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When his young son was bullied for wearing pink this dad had a truly badass response

"Men need to be the example for young boys."

@dougweaverart/TikTok

Imagine if all boys had this kind of support to embrace all parts of themselves.

We often hear about how binary gender norms affect young girls, but any man who’s ever been made fun of for being sensitive or liking “girly” things during childhood can tell you they influence young boys as well. And perhaps the worst offense of these arbitrary limitations is the way they keep individuals from truly knowing and expressing all parts of themselves, which can lead to a slew of interpersonal problems late in life.

Boys in particular are often taught from an early age to shun the qualities in themselves considered to be feminine—things like empathy, compassion, having strong emotions, etc. It’s so well documented now how not nurturing these qualities leads to isolation and loneliness in adulthood, and yet messages like “boys don’t cry” or “pink is for girls” still persist.

Artist, TikTok creator and Doug Weaver (@dougweaverart) recently made a few excellent points as to why adult men need to be the example for young boys if we truly wish to see a change.

In a stitched response to a video where a mom lamented that she knew how to help her daughter “fight back” against gender norms, but not her son, Weaver argued that above all, it’s important for young boys to see grown men “defy” the expectations culture puts on them.

“Society will try to beat boys down until they fall in line,” Weaver said, sharing his own experience of seeing his son come home from school after being bullied for wearing pink and liking unicorns (which, of course, are “for girls” only).

Weaver said that the only solution he saw was to “pinkify” his own life, and be that example his son so desperately needed.


@dougweaverart @Mel | Med Student raising boys is scary, because we know just how much society is built to tear them down. #men #masculinity #parenting #boydad #greenscreenvideo ♬ original sound - dougweaverart

“I added so much pink to my wardrobe,” he explained, saying that he even painted his nails pink so that he’d be seen as the “problem” instead of his son.

“They don’t say anything to me. If they’re not brave enough to confront the color pink, they’re not going to confront me.”

Weaver added that the larger conversation he tries to have with his son is how this is a “fight worth having,” not just for men with feminine qualities but for “but for everyone society tries to reject.”

He then used this example: a boy who secretly wants to wear a dress to school, but doesn’t to avoid getting bullied. Weaver said that solution only works temporarily, since the dress is only a small manifestation of a larger aspect of the boy’s identity, which he would be repressing to fit an expectation.

“They’re getting bullied for what they wear now, they’re going to get bullied for who they are later. And if changing their clothes made the bullying go away when they were younger, they might think that changing their personality will make the bullying go away when they are older.”

What’s more, for this hypothetical boy, for Weaver’s son, and for any boy really, there’s something very vital that’s lost in chasing this idea of masculinity.

“The people who want to take colors from him also want to take his creativity,” Weaver explains “They want to take away his kindness, they want to take away everything that is soft in his life. His feelings and his emotions. They wanna take away his ability to love people who are different from him.”

Yep, that hits the nail of the head perfectly.

And that is why Weaver prioritizes being the example for his son, because “if he sees people criticize me from time to time, and he sees how unaffected I am by it, that is an example to him of the strength and tenacity that it takes for anyone to just be their authentic self.”

And, perhaps more importantly, Weaver is teaching his son that he will be loved and accepted, no matter how he expresses himself. Imagine a world in which all children were taught this valuable lesson.

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Study suggests that more men would recycle if it were seen as 'manly'

"Make the man feel manly, and he’s more likely to go green."

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Environmentalism needs men to pick it up.

Environmentalism, it turns out, might have a bit of a gender gap: Women tend to recycle more and leave less carbon and litter behind.

So how do we fix this? According to a Scientific American article, if we want men to make better decisions, we need to make going green feel manly.

The authors of the article were a group of researchers who conducted a series of experiments involving over 2,000 US and Chinese participants. According to their results, everyone seems to view certain green behaviors (like carrying a reusable shopping bag) as inherently more feminine.

Furthermore, when men were confronted with stereotypically feminine environmental messaging — like asking them to imagine using frilly pink gift cards to buy lamps, batteries, or backpacks — male participants apparently overreacted and pushed back by buying less environmentally-friendly options.

Men, it seemed, were effectively throwing the environmental baby out with the floral-scented bathwater.

But the authors say this can change. In further experiments, they revealed that re-enforcing traditionally masculine ideas could undo this effect. One experiment showed that men at a car dealership in China were more interested in purchasing a hybrid vehicle when ads for it included "manly" language. Another showed that men were more likely to donate money to the fictitious, uber-manly, howling-wolf-logo'd "Wilderness Rangers" non-profit, rather than one named "Friends of Nature."

"Make the man feel manly, and he’s more likely to go green," the article concludes.

The psychology of gender is, of course, very complicated, so there are no doubt more questions here that need to be answered, but if our goal is to help people go greener at the grocery store, ideas like this could be worth listening to.

This article originally appeared on 12.28.17

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Mom refuses to clean the bathroom after her husband tells their sons to pee standing up

She has a good point.

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Who would want to clean that up?

There are only a few reasons why a man would cling so hard to maintain the right to stand while peeing, and they’re all far from logical. After all, sitting while urinating is not only less messy, it could prevent certain health issues.

One reason could just come down to sheer laziness. Standing while peeing is a habit so deeply ingrained one simply can’t be bothered to try new things. Or it’s quicker and easier, though that also seems debatable.

But the other, more prevailing cause is that peeing while standing up is so closely linked with the notion of masculinity. Because…it’s how the cowboys did it in the Wild West, I guess?

Saying (or writing) these things out loud, it’s easy to see how ridiculous these arguments are, especially when other people are left to clean up afterward. Urine is bound to go at least a little astray, even with the best of aimers. Put children into the equation, and you’re basically dealing with Jackson Pollock.


