Contesting hegemony: Re-imagining masculinities for early childhood education

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation is to deepen understanding of the clandestine professional lives of men who care for young children, exploring the pressure to hide parts of themselves experienced by many. The author utilizes an autoethnographic approach to examine social and psychological experiences he has navigated during his work as a classroom teacher, counselor, and researcher in urban Head Start centers. He finds that there are structural, attitudinal, social, and conceptual barriers to men being engaged in young children’s lives as educators and caregivers. In response, the author considers how dominant theories of caregiving in the field of early childhood education are informed by and inadvertently perpetuate traditional hegemonic notions of masculinity. He concludes by articulating the importance of critical praxis and disrupting hegemony, re-imagining opportunities for transformation and resilience.

Introduction

Work with young children has provided the most compelling, challenging, and rewarding experiences of my professional life. Yet this appreciation and my willingness to express it have not come without trepidation. As a man, particularly as one who identifies as gay, I am painfully aware of the stigma often placed on male early childhood educators. In navigating this treacherous terrain, I must confess that I have sometimes hidden or felt pressured to hide parts of myself in order to do this work that I love—a sentiment shared frequently with me by male colleagues in the field. This examination is an attempt to illuminate these clandestine parts of my own and other male early childhood educators’ professional lives.

While taking care of one’s own children has become more socially acceptable among middle-class families, men still spend less time doing it than women. In the USA, men spend 7 hours a week on childcare compared to the 14 hours spent, on average, by women (Parker and Wang, 2013). For both financial and social reasons, very few men are employed in childcare centers and elementary schools as compared to women doing the same work. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2013, only 5.2% of childcare workers and 2.2% of preschool and kindergarten teachers were male (MenTeach, 2007). In the UK, men account for only 2–3% of early years workers (Rolfe, 2006). Globally, only in Canada, Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines do men constitute more than 10% of pre-primary teachers (OECD, 2014), which is still a minority.

While dismal compensation rates are certainly one important reason for the low representation of men in the field, research suggests that the social stigmatization of men in childcare is at least as important (Brownhill, 2016; Mallozzi and Campbell Galman, 2016). Underscoring the anxiety experienced by men in the world of early childhood education is the fear of being accused of child abuse (Wernersson, 2016; Wright, 2007). As Sargent (2002: 22) found in interviews with 35 male caregivers, “men are under more scrutiny and suspicion than their women peers” for the same practices, such as demonstrating care. Men in childcare may seek promotion or leave the work altogether to avoid suspicion. Often, men who do care for children are stereotyped as gay (Wright, 2007, 2011, 2016; Wright et al., 2012), which is especially problematic given both the effects of homophobia and prevalent, vicious social myths that gay men are more likely to abuse and molest children (Wernersson, 2016). Likewise, given that some ethnic, cultural, and religious groups maintain more conservative and rigid constructions of masculinity (Jaeger and Jacques, 2017), deviation from social norms may provoke even more serious psychological and social risk in these communities. For men teaching in more highly stressed or marginalized settings, the impact of these psychological and social dynamics may be more treacherous still (Wright, 2007). In sum, the social costs of caring for children, even if men want to, are often too great for them to do so.

The purpose of this investigation is to deepen our understanding of how hegemonic masculinity influences men’s work with young children. Given the intimate and intrapsychic nature of this intent, I have chosen an autoethnographic approach guided by the following research questions: (1) How is masculinity constructed in the early childhood education environments in which I work? And (2) How do I experience my own masculinity in these spaces? In this article, drawing on hegemonic notions of masculinity (Connell, 2005; Kimmel, 1994), I explore how the barriers discussed above have affected my ability to work with young children in order to interrogate, more broadly, what it means to be a man in the field of early childhood education. I conclude that there are structural, attitudinal, social, and conceptual barriers to men being engaged in young children’s lives as educators and caregivers.

In the following discussion, I present several key moments that illustrate both how hegemonic forces have influenced my teaching practice and identity and the psychological and relational tolls of these influences. In response, I consider how dominant theories of caregiving in the field are informed by and inadvertently perpetuate traditional, hegemonic notions of masculinity—leading to challenges for men in caring for children. In addition, I articulate the importance of critical praxis for men when engaging with young children, highlighting the necessity of disrupting hegemony and re-imagining opportunities for transformation and resilience.

