1Chapter Quote
Chapter Quote
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
2Crediting the Framework
The framework I’m about to present builds heavily on the work of Daniel Baryon, who creates educational content under the name Anark on YouTube. In his video essay on healthy masculinity (Baryon, 2025), Baryon introduces a brilliant concept borrowed from Buddhism: near enemies.
In Buddhist philosophy, virtues have “far enemies” — their obvious opposites — but also “near enemies”: qualities that seem like the virtue but are actually corruptions of it. Baryon applies this concept to masculinity, arguing that toxic masculinity isn’t the opposite of masculine virtues, but rather the near enemy — a distortion that looks like strength, protection, or confidence but is actually domination, control, or arrogance.
This framework is powerful because it helps explain why toxic masculinity is so seductive and hard to recognize. It looks like what we’re told masculinity should be. It mimics virtues while corrupting them. And it gives us a way to talk about healthy masculinity without either abandoning the concept entirely or falling into biological essentialism.
I strongly encourage you to watch Baryon’s full video for his complete analysis. What follows is my adaptation of his framework specifically for educational practice — how teachers can use these concepts in classroom teaching, self-reflection, and challenging patriarchy in schools.
3Why This Framework Matters for Teachers
As educators, we need ways to talk with students — especially boys and young men — about masculinity that are constructive, not just critical. “Don’t be toxic” isn’t enough. Students need positive models, not just negatives to avoid. Telling someone what not to be without showing what to be creates a vacuum that patriarchy will fill.
We need frameworks that are concrete and recognizable. Abstract theory doesn’t resonate with most students. They need to see these patterns in their own lives, in examples that feel real and immediate. We need approaches that are liberatory for everyone. These aren’t exclusively masculine virtues — they’re human virtues that happen to be culturally associated with masculinity. Everyone benefits from developing these qualities. The goal is liberation from rigid gender roles, not new rigidity.
And we need tools that are applicable to daily practice. Teachers need frameworks they can actually use, tools for recognizing patterns in real time, language for interrupting toxic dynamics as they emerge in classrooms and hallways.
4Important Caveats Before We Begin
These aren’t prescriptive rules for how men must be. Some men won’t identify with all these traits. Some will prioritize different virtues. That’s fine. You can be a man and not fit every one of these. Gender is a social construct, and these categories are tools for analysis, not rigid requirements.
These aren’t exclusively masculine. Women, non-binary people, and people of all genders can and should cultivate these virtues. When we talk about “healthy masculinity”, we’re talking about positive qualities that have been culturally associated with masculinity — not qualities that only men can or should have.
Traditionally “feminine” virtues are equally important. Nurturing, emotional warmth, collaboration, empathy, care — these are essential human qualities. A truly healthy human being, regardless of gender, cultivates both “masculine” and “feminine” virtues. The goal isn’t to perfect masculine performance; it’s to be fully human.
This framework is a starting point, not an endpoint. It’s one tool among many for understanding and challenging patriarchy. Use it where it’s helpful. Adapt it to your context. Supplement it with other frameworks. Don’t treat it as gospel.
5The Framework: Healthy Virtues and Their Near Enemies
For each pair, I’ll provide the healthy virtue we should encourage, the near enemy that corrupts it, how it shows up in schools with concrete examples, discussion prompts for students to explore the distinction, and teacher reflection questions for examining your own practice.
5.1Strength vs. Domination
The Healthy Virtue: Strength
Strength is capacity — physical, emotional, intellectual, moral. It’s the ability to do difficult things, to persevere through challenges, to support others, to stand firm in your values. Strength can be used for good or ill, but the capacity itself is valuable. Strength means being able to protect yourself and others, having skills and capabilities you can rely on, possessing physical, emotional, and mental resilience, having the power to act in the world, and being someone others can depend on.
The Near Enemy: Domination
Domination is using strength to control, harm, or subordinate others. It’s the corruption of strength into hierarchy and oppression. Those who confuse domination for strength think that being strong means being over others, commanding them, making them submit. Domination looks like using physical or social power to control others, establishing hierarchies where you’re on top, proving strength by making others weak, commanding rather than collaborating, and equating strength with dominance.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Domination appears when boys establish “alpha” hierarchies through intimidation, when physical bullying proves who’s strongest, when social aggression maintains dominance, when “I’m better than you” competition drives interaction, when controlling group work by talking over others becomes normal, and when using size or strength to get what you want seems acceptable.
Strength appears differently. It’s standing up for someone being bullied. It’s using physical capability to help others — moving things, assisting. It’s persevering through difficult work without giving up. It’s being reliable and dependable for your team. It’s using skills to contribute rather than dominate.