This is why one mom is taking a stand against the pee stand. Over on Reddit’s Am I The A**hole forum, she shared how her kids previously had zero issues peeing while sitting down.

“After we potty trained our sons I kept making sure that they were sitting to pee,” her post explained. “They are young and don't really care. They can use a urinal when we are out somewhere.”

Everything was fine until the woman's brother-in-law came to visit and took issue with the arrangement. He started “bugging” his brother about his nephews sitting to pee. So her husband pulled an about-face and began telling the boys that when they only pee, they should stand.

AITA for changing the chores unilaterally since my husband wants the boys to stand to urinate.
by u/NoTangerine5335 in AmItheAsshole

And that’s when the trouble started.

“The boys don't have great aim but they make up for it with a short attention span,” the poster quipped. Though she usually stuck to using her own bathroom, after a few days she ventured into the kid’s bathroom and, to no one’s surprise, “it was gross.”

This prompted the mom to initiate a new cleaning routine. Her post concluded, “When my husband got home I told him that he picked up a new chore. He now has to clean the toilets, floors, and walls in the bathrooms the boys are using. He said that it wasn't his turn. I said it was his idea for the boys to stand to pee so he had to deal with the consequences.”

via GIPHY

The verdict was fairly unanimous: This woman was NOT the a-hole. In fact, lots of other women felt the same kind of frustration and met it with similar retaliation.

“I will never understand why it's socially acceptable for boys and grown a** men to spray bathrooms like tom cats because they choose to stand to urinate,” one person wrote. “It's unnecessary and unsanitary. Either aim better, clean up after yourself, or sit.”

“I told my husband that I didn't sign up for cleaning his piss off the toilet and floor for the next 50 years,” added another. “He has been sitting ever since. Somehow he's still a man after over a year of sitting to pee!”

Luckily, peeing while sitting down is starting to be viewed as something beneficial rather than emasculating, as more men worldwide adopt the practice. Perhaps even more would be on board if they were responsible for clean-up.

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As a therapist, here are the three rules I give my sons to combat toxic behavior

If it makes you angry, research it.

Photo by Shawnee D on Unsplash

As a therapist, here are three rules I give my sons.

Most parents aim to raise good humans no matter their gender, but sometimes society comes in and muddies the water a bit. You can't turn on a device without reading words like "gentle parenting" or "toxic masculinity." A wild guess tells me that most people don't want to raise boys that grow up to fall into the category of toxic masculinity, but there don't seem to be many instructions on how to prevent it.

I won't pretend that I have all the answers and I don't want this to read as a humble brag because kids have a way of nevering like they never did before when we dare to say, "my child would never." It's just science. Well, maybe not science, but definitely an anecdotal observation.

What I can tell you is the things I've been doing to help combat the temptations of toxic masculinity. I have three boys, two of whom are teenagers, and while I would never say never, I can say they have been praised by teachers and authority figures. I've also been asked what I do differently, so I figured I'd share.

I'll admit, it's a little hard for me to pinpoint because I've instilled these messages in my boys since their birth, so they're not things I give much thought to anymore. But to identify what I do differently, I enlisted the help of my sons and, lucky for me and hopefully you, they gave me a list of three key differences they notice.

1. If it shocks you or makes you angry, research it.

If there's one thing that tends to make people more empathetic humans it's education. A lot of times people react emotionally when they hear something they don't believe or that's upsetting. Instead of stewing in the anger and digging their heels in, my boys know how to research whatever the issue is using nonbiased phrases.

Four young people sitting on bridge over of body of water.Photo by Sammie Chaffin on Unsplash

An example of this is when my 14-year-old shocked the snot out of me by saying that most women falsely accuse men of assault. This was really upsetting to him to "know" because, of course, he didn't want to be falsely accused of anything. I didn't get upset, I only asked where he got the information and empathized how hearing that could make him feel. Once we got the feelings out of the way, I pointed him to Google and showed him what reputable sites looked like. We even talked about using Google Scholar.

Education makes things less scary and helps people unlearn myths or give context to inflammatory information they read on the internet.

2. Everyone experiences every emotion. Feel them, express them and talk it out.

Boys can experience other emotions outside of anger and happiness. I encourage my kids to name their emotions and to express them, whether it's at me because I've messed up or just in general. Once the feeling is named and expressed, let's get down to whatever the underlying emotion was. Sometimes it turns out to be disappointment and not sadness, or embarrassment, not anger.

If we can name the actual feeling, we can talk it out. They can find ways to address the issue that caused the feeling or take responsibility if it's something they did. Walking them through the whole process takes practice but it's worth it in the end because then they can effectively express their feelings to peers, partners or teachers all while remaining respectful.

Young man wearing brown jacket sitting near gray link fencePhoto by Eliott Reyna on Unsplash
3. Speak up even when it's hard.

Speaking up covers a lot of ground. It's not just about calling out injustices when they see them. When I talk to my sons about using their voices, we talk about consent and what it looks like to properly ask for affirmative consent. It also covers speaking up when you witness inappropriate behaviors toward girls and vice versa.

When my 17-year-old was in middle school, he had instances where this lesson came in handy. On one occasion, the school bus was being loaded at the end of the day and after my son took his seat, he noticed two boys grabbing at a girl's behind as she told them to stop. He spoke up then informed the bus driver and principal of what happened.

While these three "rules" are helpful in combating toxic masculinity, they're also helpful to teach all children. Kids are influenced by what they see outside of their homes and on the internet, and if parents can be the counterbalance, we can all put good humans out into the world.

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