Does a beard make you more manly? Lynx asked a group of guys what masculinity means to them and their answers might surprise you…
Recent Ditch the Label research not only revealed that boys were almost twice as likely to bully than girls, but that young men are far less likely to open up about issues that upset or worry them. Why? From a young age children are wrongly taught to believe that expressing emotion is something ‘only girls do’. Boys are told to ‘man up’ and to develop a ‘stiff upper lip’ and our research demonstrates how such conditioning negatively impacts on their behaviour later in life. Masculinity is presented to young boys as something that can only be obtained by fitting into the traditional macho mould; they are made to believe that if they are emotional, sensitive or compassionate they risk jeopardising their manliness. It’s about time we ditched these outdated and limiting social constructs!
Lynx are making it their mission to, quite literally, ditch the labels that hold guys back, freeing them to be their own man, on their own terms without the pressures and limits of traditional masculinity. Featuring celebs such as Tom Odell, Anthony Joshua and Keegan Hirst, the ‘Men in Progress’ series shows just how individual and susceptible to change the definition of masculinity really is.