Strength vs. Domination in Action
Domination: A physically strong student uses his size to intimidate smaller students, taking their seats, cutting in line, demanding they do what he wants. When questioned, he says “I’m just stronger, that’s how it works”.
Strength: A physically strong student helps carry equipment for a school event. When he sees someone struggling with heavy boxes, he offers to help. He uses his capability in service, not control.
The difference: Domination uses capacity to create hierarchy. Strength uses capacity to contribute and support.
Discussion Prompts for Students
When have you felt strong by helping someone? How is that different from feeling powerful by controlling someone? What’s the difference between being a strong person and being a dominant person? Can you be strong without making others weak? Give examples. In movies, games, and sports, when do we see strength used well versus used for domination? Who in your life is strong in healthy ways? What do they do differently?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Do I reward domination — where the loudest voice wins, the most aggressive student gets attention — or actual strength like perseverance, helping others, standing up for values? How do I respond when students use strength to dominate versus when they use it to help? Do I confuse assertiveness with aggression? What messages am I sending about what strength looks like?
Classroom Application
Explicitly teach and reward using strength to help, not dominate. Interrupt dominance behaviors and name them as different from strength. Create opportunities for students to be strong in service — helping younger students, community work, peer support. Discuss examples from history, literature, and current events that distinguish strength from domination.
5.2Protection vs. Control
The Healthy Virtue: Protection
Protection means keeping people safe while respecting their autonomy. It’s creating conditions where people can flourish, defending against genuine threats, and standing between harm and those who are vulnerable. Protection is offered, not imposed. It means making spaces safe for others, defending against actual threats, looking out for people’s wellbeing, acting in defensive posture when needed, and respecting people’s choices while ensuring safety.
The Near Enemy: Control
Control is limiting people’s possibilities under the guise of protection. It’s making decisions for others, restricting their freedom, monitoring their lives, and imposing your vision of safety onto them. Control steals autonomy while claiming to keep people safe. It looks like deciding what others can do, where they can go, who they can see; saying “I’m doing this for your own good” while ignoring their wishes; surveillance and monitoring; restricting freedom in the name of safety; and making yourself the arbiter of others’ choices.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Control appears in the “good girlfriend must not have male friends, must not go out” example from Chapter~\ref{ch:introduction}. It’s possessive relationships disguised as caring. It’s “I’m just looking out for you” while restricting choices. It’s parents controlling daughters’ clothing, friendships, and movements more than sons’. It’s teachers making all decisions without student input “for their own good”.
Protection looks different. It’s intervening when someone is being harmed. It’s creating classroom norms that keep everyone safe. It’s standing up against bullying. It’s ensuring physical and emotional safety. It’s giving students agency while maintaining appropriate boundaries.
Protection vs. Control in Relationships
Control: “I don’t want you hanging out with those friends. They’re a bad influence. If you really cared about me, you’d stop seeing them. I’m just protecting you”.
Protection: “I’m worried about you when you’re with those friends because I’ve noticed you seem upset afterward. Are you okay? Is there anything you want to talk about? I’m here if you need support”.
The difference: Control makes decisions for the other person and restricts their choices. Protection expresses concern while respecting autonomy and offering support.
Discussion Prompts for Students
What’s the difference between someone protecting you and someone controlling you? Can you keep someone safe while still respecting their choices? How? When does “I’m worried about you” become “I’m controlling you”? In relationships, what does healthy protection look like versus controlling behavior? Who gets “protected” versus “controlled” in our society? Why?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Are my classroom rules protective — ensuring safety and learning — or controlling through unnecessary restrictions? Do I give students autonomy within safe boundaries, or do I make all decisions for them? How do I balance safety with freedom? Do I control students differently based on gender?
Classroom Application
Explicitly discuss the difference between protection and control, especially in relationships. Analyze examples from media where control is disguised as protection. Give students real choices and autonomy while maintaining safety. Teach consent and bodily autonomy. Examine who gets “protected” — often code for controlled — in society based on gender, race, and other identities.
5.3Resilience vs. Numbness
The Healthy Virtue: Resilience
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity, to face challenges without being broken by them, to continue moving forward despite setbacks. Resilient people feel the impact of difficulty but don’t let it stop them. Resilience means recovering from setbacks, continuing despite discouragement, processing difficulty without being destroyed by it, adapting to challenges, and maintaining hope and agency in hard times.