Conceptual context: the construction of hegemonic masculinity

The concept of hegemonic masculinity describes how men traditionally maintain dominant social positions over those perceived as more “feminine” (Connell, 1995), regardless of gender. Kimmel (1994: 228) explicates: “The hegemonic definition of manhood is a man in power, a man with power, and a man of power. We equate manhood with being strong, successful, capable, reliable, in control.” Masculinity in this construction is defined relationally, at the top of a gender hierarchy in terms of what it is not—feminine, weak, gay, demonstrative, warm, kind, cerebral, and so on (Connell, 2005; Kimmel, 1994). Notions of masculinity change over time, and they contain internal contradictions that potentially generate change (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). Furthermore, there are multiple masculinities, some of them non-hegemonic, such as those marked by “racial/ethnic marginalization” or “stigmatized sexuality” (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005: 848). In the face of such diversity, “hegemony may be accomplished by the incorporation of such masculinities into a functioning gender order rather than by active oppression in the form of degradation or violence” (848).

That said, masculinities are socially embodied, and hegemonic masculinity is often maintained by violence, symbolic or actual. Boys’ and men’s bodies are regularly examined for evidence of masculinity—their size, muscular development, sense of style, unconscious behaviors, forms of speech, gestural acts, and other features are considered always, implicitly or explicitly, as evidence of masculinity or the lack thereof (Gill et al., 2005). Consequently, men who deviate from social norms are often sanctioned through taunts that imply gayness—“faggot,” “queer,” and “sissy”—followed by ostracism, other forms of exclusion, and brutality. Indeed, the worst thing for a man to be in many societies is gay (Kimmel, 1994; Wright, 2007; Wright et al., 2012). Such socialization begins at an early age when parents and friends give instructions to “act like a man,” “man up,” and not “be a sissy”; the socialization is reinforced regularly, as when boys are asked to join in games like Smear the Queer on elementary school playgrounds.

Briefly put, hegemonic masculinity tends to prioritize authority over caretaking, independence over interdependence, and respect over more relational approaches to communication (Benenson, 1996)—approaches which conflict with the child-centered notions of responsiveness and caregiving that predominate in the field of early childhood education (Gonzalez-Mena and Eyer, 2017). In this article, I draw on the theory of hegemonic masculinity (Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005) to frame the way I, and other men, have been socialized into and impacted by traditionally masculine gender stereotypes, and I explore how these strands of hegemonic masculinity influence men’s work with young children.

Mode of inquiry

Autoethnography

Autoethnography describes studies in which the researcher is a member of the group being studied (Ellis and Bochner, 2000); as the name implies, the process includes the self (auto) in an investigation (graphy) of cultural processes (ethno) (Liggins et al., 2013). Autoethnography is an approach to research that “acknowledges and accommodates subjectivity, emotionality, and the researcher’s influence on research, rather than hiding from these matters or assuming they don’t exist” (Ellis et al., 2011: 274). Autoethnographers document their experiences, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs in response to a sociocultural phenomenon as data and provide a first-person analytic account of relationships and events (Hays and Singh, 2011). Typically, the researcher studies her or his own biography or culture, a culture in which she or he has been adopted or accepted, or the culture of another as it relates to the self of the researcher (O’Byrne, 2007). As an example, I am a white, gay male professor working at an elite research university. I come from a rural working-class background. In this study, I trace my experiences working primarily with non-white children in early childhood settings located in economically challenged urban communities.

Autoethnography requires the researcher to reflect on their own self-understandings and experiences as a way to develop perspectives on similar experiences in the wider world (Butz and Besio, 2009). Here, I reflect on my experiences navigating constructions of masculinity in early learning and higher education environments to inform ways we might support men in entering work with young children. To this end, Ellis and Bochner (2006) suggest that autoethnographic researchers utilize a back-and-forth gaze that focuses outwardly on social and cultural aspects of personal experience and inwardly to expose a vulnerable self. They argue that, through this process, distinctions between the personal and cultural become blurred, providing insight into both the social and psychological processes underlying the topic of interest.

As a critique of objectivist approaches to research and in an attempt to reach a wide audience, autoethnographic research also resists traditional forms of representation (Ellis et al., 2011; Jones, 2005). Written in the first person, autoethnographic work is meant to be evocative and aesthetic (Liggins et al., 2013). Consistent with Ellis et al.’s (2011) “showing” and “telling” texts, I use reflective passages, vignettes, and direct discussion throughout this article.

