and many men probably
are fine face to face,
but overall, there is
a pretty big difference
between those two.
And it's one reason why the right kind
of male-only space is a good thing
and not just a good thing for men
but a good thing for women
because if men come out of those spaces
with better relational
skills, better soft skills,
et cetera, that's good for the
women in their lives as well.
And I think I'm seeing a growing
sense among kind of women
that they want their partners, sons,
to have more opportunities
to hang out with other men.
And the reason
for that is not just
because they want them
out of the house, although
that may be part of it.
I think it's because they recognize
that actually for men to
be flourishing as men,
it's great for them to
have time with other men,
just as it is for women.
Any spaces that have
boys and girls in them,
young men and young women
in 'em should be safe.
And Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts,
youth organizations generally
have really done a very
good job of ensuring
that they're doing
everything in their power
to make those spaces as safe as possible.
We should continue to do that,
but it's a good example of a space
where we can't let the very,
very small risk, even today,
of there something bad
happening in those spaces
to blind us to the
overall positive benefits
of those spaces more generally.
Look, there have been plenty
of scandals in institutions,
including Boy Scouts and others,
where quite rightly the result has been
to really be much more careful
about the safety of kids
and have the right rules
and the right practices.
So we have to acknowledge that.
But we also, we don't
want to react in a way
that just closes all those spaces down,
any more than we want to say that,
because there are tragically
always gonna be some examples
of kids being abused at schools,
we don't send 'em to school
or that we don't want any
men in our classrooms.
I've actually had people say to me, like,
"Well, I don't think we want any men
in early years education," right?
I think there's something
a bit fishy about that,
and, "Didn't you hear
that story of the male
from state X where there
was some horrific story?"
And the danger with the
argument is that it has no end.
In the end, what we're saying
is that even the slightest risk
of something horrific happening,
such as something like abuse,
then we shouldn't have
these institutions at all.
It would be a tragic mistake
to take the correct concerns
of every parent, myself
included, to want their kids
to be safe and to be safe in
whichever spaces they're in
and to say that the way to do that
is to shut all those spaces down
or to say that those
spaces can only be co-ed.
It's always been true
that men have been underrepresented
in elementary school
where it's only one in five.
And actually, there's
now been a big decline
in secondary school where men
have now dropped below half,
and we see actually men
actually make up the minority
of teachers in basically
every subject now,
including career and technical education.
I think it's a perfectly
reasonable question to ask,
"Does it matter?"
Would it matter if our
entire K12 teaching workforce
was female or male?
Does it matter?
I think it does matter.
It matters because it sends
a message that this is more
of a female enterprise
than a male enterprise.
It codes education and
educational success.
Also, I think that the
presence of men in schools
and in classrooms acts as a way
to have some actual role models
that are a good alternative
to the ones online,
perhaps especially for boys
who don't have a father
figure in their lives
or a good relationship with their father.
So my own son teaches
fifth grade in Baltimore,
and he's doing great.
He loves it, but also,
this is probably something
about the fact of him
at the front of that
fifth grade classroom,
which is powerful, sends a strong signal.
You don't have to have a
curriculum on positive masculinity
if you've got (chuckling) positive men
at the front of the classroom.
There is something very
important about boys and girls
seeing education as
something that both men
and women value and do.
And I really struggled in English.
I was in remedial English for a while.
I was the kid who would like
never bring the book home,
and my mom would march
me back to the school
to get the book and read it.
But the whole words, writing, books thing,
it just didn't come naturally to me.
And I had a teacher in
secondary school, Mr. Wyatt,
and he was a Korean War veteran
and had been wounded in the Korean War.
He was a part-time bus driver.
I have no idea how old he was.
He seemed like a thousand years old,
but he was probably
(chuckling) my age as I am now,
a curmudgeon, real curmudgeon, like broody
and amazing English teacher,
and he had us reading poetry.
He had us reading metaphysical poetry,
Andrew Marvell and people like that.
And he had these kind of
mostly working class boys
just totally engaged in poetry
and actually being quite
moved by some of it.
He brought to life this idea that words
and literature was absolutely
not a female pursuit.
Every English teacher I'd
had up until that point
had been a woman.
I felt like it was very coded female,
and who knows, who knows
whether it was Mr. Wyatt
that did it, but I think about him often,
and I know that something
happened to me in that class,
which made me fall in love
with words and writing in a way
that I would previously
have thought unimaginable.
And I'm pretty sure that
the fact that he was a guy
helped me get through that.
Now you could roll your eyes and say,
"Well, what's wrong with Reeves,
that he couldn't get that from a woman?"
like what a trouble that
he needed a guy to kind of,
to make him think all of that.
Fine, I'm just sharing that
that was my experience.
I don't think it's that
unusual an experience.
And I do think it was
just as important for me
to have an amazing female math teacher.
And in the end, a good
teacher is a good teacher,
but there's something very
important about making sure
that we don't allow education itself
or particular kinds of
learning to just get coded.
It is just as important
that we don't allow the love
of language to become
coded as a female thing
as it was to really break
down the idea that math
or science was a male thing.
We're trying to get to a point
where we're trying to
see them as just things
that anyone can do, but
that gets harder and harder
if you don't have any guides doing it.
- [Announcer] Wanna support the channel,
join the Big Think Members Community
where you get access to
videos early, ad free.
(light music)
</details>