The Near Enemy: Numbness
Numbness is being hollowed out, disconnected from emotions, unable to feel. It’s the result of trauma and suppression. Numbness looks like resilience — “nothing bothers me” — but it’s actually dissociation and emotional death. It looks like saying “I don’t feel anything”, being unable to access emotions, experiencing dissociation and disconnection, feeling emptiness inside, and having a stone-faced inability to be moved by anything.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Numbness appears when boys have learned “don’t feel, don’t cry, don’t care”. It’s students who seem unaffected by everything — a trauma response. It’s “I don’t care” as defense mechanism. It’s emotional shutdown after repeated hurt. It’s performing invulnerability to avoid seeming weak.
Resilience looks different. It’s feeling disappointment about a bad grade but trying again. It’s being hurt by conflict but working to repair the relationship. It’s acknowledging difficulty while continuing to engage. It’s processing emotions and moving forward. It’s staying connected to feelings while not being overwhelmed.
Resilience vs. Numbness After Failure
Numbness: A student fails a test. When the teacher tries to talk about it, the student shrugs and says “I don’t care. Whatever. It doesn’t matter”. The student’s affect is flat, disconnected. Behind the apparent indifference is pain that’s been suppressed so many times it can no longer be felt.
Resilience: A student fails a test. The student is visibly disappointed, maybe even tears up. But then says “This is hard, but I want to understand what I got wrong. Can we go over it? I want to do better next time”. The student feels the difficulty and keeps trying.
The difference: Numbness shuts down feeling to avoid pain. Resilience feels pain but doesn’t let it stop growth.
Discussion Prompts for Students
What’s the difference between being resilient and being numb? Is it stronger to not feel pain, or to feel it and keep going? When someone says “I don’t care” about everything, what might really be happening? How do you bounce back from hard things while still letting yourself feel? Who teaches us to be numb? Why?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Do I make space for emotional processing, or do I expect students to just “tough it out”? How do I respond when students show emotion versus when they show numbness? Do I reward emotional suppression as “maturity”? Do I create conditions where it’s safe to be vulnerable?
Classroom Application
Teach that all emotions are valid and important information. Create space for processing difficulty, not just moving past it. Model acknowledging hard emotions while continuing to function. Discuss trauma and numbness versus healthy resilience. Challenge “don’t feel” messages, especially for boys.
5.4Perseverance vs. Stubbornness
The Healthy Virtue: Perseverance
Perseverance is continuing to work toward goals despite obstacles, maintaining commitment through difficulty, and not giving up when things get hard. It’s the ability to sustain effort over time. Perseverance means staying committed to important goals, working through challenges, not being easily discouraged, continuing when things are difficult, and sustaining effort over time.
The Near Enemy: Stubbornness
Stubbornness is refusing to change course even when you’re wrong, continuing harmful patterns because you’ve invested in them, and being unable to admit mistakes or adapt. It’s perseverance without wisdom. It looks like saying “I’ve come this far, I can’t quit now” — the sunk cost fallacy. It’s refusing to admit you’re wrong, continuing harmful behavior because changing would mean admitting error, having pride that prevents adaptation, and showing rigidity in the face of new information.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Stubbornness appears when students refuse to try new approaches even when the current one isn’t working. It’s being unable to admit mistakes or say “I was wrong”. It’s doubling down when challenged. It’s “I’m right and I’ll never back down” even when proven wrong. It’s toxic masculine pride that can’t bend.
Perseverance looks different. It’s trying multiple approaches to solve a problem. It’s continuing to work on difficult material. It’s not giving up when the first attempt fails. It’s sustained effort with willingness to adapt. It’s commitment to growth, not to being right.
Perseverance vs. Stubbornness in Learning
Stubbornness: A student insists on using one method to solve math problems even though it’s not working. When the teacher suggests a different approach, the student says “No, this is how I do it. I’m not changing”. The student fails repeatedly but refuses to adapt out of pride.
Perseverance: A student struggles with math problems. The first method doesn’t work, so the student tries another. And another. The student asks for help, watches tutorials, practices different approaches. The student keeps working toward understanding, adapting strategies as needed.
The difference: Stubbornness clings to one path out of pride. Perseverance maintains the goal while flexing the method.
Discussion Prompts for Students
When is it brave to keep going? When is it wise to change direction? What’s the difference between perseverance and stubbornness? How do you know when to persist versus when to try something different? Why is it hard to admit we’re wrong? What makes that difficult? Can you think of a time when changing your mind was actually strong?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Do I model admitting mistakes and changing approaches? How do I respond when students are stuck — do I encourage flexibility or just “keep trying”? Do I reward stubbornness — never giving up even when wrong — or perseverance — sustained effort with adaptation? Am I stubborn in my own teaching, or do I adapt when things aren’t working?
Classroom Application
Model changing your mind and admitting mistakes. Teach growth mindset — effort matters, but so does strategy. Celebrate trying new approaches, not just grinding on the same path. Discuss the sunk cost fallacy. Make it safe to be wrong and adjust.