Research context and data

For the past 16 years, I have worked as an urban early childhood educator, a licensed professional counselor, and a university-based researcher focused on early childhood education. In this examination, I share key moments that occurred during my work in early childhood settings and my reflections on them. The data is drawn from two separate institutional review board-approved ethnographic studies in which I was involved as a participant researcher—one occurring during my graduate studies (2002–2006) while working as a classroom teacher and therapist trainee, and the other at my current institution where I volunteered in a Head Start program as a child mental health consultant and teacher mentor (2014–2017). Adults provided consent for participation and the child participants provided assent following receipt of parental consent. For each study, I maintained detailed field notes and a daily journal, interviewed teachers, other staff, and parents, and conducted a number of direct observations and home visits.

In constructing this autoethnographic reflection, I reviewed each of these data sources for emergent themes, distilling sections relevant to the way I navigated expectations related to my gender, and used memos throughout the process of data analysis to clarify themes and construct an integrated narrative. The emergent data analysis was guided by (1) how expectations of masculinity were communicated and constructed in these early childhood educational environments, and (2) how I experienced these expectations and roles.

Challenging moments in the early childhood classroom

My relationship to the questions guiding this analysis—and the embodied experience of being a male early childhood educator—is driven by real relationships with real children—that is, the relationships were complex and embedded in multiple contexts, and I do not present idealized versions of the experiences or my participation in them. Indeed, I would characterize the experiences below as mutually transformative, and hence generative of more authentic relationships. Each experience forced me to confront challenges specific to the intersections of my identities as a gay man working in early childhood education; in different ways, all three represent embodied experiences of navigating the space between being a “good man” and being a “good teacher.” Although each lasted only seconds or minutes, all three deeply influenced the way I think about my work, myself, and the world.

Don’t touch me

In early 2017, I was working as a classroom clinical mental health consultant for a Head Start program that served children and families experiencing homelessness. The program was located in a small city in the Midwest and staffed primarily by teachers from the local community, most of whom earned below the poverty line and were raising young children themselves. The school itself mirrored many of the stressors and strengths the students experienced at home. As the only male working in the center, I spent approximately eight hours per week in the three- and four-year-old classroom, conducting therapy sessions with several of the children.

I was playing with several children in the classroom’s dramatic play corner. As is typical of this age group, the children were carefully re-enacting familiar experiences from their daily lives. Two little girls were intently focused on changing the diapers of their baby dolls, while the expressions on their faces communicated the empowerment of their role reversal. Attempting to extend their play, I asked: “How will you say goodnight to your babies?” Four-year-old LaKisha replied: “I’m going to rub my baby’s back and give him a big kiss.” I responded: “You’re a good mommy. I bet your baby feels very special.” Suddenly, without warning, three-year-old Lawrence raced into the play area from across the room. Throwing his arms around my neck, he proclaimed: “I have a good mommy!”—about me. He then spontaneously gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

Surprised by the spontaneity and sweetness of Lawrence’s outburst, I glanced around the room to see if anyone else had noticed it—and exchanged an amused glance with the classroom teacher. Although smiling externally, inside I felt unsettled and a little anxious. Though I have often experienced similar interactions with young children, each time I have wondered what those children were thinking about our relationship, what they were assuming or expressing on a deeper level. What was my interaction communicating about what it meant to be a “man” or a “woman,” and/or how were they perceiving my masculinity and/or femininity? I have to admit that I feared how such affection might be perceived by the other adults in the classroom.

A “sensitive” child, I was teased by other children and sometimes by adults for being “a sissy.” Over the challenging years of adolescence, I worked hard to develop a traditionally masculine mask. In the moment of Lawrence’s outburst, though I of course accepted it with gratitude, I was also reminded of the vulnerabilities of transgressing hegemonic masculinity in my youth; in the moment of that hug, I could not help but wonder if Lawrence, the other children nearby, and even the other teachers thought of me as a sissy, too. Lawrence’s remark punctured the veil of masculinity; it was as though being called “mommy” meant I had failed in my attempts to be viewed as masculine. The last time I was thought too “sensitive,” I was teased, judged, and ostracized—not a pattern I wanted to experience again.