### 男性教师的角色：教育的性别平衡

男性在教育领域的代表性正在下降。在小学阶段，男性教师的比例仅为五分之一；在中学阶段，男性教师的比例已降至一半以下，并且在几乎所有学科（包括职业技术教育）中都成为少数。这引发了一个关键问题：教师队伍的性别构成是否重要？如果整个 K12 教育体系的教师都是女性或男性，会有何影响？我认为这很重要。它传递了一个信息，即教育更偏向于“女性事业”而非“男性事业”，从而在无形中为教育和学业成功打上了性别烙印。

此外，男性教师的存在为男孩提供了现实的榜样，这是对网络上不当榜样的一种有益替代，尤其对那些缺乏父爱或与父亲关系不佳的男孩而言。以我自己的儿子为例，他是一名五年级教师，工作出色，深受学生喜爱。他在五年级教室里的存在本身就极具力量，传递着积极的信号。当教室里有积极的男性榜样时，就不需要专门的“积极男性气质”课程。男孩和女孩看到教育被男性和女性共同重视和实践，这一点至关重要。

我个人在中学时曾挣扎于英语学习，曾被分入补习班。我曾是一个不愿带书回家的孩子，需要母亲督促。文字、写作和书籍对我而言并不自然。然而，我的中学英语老师**怀亚特先生**（Mr. Wyatt），一位朝鲜战争老兵，他可能是当时我见过的最年长的人，但实际上可能和我现在的年龄相仿。他是一位严厉但极富魅力的英语老师，曾引导我们这些以工人阶级为主的男孩们深入阅读诗歌，如**安德鲁·马维尔**（Andrew Marvell）的形而上学诗歌，并让他们深受触动。他生动地证明了语言和文学绝非仅仅是女性的追求。在此之前，我遇到的所有英语老师都是女性，让我觉得英语学习带有强烈的女性色彩。怀亚特先生的出现，无疑在我心中播下了对文字和写作的热爱，这曾是我无法想象的。我确信，他是一位男性，这对我克服困难起到了关键作用。

这并非暗示女性教师就无法激发学生的学习热情，一位好老师就是好老师。但重要的是，我们不能让教育本身或特定学习领域被性别化。正如我们努力打破数学和科学是“男性专属”的观念一样，我们也必须防止对语言的热爱被视为“女性化”的追求。我们的目标是让任何人都能从事任何领域，但如果缺乏榜样，这一目标将变得愈发困难。

<details>
<summary>Original English</summary>
It's always been true
that men have been underrepresented
in elementary school
where it's only one in five.
And actually, there's
now been a big decline
in secondary school where men
have now dropped below half,
and we see actually men
actually make up the minority
of teachers in basically
every subject now,
including career and technical education.
I think it's a perfectly
reasonable question to ask,
"Does it matter?"
Would it matter if our
entire K12 teaching workforce
was female or male?
Does it matter?
I think it does matter.
It matters because it sends
a message that this is more
of a female enterprise
than a male enterprise.
It codes education and
educational success.
Also, I think that the
presence of men in schools
and in classrooms acts as a way
to have some actual role models
that are a good alternative
to the ones online,
perhaps especially for boys
who don't have a father
figure in their lives
or a good relationship with their father.
So my own son teaches
fifth grade in Baltimore,
and he's doing great.
He loves it, but also,
this is probably something
about the fact of him
at the front of that
fifth grade classroom,
which is powerful, sends a strong signal.
You don't have to have a
curriculum on positive masculinity
if you've got (chuckling) positive men
at the front of the classroom.
There is something very
important about boys and girls
seeing education as
something that both men
and women value and do.
And I really struggled in English.
I was in remedial English for a while.
I was the kid who would like
never bring the book home,
and my mom would march
me back to the school
to get the book and read it.
But the whole words, writing, books thing,
it just didn't come naturally to me.
And I had a teacher in
secondary school, Mr. Wyatt,
and he was a Korean War veteran
and had been wounded in the Korean War.
He was a part-time bus driver.
I have no idea how old he was.
He seemed like a thousand years old,
but he was probably
(chuckling) my age as I am now,
a curmudgeon, real curmudgeon, like broody
and amazing English teacher,
and he had us reading poetry.
He had us reading metaphysical poetry,
Andrew Marvell and people like that.
And he had these kind of
mostly working class boys
just totally engaged in poetry
and actually being quite
moved by some of it.
He brought to life this idea that words
and literature was absolutely
not a female pursuit.
Every English teacher I'd
had up until that point
had been a woman.
I felt like it was very coded female,
and who knows, who knows
whether it was Mr. Wyatt
that did it, but I think about him often,
and I know that something
happened to me in that class,
which made me fall in love
with words and writing in a way
that I would previously
have thought unimaginable.
And I'm pretty sure that
the fact that he was a guy
helped me get through that.
Now you could roll your eyes and say,
"Well, what's wrong with Reeves,
that he couldn't get that from a woman?"
like what a trouble that
he needed a guy to kind of,
to make him think all of that.
Fine, I'm just sharing that
that was my experience.
I don't think it's that
unusual an experience.
And I do think it was
just as important for me
to have an amazing female math teacher.
And in the end, a good
teacher is a good teacher,
but there's something very
important about making sure
that we don't allow education itself
or particular kinds of
learning to just get coded.
It is just as important
that we don't allow the love
of language to become
coded as a female thing
as it was to really break
down the idea that math
or science was a male thing.
We're trying to get to a point
where we're trying to
see them as just things
that anyone can do, but
that gets harder and harder
if you don't have any guides doing it.
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