5.5Confidence vs. Arrogance
The Healthy Virtue: Confidence
Confidence is well-founded trust in your abilities, earned through competence and experience. Confident people know what they can do and have realistic assessment of their skills. Confidence means earned trust in your abilities, realistic sense of your strengths, willingness to try because you have skills, self-assurance based on competence, and ability to act without crippling self-doubt.
The Near Enemy: Arrogance
Arrogance is unearned confidence, inflated self-importance, and inability to recognize your own limits. Arrogant people overestimate their abilities and can’t see their weaknesses. It looks like overestimating your competence, being unable to recognize flaws or limits, dismissing others’ expertise, being unwilling to learn because you think you already know, and having disconnection from reality of your actual skills.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Arrogance appears when students won’t accept feedback because they “already know”. It’s overestimating abilities and then failing. It’s dismissing others’ contributions. It’s being unable to recognize when they need help. It’s confusing confidence with never being wrong.
Confidence looks different. It’s knowing what you’re good at and owning it. It’s being willing to try because you have skills. It’s accepting feedback to improve. It’s realistic self-assessment. It’s confidence that includes knowing your limits.
Confidence vs. Arrogance in Group Work
Arrogance: A student immediately takes charge of a group project, dismissing others’ ideas. “I’ve got this. I know what I’m doing. You guys don’t need to worry about it”. The student doesn’t listen to feedback, makes decisions unilaterally, and produces mediocre work because they wouldn’t collaborate.
Confidence: A student with strong skills in the subject offers to take the lead but says “I’m good at this part, but I’d like to hear everyone’s ideas. I might be missing something”. The student leads while staying open to input, recognizing that confidence doesn’t mean knowing everything.
The difference: Arrogance can’t admit limits. Confidence knows strengths without denying weaknesses.
Discussion Prompts for Students
What’s the difference between confidence and arrogance? How do you build real confidence versus fake it? When have you been overconfident? What happened? Why is it hard to admit when we don’t know something? Can you be confident and still be learning?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Do I reward actual competence or performed certainty? How do I respond to students who are arrogant versus genuinely confident? Do I model confidence that includes admitting limits? Do I create conditions where it’s safe to not know?
Classroom Application
Teach self-assessment skills. Model confidence that includes uncertainty. Reward growth and learning, not just performance of knowing. Discuss the Dunning-Kruger effect — how incompetent people overestimate while competent people underestimate. Make it valuable to say “I don’t know, let me learn”.
5.6Bravery vs. Recklessness
The Healthy Virtue: Bravery
Bravery is acting despite fear, doing what’s necessary even when it’s scary. Brave people feel fear — that’s what makes it brave — but don’t let fear control their actions. Bravery means feeling fear and acting anyway, doing difficult things because they’re right, taking calculated risks, standing up despite consequences, and having courage in the face of real danger.
The Near Enemy: Recklessness
Recklessness is acting without considering consequences, ignoring rational fear, and putting yourself and others at risk unnecessarily. It’s bravery without wisdom or care. It looks like ignoring real dangers, not considering consequences, putting others at risk, acting without thought, and confusing stupidity with courage.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Recklessness appears in dangerous stunts to prove courage. It’s acting without thinking about harm. It’s peer pressure to do risky things. It’s “I’m not scared of anything” — ignoring real risks. It’s harm to self or others in pursuit of status.
Bravery looks different. It’s speaking up against injustice despite social cost. It’s trying something difficult despite fear of failure. It’s standing with someone being bullied. It’s admitting fear while still acting. It’s calculated risks in service of values.
Bravery vs. Recklessness
Recklessness: Students dare each other to jump off increasingly high places. One student, not wanting to seem scared, jumps from a dangerous height and breaks his leg. When asked why, he says “I’m not a coward. I’m not afraid of anything”.
Bravery: A student sees classmates bullying another student. The student is scared — speaking up might make them the next target. But the student says “Stop. Leave them alone”. The student feels the fear and acts anyway because it’s right.
The difference: Recklessness ignores real danger to perform fearlessness. Bravery acts despite fear in service of values.
Discussion Prompts for Students
What’s the difference between being brave and being reckless? Can you be brave and scared at the same time? How? When is taking a risk brave versus when is it foolish? Why do we sometimes confuse recklessness with courage? What does real bravery look like in daily life?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Do I make it safe for students to take brave risks like speaking up, trying new things? How do I respond to recklessness versus bravery? Do I reward thoughtless risk-taking or considered courage? Do I model acknowledging fear while still acting?