Beyond the gendered nature of Lawrence’s verbal comment, I also felt threatened by the physicality of this interaction, the intimacy of it. Long before, I had learned not to touch or be touched. It was in the fourth grade that I made the “mistake” of kissing my best friend, Jonathan, on the cheek. Though I thought it was just another version of freeze tag, I joined in with a group of girls who were aiming to give Jonathan “their germs” one Sunday night after church. When I caught Jonathan first and gave him a quick and innocent peck, I expected to be cheered. I knew as soon as I saw his face, though, that I had done something wrong. Dramatically disgusted, he wiped his cheek, asking: “Are you some kind of faggot?” By the time I made it to school on Monday morning, everyone in the school already knew that I had kissed Jonathan at church.

Later that afternoon on the playground, I was invited to play a new game—Smear the Queer. Unfamiliar with the term or the game, I welcomed the invitation, mistakenly assuming that all had been forgotten and that I was being welcomed back into the fold. This notion was reinforced when I was tossed the ball first and told to run. As soon as I began to sprint away, one of my classmates yelled “Smear the queer!” In short order, I was tackled, simultaneously, by all of the boys on the playground. The sound of their yelling, the coordination of the attack, and the looks of anger on their faces haunted me much longer than it took for the physical bruises to heal. Moreover, Jonathan and I were never friends again.

After that moment in fourth grade, I worked hard to maintain physical distance from other boys—never interacting with them in a way that might be construed as affectionate. When my mother heard what had happened at school that day, she encouraged me to develop a “force field”—to keep their words out and my sweetness in. She explained that that is what happens to boys who are sissies. Time and again I was told to “Keep your guard up,” “Don’t let them get to you,” and “Act right,” which was code for act traditionally masculine. I was vigilant in upholding these rules of the game, as I had become intimately acquainted with the consequences of even a single, momentary violation.

It is against this backdrop that Lawrence’s kiss felt threatening, even though in this inversion of my childhood, Lawrence, a little boy, had given me, a grown man, the innocent peck. In my field notes from that day, I wrote:

I have spent so many years controlling my body and emotions, that it felt uncomfortable having someone, even a child, invade my physical space. As I have grown older and stronger, I am more accustomed to people respecting my physical stature, sometimes even being intimidated by it. I am far less equipped to accept gentleness and kindness.

Indeed, it was well into my training as a play therapist and early childhood educator before I felt comfortable with children’s hugs or requests to sit on my lap. For the first few years of my teaching life—years—I greeted and praised children with high fives, handshakes, and pats on the back. My colleagues interpreted it as admirable that I treated children with such respect, with the same interactions that mark adult behavior, but I knew that I was also just scared to hug them.

Women’s work

Over a decade ago, I was teaching in a Head Start program located in a housing development in a large city in the north-eastern USA. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that it was nearly two years after I had begun teaching toddlers there that I began changing the diapers of children in my classroom—and even then it was with great trepidation. My reluctance was rooted in the fear that others would perceive me as “questionable”—the word once used by the center’s director to refer to an unsuccessful job candidate whom she perceived as “effeminate and perhaps having pedophile tendencies.”

My avoidance was enabled by our classroom aide, Nagellen, who insisted on changing all the diapers herself. I only began to do so when Goddess, 18 months old, a survivor of sexual abuse, and one of the children with whom I worked as a counselor, began asking me specifically to diaper her. Though I originally declined Goddess’s request, Rebecca, a teacher in the classroom, suggested I change her diaper in order to honor Goddess’s willingness to be vulnerable with me and to continue building trust with her—a huge step forward in healing the emotional wounds of her abuse.

While attempting to change Goddess’s diaper, my first ever, I was clumsily removing her baby blue jeans when Rosita, an assistant teacher from the room next door, raced into the changing area, scolding me: “Don’t you touch that child.” Incredulously, I asked why not, and she responded: “This is woman’s work. It’s not a man’s place to change a baby’s diaper.” Intervening, Rebecca stepped beside me and coached me through the diaper-changing process.

In the field notes from that day, I wrote that I experienced Rosita’s reaction more as an assault on my good intentions than an attempt to honor my masculine privilege. In subsequent conversations with her about the episode, Rosita explained that she had meant the opposite. She had not meant to question me specifically. She just had straightjacketed views on who should do what. As she put it: “Changing babies is not men’s work. Babies need women, and men need to be men.” And yet, perhaps as a result of my own “sensitivity,” I could not help but perceive Rosita to be asking: “Why would a man ever want to do this? What must be wrong with him?”

