A Serious Problem

This:

No significant body of feminist literature has appeared that addresses boys, that lets them know how they can construct an identity that is not rooted in sexism. Anti-sexist men have done little education for critical consciousness which includes a focus on boyhood, especially the development of adolescent males. As a consequence of this gap, now that discussions about the raising of boys are receiving national attention, feminist perspectives are rarely if ever part of the discussion. Tragically, we are witnessing a resurgence of harmful misogynist assumptions that mothers cannot raise healthy sons, that boys "benefit" from patriarchal militaristic notions of masculinity which emphasize discipline and obedience to authority. Boys need healthy self-esteem. They need love. And a wise and loving feminist politics can provide the only foundation to save the lives of male children. Patriarchy will not heal them. If that were so they would all be well.

-bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (p. 71) [Emphasis mine]

I tend to agree with Connell in Masculinities when she says that it doesn't make sense to try and model "men's groups" after other liberation movements -- because men, as a group, are not oppressed. This is why so many men's groups that started off with good intentions and pro-feminist ideals gradually transformed into pseudo-spiritual therapeutic movements, or else into vehicles for misogyny and backlash politics. So that's out, I think. Besides, it seems to me that the key issue is getting to boys early, while they're growing up.

The part of the quote I emphasized is critical because nowadays, MRAs love to claim that feminism hurts boys, especially in the classroom. This is a fiction, but it's one that keeps getting repeated. Anti-sexist men need to challenge this claim and reply: it's patriarchy that hurts boys, not feminism. Aside from that, we need to actually address boys. We need to show them there is another way; that there is a better way to grow up and live. How we can best do this, I'm not so sure -- which is kind of an unsatisfying conclusion, I suppose. I'm still working on it.