Classroom Application
Teach that bravery includes feeling fear. Discuss risk assessment and consequences. Celebrate brave acts that serve values, not just daring acts. Analyze examples of bravery versus recklessness in history, literature, and current events. Make it safe to be scared and still try.
5.7Carefulness vs. Conservatism
The Healthy Virtue: Carefulness
Carefulness is practicing care in your actions, thinking ahead about consequences, and trying not to cause unnecessary harm. It’s mindful action and consideration for impact. Carefulness means thinking before acting, considering consequences, trying not to harm others, engaging in planning and preparation, and maintaining attention to detail and impact.
The Near Enemy: Conservatism
Conservatism — in this context — is resistance to change based on fear, inability to move forward, and clinging to “how things have always been” regardless of harm. It’s carefulness corrupted into rigidity. It looks like refusing to change even when the current approach is harmful, saying “We’ve always done it this way”, fearing new approaches, showing inability to adapt, and preserving systems even when they’re unjust.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Conservatism appears when people say “Boys and girls have always been different, why change?” It’s resistance to inclusive practices. It’s fear of challenging traditional gender roles. It’s clinging to patriarchal norms because they’re familiar. It’s saying “If it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for them”.
Carefulness looks different. It’s thinking through how changes will affect students. It’s moving deliberately but willingly toward justice. It’s considering unintended consequences. It’s planning implementation thoughtfully. It’s care that doesn’t prevent necessary change.
Carefulness vs. Conservatism About Change
Conservatism: A teacher resists using gender-neutral language. “We’ve always said ‘boys and girls.’ Why do we need to change? This is just how we’ve always done things. These new ideas are too confusing”. The teacher refuses to adapt regardless of harm to non-binary students.
Carefulness: A teacher considers adopting gender-neutral language. “I want to make sure all students feel included. Let me think about how to introduce this change so it doesn’t feel jarring. I’ll explain why we’re doing it and give students time to adjust”. The teacher changes thoughtfully, not recklessly, but does change.
The difference: Conservatism uses “care” as excuse to avoid necessary change. Carefulness considers impact while still moving toward justice.
Discussion Prompts for Students
When does being careful help us? When does it hold us back? What’s the difference between being thoughtful and being afraid to change? Why do people sometimes resist change even when it would be better? How can we be careful without being stuck?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Do I resist changes to gender norms out of genuine care or out of fear? Am I thoughtful or am I rigid? How do I balance care with willingness to change unjust systems? Do I encourage students to be careful or conservative?
Classroom Application
Model thoughtful change, not reckless or fearful rigidity. Discuss why systems resist change. Teach risk assessment that doesn’t default to “don’t change”. Analyze when “tradition” is valuable versus when it’s oppressive.
5.8Assertiveness vs. Aggression
The Healthy Virtue: Assertiveness
Assertiveness is clearly stating your needs, boundaries, and ideas while respecting others’ right to do the same. It’s standing up for yourself without attacking others. Assertiveness means stating your needs clearly, setting boundaries, advocating for yourself, speaking up when something’s wrong, and engaging in respectful but firm communication.
The Near Enemy: Aggression
Aggression is trying to get what you want through force, intimidation, or attack. It’s assertiveness without respect for others, communication as weapon. It looks like demanding compliance, intimidating others, attacking when challenged, treating disagreement as combat, and forcing your will on others.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Aggression appears as yelling to get your way, using physical or social intimidation, treating every interaction as a battle to win, being unable to handle being challenged, and using dominance-based communication.
Assertiveness looks different. It’s saying “I need this, and here’s why”. It’s setting clear boundaries without attacking. It’s standing up for yourself respectfully. It’s disagreeing without aggression. It’s advocating effectively.
Assertiveness vs. Aggression in Conflict
Aggression: Two students disagree about how to approach a group project. One student raises their voice: “No! We’re doing it my way. I don’t care what you think. If you don’t like it, do it yourself!” The student uses volume and intimidation to shut down discussion.
Assertiveness: The same disagreement. A student says firmly: “I hear your idea, but I have concerns about that approach. Here’s what I think would work better and why. Can we discuss both options and find the best solution?” The student advocates for their position while respecting the other person’s right to disagree.
The difference: Aggression tries to win through force. Assertiveness advocates a position while maintaining respect for others.
Discussion Prompts for Students
How can you stand up for yourself without attacking others? What’s the difference between assertiveness and aggression? When have you seen someone advocate for themselves effectively? Why do we sometimes confuse aggression with strength?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Do I model assertiveness or aggression in my authority? How do I respond when students are assertive versus aggressive? Do I punish students, especially girls, for being assertive? Can I tell the difference in my own behavior?
Classroom Application
Explicitly teach assertive communication. Practice “I statements” and boundary-setting. Discuss and role-play scenarios. Reward assertiveness while interrupting aggression. Model receiving assertiveness without defensiveness.