I later found out that Juan, the male teacher in Rosita’s classroom and the only other male in the building, refused to change diapers or assist children in the bathroom. As a 20-year veteran frequently described by others as “the alpha male” at the center, Juan’s behavior had become the standard-bearer for men in the building. Originally a janitor at the center, Juan worked his way to lead teacher of the largest classroom. He describes himself as a “proud Puerto Rican,” lives with his wife in the local neighborhood, and is perceived by those around him as a “good strong man”—a compliment paid him by the grandmother of one of his students. When I asked him about his decision not to change diapers, he said:

As the lead, my job is to control the group. It is for the aides to help the individuals. And, to be honest, I don’t really feel comfortable doing it … I don’t think anyone really wants me to either. Maybe its machismo. I don’t know.

Perhaps for Rosita, changing Goddess’s diaper called my integrity into question as a man and challenged the patriarchal system accepted at the center.

Stay where you can be seen

Justin, aged four, attended Southside Learning, a community-based Head Start program serving an ethnically diverse student population in a small Midwestern city. Also in 2017, I was working with Justin as a mental health counselor. A frequent collaborator with this multi-site agency, I was asked by central office staff to work with Justin because they were having trouble finding an early childhood trauma specialist to support his needs and provide coaching for school-based staff on how to support him.

Although I was unfamiliar with the staff members at the program site, I assumed that my assistance would be accepted with goodwill. As a faculty member at the local university and an active member of the city’s early childhood community, I have worked diligently to establish a positive reputation. I am a frequent presenter at educational gatherings and make myself available to consult for local programs at no cost. As a result, I am usually greeted with enthusiasm by program staff. This was not my experience at Southside.

After three weeks of interacting with Justin inside his classroom in order to build trust, it was time for us to begin working together in the therapy playroom. Though I had been assured that the room was reserved for us at a specific time, Justin and I were stopped on our way to the playroom by the center’s director, Joan, who seemed nervous as she explained that the room was no longer available. Attempting to communicate flexibility, I responded: “I understand; these things happen. Would it be possible to reserve it for next week?” Joan replied that the playroom would not be available for several months, explaining that it was being converted to storeroom.

When I asked about alternative space in which to conduct Justin’s session, she said that I would need to meet with him in a corner of the teachers’ break room. I thanked Joan for her efforts to secure a suitable alternative and expressed my sympathies for the space limitations of many early learning programs—having conducted therapy sessions in hallways, stairwells, and closets—but I made sure to express my concerns for Justin’s privacy and the importance of a safe and confidential space for the therapeutic process to play out. I asked: “Is there any way that we might find a private place to work together?”

To this question, Joan replied: “We have a policy that children cannot be left alone in the company of only one adult. You know, things happen. And even if they don’t, we don’t want people to talk. That is just as bad.” By chance, at almost the same moment, the female occupational therapist walked out of the therapy room, hand in hand with one of the three-year-olds. Joan’s face reddened, and I felt a knot in my stomach harden as I suddenly understood that I was being singled out for suspicion. Joan attempted to smooth over the situation by elaborating: “Well, the policy is for volunteer staff, not paid staff.”

Taken off guard, it took me a moment to compose my thoughts. Remembering that split-second awareness, I know that I felt embarrassed, confused, hurt, and angry—though I did my best to maintain a professional demeanor and a calm facade. After what was probably a very short time for Joan but a much longer one for me, I responded: “I understand these things are a concern, but I have completed a background check, was invited by your supervisor, and have been a licensed therapist for almost 10 years. I am a professor at the university.” Without missing a beat, Joan said:

We think very highly of you Dr Wright and we are grateful to have you here. But some of our staff and families have very traditional views and are not familiar with male teachers. They are uncomfortable with children playing alone with them. I think it would be best if we kept everything out in the open.

About to respond defensively, I reminded myself of Justin’s presence, now by my side, and looked down at his face to see how he might be understanding our conversation. Justin appeared confused, and I asked: “How are you feeling, Justin?” Justin looked at Joan and replied: “I wanted to go to the playroom really bad. I like Dr Wright.” Joan knelt and said to Justin: “I know you do, sweetheart. Sometimes things do not go as we hope.” At first appreciating that she had been empathetic, I was dismayed when she continued: “You can still play with Dr Wright, but just where everyone can see you. Children have to be careful when adults ask them to play alone.”

