Educator on visit to talk about masculinity

But the complexities, while sometimes uncomfortable, allow different 'boxes to be opened'.

With masculinity often approached from a toxicity perspective, Lewis Wedlock encourages people to consider the diversity of masculinities to encourage accountability, particularly in young people, without demonising or standardising masculinity.

‘Masculinity is under the microscope now, which for a lot of men is uncomfortable because we’ve never had to justify why we do or think certain things.

‘Generally speaking, a lot of that friction is because we’re not used to thinking about why we do things and we struggle to make sense of it,’ said Mr Wedlock.

‘The increase in exposure from Adolescence and social media creates this impression that masculinity looks, talks and walks in particular ways, with particular ideas which creates worries and concerns which are valid, but there’s a combination of placing masculinity under the microscope and also recognising there’s lots to think about and talk about.’

He said that the downside of themes of masculinity being more prevalent was that people had the tendency to think the conversation of masculinity is all about a specific type of 'toxic' masculinity.

This creates the impression that everyone is speaking about a very specific type of man, but the theme of masculinity is much more general.

‘I’ve recognised doing this work that people have a lot of questions that are becoming increasingly difficult to find answers to,’ said Mr Wedlock.

‘All you’ve got to do is type masculinity in online and you’re faced with 17 different opinions from 17 different people of different backgrounds.

‘People are often really scared and I want to provide some clarity and some hope.’

Mr Wedlock has published a book called Masculinity in Schools to encourage teachers to explore themes of masculinity in and with young people.