5.9Self-Sufficiency vs. Rugged Individualism
The Healthy Virtue: Self-Sufficiency
Self-sufficiency is being capable and able to rely on yourself, developing skills and competence so you can navigate challenges. It’s not total independence — which is impossible — but reasonable capability. It means having skills you can rely on, being able to handle challenges, not being helpless or overly dependent, having capability and competence, and being able to contribute.
The Near Enemy: Rugged Individualism
Rugged individualism is the delusion that you’re completely independent, that you don’t need anyone, that asking for help is weakness. It’s self-sufficiency corrupted into isolation. It looks like saying “I don’t need anyone”, refusing help even when you need it, denying interdependence, experiencing isolation and loneliness, and having “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Rugged individualism appears when students refuse to ask for help even when struggling. It’s “I have to do everything myself”. It’s seeing collaboration as weakness. It’s isolation and inability to work with others. It’s shame about needing support.
Self-sufficiency looks different. It’s having skills to contribute to a group. It’s being able to work independently when needed. It’s knowing when to ask for help. It’s capability within interdependence. It’s contributing while also receiving.
Self-Sufficiency vs. Rugged Individualism
Rugged Individualism: A student is failing a class but refuses to ask for help. “I don’t need anyone. I can figure this out myself”. The student struggles alone, falls further behind, but won’t reach out because that would mean admitting weakness. The student fails.
Self-Sufficiency: A student tries to solve problems independently first, developing problem-solving skills. But when truly stuck, the student asks “I’ve tried these approaches and I’m still confused. Can you help me understand this?” The student is capable but knows when collaboration is needed.
The difference: Rugged individualism refuses all help out of pride. Self-sufficiency knows your capabilities and when to seek support.
Discussion Prompts for Students
What’s the difference between being capable and pretending you don’t need anyone? Is anyone truly independent? Why or why not? When is asking for help actually strong? How can you be self-sufficient and still need other people?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Do I reward collaboration or only individual achievement? How do I respond when students ask for help? Do I teach self-sufficiency or rugged individualism? Do I model healthy interdependence?
Classroom Application
Teach both individual capability and collaborative skills. Make asking for help normal and valued. Discuss interdependence versus dependence versus independence. Examine “self-made man” mythology. Value contribution to community, not just individual achievement.
5.10Internal Locus of Control vs. Self-Centeredness
The Healthy Virtue: Internal Locus of Control
Internal locus of control is recognizing what you can actually influence and taking responsibility for your choices and actions. It’s understanding that while you can’t control everything, you can control yourself. It means taking responsibility for your actions, recognizing your agency, focusing on what you can change, not blaming everything on external factors, and finding empowerment through recognizing your choices.
The Near Enemy: Self-Centeredness
Self-centeredness is thinking everything is about you, that you’re the center of the world, that your perspective is the only one that matters. It’s internal locus of control corrupted into narcissism. It looks like saying “It’s all about me”, showing inability to see others’ perspectives, interpreting everything through impact on you, lacking empathy, and displaying arrogance and self-importance.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Self-centeredness appears when everything becomes about how it affects the individual student. It’s being unable to see others’ experiences or needs. It’s constant reference to self. It’s lack of perspective-taking. It’s an egocentric worldview.
Internal locus of control looks different. It’s asking “What can I do about this?” It’s taking responsibility for your impact. It’s recognizing agency without self-centeredness. It’s understanding your role without making everything about you.
Internal Locus of Control vs. Self-Centeredness
Self-Centeredness: The class discusses a social issue. A student immediately makes it about themselves: “Well, I’ve never experienced that, so it’s probably not a real problem. Why are we even talking about this when it doesn’t affect me?” Everything is filtered through personal impact.
Internal Locus of Control: The same discussion. A student says: “I haven’t experienced this, but I can see it’s affecting others. What can I do to help? How can I use my position to support change?” The student recognizes their agency while seeing beyond themselves.
The difference: Self-centeredness can’t see beyond personal experience. Internal locus of control recognizes personal power while maintaining empathy for others.
Discussion Prompts for Students
How can you take responsibility without making everything about you? What’s the difference between recognizing your power and being self-centered? When is focusing on yourself healthy versus when is it narcissistic?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Do I help students identify what they can actually control? Do I encourage responsibility without encouraging self-centeredness? How do I teach agency while also teaching empathy?
Classroom Application
Teach the concept of circle of concern versus circle of control. Practice perspective-taking exercises. Discuss responsibility that includes seeing others. Model taking responsibility without self-centeredness.