Though incensed, I did not want to escalate the situation in front of Justin. Knowing that I fully intended to continue the conversation later, I replied clearly: “I am not a stranger. Justin and I have been friends in his classroom for weeks now, and his mother knows that we are playing together today.” Joan smiled matter-of-factly and said: “Well, let’s get you boys to the staffroom.”

Though I was feeling upset—experiencing a combination of anger, sadness, embarrassment, and shame—I did my best to focus on Justin’s interests and feelings. I asked Justin if he would like to play something together, but he stared at the toy bin in front of him and said that he wanted to play alone with the Lego blocks. I said: “That’s OK. Sometimes it’s nice to play alone.”

For the rest of our time together, Justin seemed distant and guarded, saying very little to me. When I tried to move closer, asking him to tell me about what he was building, Justin silently moved away. It was clear his mind was churning, but he shared none of his inner ruminations with me. Though I had my suspicions about his sudden change of affect, I wanted to hold open the possibility that he may have simply felt nervous in a new space, or that he may have been struggling with the change of expectations. After about 20 minutes, he asked: “Can I go back now?” I helped Justin put away the blocks and I escorted Justin back to his classroom. He walked five feet in front of me.

When I attempted to speak with Joan afterward, she had left the building for another appointment. After several days of phone tag, we agreed via email to speak the following week when I returned to see Justin for his next session. Unfortunately, she was with a parent and unable to speak at our agreed-upon time. Rather than keep Justin waiting and to maintain the consistency necessary for trust to develop, I decided to make my way to his classroom—committed to speaking with Joan later. When I entered the room, Justin said aloud from across the room: “Not him again.” This was in contrast to previous weeks when he bounded across the room to say: “Yay! Is today my day to play with you?”

My fears that the previous week might have injured our therapeutic relationship were confirmed. Attempting to name what we both were probably feeling, I walked to Justin, knelt beside him, and said: “I know last week was kind of weird and disappointing. But I am still excited to see you and I am here to help with your feelings.” Justin turned his back and murmured: “I don’t want to.” I said: “Maybe we should just stay in your classroom today. I’ll be here if you’d like to play together. I’ll watch from this table, and you can invite me over if you’d like me to join.” He never did.

For the next five weeks, the same situation replayed itself during each visit. Though I tried repeatedly to speak with Joan, she was never in the building during my appointed time. I eventually sent an email expressing my understanding of the situation. Choosing to focus on the professional rather than the personal, I articulated my primary concerns about the impact of the situation on my work with Justin and the way people’s fears were being reinforced rather than overcome. After a few days, Joan replied with a brief message about the necessity for all volunteers to comply with student safety policies.

Eventually, I reached out to Joan’s supervisor, the colleague who had invited me. I had delayed because I did not want to blow things out of proportion. I shared with my colleague what had happened, my concerns, and how it made me feel. She was apologetic, and said that she would speak with Joan. A few days later, I received an email from the supervisor:

Dr Wright: Thank you so much for agreeing to help J. I’ve spoken with his teacher and the center staff, and it seems like he has not responded well to treatment. We’re going to take a different approach with him, so you won’t have to worry about returning to Southside. We so appreciate your stepping in—and look forward to continuing to partner in other ways and, especially, at our other sites.

Even now, as I recount that experience, I feel pained by the exchange and angered that how others read my identity interfered with my ability to provide much needed therapy to a young child.

Discussion

Socially sanctioned and internalized hegemony

Hegemonic notions of masculinity are evident across these examples. As illustrated above, the desire to work with small children sometimes places men at risk of social isolation, the negative consequences of homophobia, and negative social status. Both explicitly and implicitly, I, and the other participants, navigated cultural norms about what it means to be a “good man.” As theorized by Kimmel (1994) and Connell (2005), any action that was considered suspect—feminine, weak, gay, demonstrative, warm, or kind—was met with judgment and the threat of ostracism. In the cases of Justin and Goddess, I experienced isolation. Though I attempted to defy the expected norms, my attempts were not altogether successful and came with some anguish and self-doubt. Similarly, actions that blatantly contravened behaviors marked as “masculine,” like changing diapers and providing physical solace to a child, were feminized as “women’s work” (Kim, 2013) or met with suspicions of inappropriate touching. Given the elision of femininity and being gay, I consider these discursive moves to have been homophobic, socially sanctioned ways to enforce hegemonic masculinity (Blaise, 2012; Robinson, 2005).

