As COVID-19 continues grips the world, there’s been a lot of conversation about the difficulty of encouraging men to wear face masks. The Washington Post recently published: Perspective: Making men feel manly in masks is, unfortunately, a public-health challenge of our time.
The article, using a dose of humor, highlights the importance of making mask wearing appear masculine in the eyes of men. What constitutes a masculine mask –suggestions include camouflage or shark teeth print. They also suggest framing mask wearing as being a hero or chivalrous.
It concludes: “It’s slightly worrisome that, in order for us to survive as a species, spouses and daughters or sons must scour Etsy for venom-themed masks so that their 52 year old packaging engineer husbands and fathers can feel gender-secure when they pop out to Safewy for some milk.”
The Atlantic discusses this issue too in: The Dudes Who Won’t Wear Masks: Face coverings are a powerful too, but health authorities can’t simply ignore the reason some people refuse to use them.It discusses politics and then turns to, drum roll, toxic masculinity:
“As one research team noted, men are especially likely to opt out of wearing masks, believing them to be “shameful,” “a sign of weakness,” and “not cool”—even though men are at higher risk than women of dying from coronavirus infection. A similar pattern has emerged during prior pandemics and across other areas of health: Men—especially those who endorse traditional masculine gender norms—have been less likely than women to engage in protective health behaviors.”
I write often about the narrow male gender role that is hurting our boys and men (and in-turn, everyone). This is a perfect example — mask wearing falls outside of that narrow gender role and the consequences are dire. “Weakness” is a central theme in many of these discussions and articles. Protecting your health and the health of others is seen as weak and not masculine. As we seek to learn lessons from COVID-19 let’s incorporate the narrow male gender role and seek to expand it.
whatsaboymom 