5.11Emotional Regulation vs. Emotional Emptiness
The Healthy Virtue: Emotional Regulation
Emotional regulation is feeling your emotions fully while not letting them control your actions. It’s experiencing feelings without being overwhelmed or acting impulsively on them. It means feeling emotions without suppressing them, not letting emotions dictate all behavior, processing feelings thoughtfully, experiencing full range of emotions, and choosing responses rather than reacting.
The Near Enemy: Emotional Emptiness
Emotional emptiness is trying not to feel anything, becoming numb or hollow, disconnecting from emotions entirely. It’s regulation corrupted into suppression and death. It looks like trying to stop feeling, becoming robotic, disconnecting from emotional life, experiencing hollowness and numbness, and living only through “rational” mind.
How It Shows Up in Schools
Emotional emptiness appears in boys who’ve learned to feel nothing. It’s “I don’t have emotions” performance. It’s robotic, disconnected presentation. It’s trauma response of shutdown. It’s the patriarchal ideal of the emotionless man.
Emotional regulation looks different. It’s feeling angry but choosing your response. It’s being sad without being overwhelmed. It’s processing emotions and still functioning. It’s full emotional range with thoughtful action. It’s integration of feeling and thinking.
Emotional Regulation vs. Emotional Emptiness
Emotional Emptiness: A student’s grandmother dies. When classmates offer condolences, the student says flatly “It’s fine. I don’t feel anything about it”. The student seems completely unaffected, goes through the day mechanically. Teachers praise the student for “being so strong”.
Emotional Regulation: A student’s grandmother dies. The student is visibly sad, maybe cries. But the student says “I’m really sad, and I need some time. But I also want to stay busy with schoolwork because it helps me cope. Can I step out if I need to?” The student feels deeply and manages those feelings.
The difference: Emotional emptiness suppresses feeling entirely. Emotional regulation feels fully and responds thoughtfully.
Discussion Prompts for Students
What’s the difference between controlling your emotions and not feeling them? Is it stronger to not feel anything or to feel and choose what to do? How do you process emotions without being controlled by them? Why do we sometimes think we shouldn’t feel certain things?
Teacher Reflection Questions
Do I make space for emotions or expect suppression? How do I model emotional regulation versus emptiness? Do I teach skills for processing emotions? Do I validate all emotions while teaching regulation?
Classroom Application
Teach that all emotions are valid information. Provide tools for emotional processing. Model feeling and regulating. Discuss difference between suppression and regulation. Make it safe to feel while teaching skillful response.
6Bringing It All Together: Beyond Masculine vs. Feminine
Here’s Baryon’s crucial final point, and mine: These virtues aren’t exclusively masculine. They’re human virtues that happen to be culturally associated with masculinity. And the traditionally “feminine” virtues — nurturing, emotional warmth, collaboration, empathy, care — are equally important for everyone.
A fully healthy human being cultivates both strength and gentleness, protection and care, resilience and emotional openness, perseverance and flexibility, confidence and humility, bravery and vulnerability, self-sufficiency and interdependence, emotional regulation and emotional connection.
The goal isn’t to perfect masculine performance. The goal is to be fully human. But in a patriarchal culture that tells boys they must be one thing and girls must be another, that punishes boys for being nurturing and girls for being strong, that treats these as opposites rather than complements — we need frameworks for helping young people see alternatives.
This framework gives us language for recognizing toxic patterns, articulating healthy alternatives, teaching without either abandoning masculinity entirely or reinforcing patriarchy, and liberating everyone from rigid gender roles.
Use it in service of liberation, not new rigidity.
7A Note on Neurodivergence and Ableism
Before we continue, I need to add important nuance about neurodivergence, particularly autism, and how ableist assumptions can distort our understanding of the framework I’ve just presented.
When I describe traits like emotional regulation, empathy, perspective-taking, or social awareness, there’s a risk that these descriptions could be read through an ableist lens that pathologizes neurodivergent people — particularly autistic individuals. This would be a fundamental misunderstanding.
The toxic masculine traits I’m describing — emotional emptiness, self-centeredness, lack of empathy — are learned patriarchal behaviors, not neurological differences. They’re the result of conditioning, not brain wiring. And conflating them with neurodivergent traits is both inaccurate and harmful.
7.1Autism and Empathy: Debunking the Myth
One of the most persistent and damaging myths about autistic people is that they lack empathy. This is false.
Autistic people often experience intense empathy — so intense that it can be overwhelming (Milton, 2012). Many autistic individuals describe feeling others’ emotions so strongly that they need to create distance or appear disconnected in order to manage the emotional flood.