Interestingly, in analyzing this data with the benefit of hindsight, I am struck by the extent to which I had internalized many of the hegemonic scripts that my colleagues were inadvertently following. In my experiences with Lawrence, for example, though well acquainted with the suffocating consequences of such rigid gender roles, my gut reaction was to impose those roles on myself, Lawrence, and the other students and teachers. Initially embarrassed at this self-realization, further reflection has helped me to understand how deep and fundamental are our experiences of gendered expectations. To state it simply, I was afraid of being judged and rejected—fearful of what might happen if someone challenged my actions, both physically and professionally. Fearing for my safety, reputation, and livelihood, it was simply too scary and painful to reject hegemonic expectations completely. As Kimmel (1994) explained, it is just this type of fear that perpetuates gender rigidity and instills internalized hegemony. Though Gilligan (1996) suggests that it is the conflict between social expectations and individual wishes that sets the structure for emotional distress, these findings underscore that I suffered even when I wished to conform to hegemonic social expectations—indeed, in part because I wanted to. It turns out that the fear, self-policing, and restraint required to perform hegemonic expectations are painful in and of themselves.

The embodied experience of hegemony

When the above experiences are framed as hegemonic notions rather than lived experience, it is easy to forget how physically and emotionally fraught they are, how deeply embodied, and how easily perpetuated. In each of the above episodes, hegemonic expectations were evaluated through embodied actions—how I looked at, interacted with, and touched the children with whom I was working. Actions that did not conform to normative gender expectations were viewed as suspect. My body itself was suspect and I was, in turn, belittled by the transactions about it. I was not only reminded of my childhood powerlessness; I was also reduced to childlike powerlessness, ironically in a sense, just for being a man. “[L]et’s get you boys to the staffroom,” the director of Justin’s childcare center said to punctuate the ending of that tense interaction over whether Justin could be allowed in a private space with me as his therapist. It made us equals, both “boys,” and it simultaneously infantilized me, encapsulating the moral message that men—not just strange men, but men, men who have earned your trust, who have worked to be close to you—cannot be trusted; how sad it is that this is the message Justin was then getting about himself in a possible future as a man.

I policed my own body to conform with hegemonic expectations as well—and, in the case of Lawrence’s expression of love, imposed them on children with whom I worked. Sadly, these embodied actions only served to curtail my connections with children and co-workers. They reinforced negative fears about myself and others that I had internalized previously. I realize now that this conformity reinforced and required me to relive painful lessons from my past. Perhaps this is one of the most insidious consequences of hegemony—what I did to fit in to dominant notions of masculinity were the very things that kept me from feeling as close to others as I might have otherwise.

Being a “good man” versus being a “good teacher”

As evidenced above, the very act of working with young children has the potential to place men in both a social and psychological conundrum, straddling the contradictions between what is required to be a “good man” and the expectations of being a “good teacher” (Brownhill, 2016; Carrington and Skelton, 2003; Sargent, 2004). Young children require care, love, affection, proximity, and nurturance (Albrecht and Miller, 2001; Bowlby, 1988; Gonzalez-Mena and Eyer, 2017; Sullivan, 1953). Yet, these needs are in conflict with the ways men are frequently socialized to behave and feel about others in their world (Kim, 2013). For men who are supposed to be strong, invulnerable, distant, and unemotional (Kimmel, 1994), being asked to care for a child requires a role reversal that may be confusing or painful to negotiate.

Basic notions of what constitutes a good early childhood educator, in sum, conflict with hegemonic masculinity (Blaise, 2012). In work seminal to the field of early childhood education, Gonzalez-Mena and Eyer (2017) suggest eleven principles which constitute an ethic of caregiving towards young children: involving children in things that concern them; investing in quality time; learning each child’s unique ways of communicating and teaching them one’s own; investing in time and energy to build a total person; respecting young children as worthy people; being honest about one’s feelings; modeling the behavior one wants to teach; recognizing problems as learning opportunities; letting children try to solve their own problems; building security by teaching trust; and being concerned about the quality of development in each stage. However, the notions of collaborating with children to find ways which are best for them, learning each child’s unique way of communicating, being honest about one’s feelings, modeling behaviors one wants to teach, and building security by teaching trust seem to be particularly contradictory to the typical expectations of hegemonic masculinity. This has led to the “feminization” of teaching in early childhood education, which has also served to devalue caregiving and socially and politically disadvantage women (Kim, 2013).