What gets misread as “lack of empathy” is often empathic overwhelm that requires withdrawal or emotional regulation strategies, different expression of empathy that doesn’t match neurotypical expectations, difficulty with social performance of empathy (saying the “right” things, making the “right” facial expressions), alexithymia (difficulty identifying and naming emotions, which is different from not feeling them), or processing differences that mean empathic response takes longer or looks different.
An autistic person who seems “robotic” or “unfeeling” may actually be experiencing such intense emotion they need to regulate it carefully, processing emotional information differently, protecting themselves from empathic overwhelm, struggling with how to express what they’re feeling, or masking their natural responses to appear “normal”.
This is completely different from patriarchal emotional emptiness, which is learned suppression of emotion to perform masculinity, deliberate disconnection from feelings to avoid “weakness”, cultural conditioning that emotions are shameful, and the result of punishment for emotional expression.
One is neurological difference in how emotions are processed and expressed. The other is learned behavior in service of patriarchy.
7.2Self-Centeredness vs. Autistic Perspective
Similarly, when I discuss self-centeredness as a toxic trait, this could be misread as criticizing autistic individuals who may have difficulty with perspective-taking in the moment, process their own experience before being able to consider others’, need to reference their own experience to understand others’ (not self-centeredness, but a processing pathway), or struggle with theory of mind (understanding that others have different knowledge or perspectives).
These are neurological differences in how perspective-taking works, not narcissistic self-centeredness. The toxic self-centeredness I’m describing is inability or unwillingness to care about others’ perspectives even when you can understand them, centering yourself because you believe you’re more important, lack of interest in others’ experiences, and entitlement and arrogance.
The difference: Autistic processing says “I need to understand this through my own experience first” or “I’m struggling to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously”. Toxic self-centeredness says “Only my perspective matters” or “I don’t care about your experience”.
One is a different cognitive process. The other is learned patriarchal entitlement.
7.3What This Means for Teachers
As teachers, we must be able to distinguish between patriarchal learned behaviors that should be challenged and neurodivergent processing differences that should be understood and supported. When observing student behavior, don’t ask “Is this student being self-centered, unempathetic, or emotionally empty?” Instead ask “What’s driving this behavior?” Consider whether it’s learned patriarchal conditioning, neurodivergent processing, trauma response, developmental stage, or some combination.
Consider intent versus impact: Are they trying to dominate, or struggling to navigate social complexity? Pattern versus moment: Is this consistent entitled behavior, or situational difficulty? Context: What else is happening for this student? Response to teaching: When you teach alternatives, can they learn them? (Neurodivergent students can learn; they may just need different approaches.)
Remember that autistic people are not inherently toxic or lacking in virtue, neurodivergent traits are not character flaws, different processing doesn’t equal deficient processing, and many autistic individuals are highly attuned to justice and fairness.
I’m autistic myself. I know intimately what it’s like to be told you’re not empathetic when you’re actually drowning in others’ emotions. I know what it’s like to be called self-centered when you’re desperately trying to understand perspectives through the only processing pathway available to you. I know what it’s like to be read as “robotic” when you’re regulating intense internal experience.
I wrote this framework to challenge patriarchy, not to pathologize neurodivergence.
If you’re autistic and reading this, please know: Your empathy is real. Your way of processing emotions is valid. Your social differences are not moral failings. You are not the problem patriarchy is trying to solve.
And to teachers: Please don’t use this framework to diagnose, label, or pathologize neurodivergent students. Use it to examine systems of power and learned behaviors, not to judge neurological differences.
The goal is liberation for everyone — including and especially those whose minds work differently. We’re challenging learned patriarchal behaviors and systems, not natural neurological variation. These are not the same thing. Don’t confuse them. Don’t weaponize frameworks meant for liberation to oppress neurodivergent people.
Patriarchy is the problem. Neurodivergence is not.
8Using This Framework in Practice
This framework provides language for classroom discussions about masculinity, self-reflection tools for examining your own behavior and biases, ways to interrupt toxic patterns when you see them emerging, and positive models to offer students seeking alternatives to patriarchal masculinity.
In Part~\ref{part:practice}, we’ll explore concrete applications: how to use these concepts in lessons across grade levels, how to facilitate discussions that help students recognize these patterns, how to support boys in developing healthy virtues while challenging toxic near enemies, and how to create classroom cultures that liberate everyone from rigid gender expectations.
The framework is a tool. Use it wisely. Use it in service of liberation. Use it to help young people — all young people, not just boys — develop full humanity.
Because that’s what we’re actually working toward: not better performance of masculinity or femininity, but liberation from the whole system that tells us we must be one or the other, that limits our humanity based on gender, that punishes us for being fully ourselves.
Another world is possible. We’re building it, one conversation, one intervention, one challenged assumption at a time.