Generally, men are oriented towards hierarchy rather than heterarchy, and dominance rather than collaboration (Kimmel, 1994). Being honest about one’s feelings, even admitting to having feelings, is considered an infraction on most normative appropriations of masculinity (Kimmel, 1994). Likewise, given the fear of violence and mistrust endemic to hegemonic masculinity, some men may be challenged to teach children to place trust in the world, instead of encouraging them to “stand on their own,” thus reinforcing hegemonic expectations in the next generation.

Reappropriating masculinity: towards a new praxis of caring

As illustrated by this investigation, men are likely to experience social and psychological risk when engaging the world of young children (Sumsion, 2000). There are simply too many barriers that span the gamut of expectations and behaviors wrapped up in hegemonic masculinity for them not to. To care for young children as men is to either redefine the application of hegemonic masculinity to oneself and one’s history, to reframe it for all those one comes into contact with, constantly and consistently, or very simply to compromise the care of young children, to communicate to them that men are monolithic and suspect, not up to the task of changing diapers or healing trauma. For most of us, the choice is much easier to make intellectually than to live out in practice, given the orientation of our cells, the bodies they swim in, and the pools of prejudice that keep our institutions afloat.

But I like to imagine what ruptures in the hegemonies of masculinity might look like as a way to pave the way for change nonetheless. I like to imagine, for example, the replay of Lawrence’s hug, where I am neither ashamed nor embarrassed but genuinely flattered and moved to be called his “mommy.” In that revised inner emotional landscape, I am neither emasculated by affection nor degrading motherhood. Instead, I am expanding what it means to be a man, expanding what mommy-ness can include, including myself and all “sissy” histories in that terrain. Imagining Lawrence as someone able to show affection without comeuppance transforms my own smaller self, where I could have kissed Jonathan in fourth grade without losing friends, dropping status, and inviting bodily harm. In this re-imagining, I layer Lawrence’s love onto my own freewheeling tag game, and allow both of us to become whatever kind of men we like.

When Rosita said “It’s not a man’s place to change a baby’s diaper,” I like to imagine that instead of racing over to protect Goddess from me, she might have whispered to the child: “There are many men who will be gentle with and respect your body.” Assuming goodwill and trust, I wish that I could have felt more comfortable asking Rosita for help, benefiting from her wisdom and experience to be more responsive to Goddess. In this re-imagining, my hands are certain and more confident, reassuring Goddess that she was being held by me more confidently and securely in this moment of vulnerability and reaching for a relationship. In worrying less about how others perceived me and more about Goddess’s needs, I could have been more present and connected, perhaps modeling for her the importance and possibilities of greater connection between our physical and emotional selves—profoundly healing for a child whose body and emotions had already been violated by another man, and for me, a man whose body was sometimes beaten for acting on his emotions.

When Joan said “You can still play with Dr Wright, but just where everyone can see you. Children have to be careful when adults ask them to play alone,” I like to imagine that her response had been: “Dr Wright is not a stranger. He’s here to help you. It’s OK to share your feelings and it is OK to trust him.” In such a scenario, Justin might have reached out for the support that he needed desperately, and I would have felt trusted and more valued by the school and community. In this context, Justin and I would have felt less alone and experienced the possibilities for resilience through relationships. Ultimately, both of us would have experienced more belonging in the world of early childhood education, potentially transforming our self-understandings and expectations of others.

In the end, my purpose in this article has been to contest the enactment of hegemonic masculinities in the field of early childhood education by challenging the narrowness of its boundaries (Ryan and Grieshaber, 2005; Silin, 1995). In order to disrupt the hegemonic expectations placed on both men and boys, the field of early childhood education must change to allow men to be men in it (Kim, 2013), in all their masculinities (Blaise, 2012). As the field wrestles through its internalized hegemony (Cahill and Adams, 1997; Silin, 1995) and re-imagines the possibilities (Blaise, 2012; Blaise and Taylor, 2012) of and for men and boys, the institutions supporting early childhood education, those men involved, the boys being cared for, and those affected by them will also grow. As we transform the field—and those touched by it—we deepen the possibilities for societal transformation, creating a world less encumbered by the demands of hegemony.