Positive Masculinity

“Feminism has done a huge amount of good in the world. We now need its corollary – a positive vision of masculinity that is compatible with gender equality”
Richard Reeves 2022

Imagine a Man is a research and evidence-based development initiative designed to help boys and young men to develop a healthy and positive version of masculinity that aligns to gender equality.

The success of Imagine a Man has been largely down to the balance of research and evidence, informing the development of the resources and training.

The Evidence Base

For a long time, we have known that harmful masculinity has been a driver of violence. Men are far more likely to be both the victims and perpetrators of violent acts, including knife crimes.

It was these statistics that made us want to further understand the pressures facing boys and young men to behave in ways that could potentially lead both to violence and repeat victimisation.

Please Contact:

We have a limited number of hard copies of the 'Imagine a Man - Building Positive Masculnity with Young People' Toolkit as well as the 'Growing Up & Masculnities: A Space to Be! Childrens' Activities Booklet.

Get in touch with Vicki Ridley vridley@youthlink.scot for more information

Reframing the narrative

Our ongoing work is about flipping the script from ‘toxic’ masculinity to ‘positive’ masculinity . We want boys to have a narrative that they can get behind.

A lot of people, especially young men do not like the proximity of the word ‘toxic’ next to the word masculinity with its negative connotations. Yet it has come to be a term of reference that is used to describe a plethora of ‘bad’ behaviour from men. It is also a very recognisable term. However, it’s not a good definition – we don’t want to promote non-toxic masculinity and such limited and limiting terms of reference, we want to talk about positive masculinity and what it means to flourish. 

Imagine A Man

Discover more about our work on positive masculinity.

What is it like to be a boy or young man in Scotland?

In Year 1, our research with young people developed and deepened our understanding of how young people feel about masculinity and growing up.

Find out more

What is positive masculinity?

In Year 2 of #IAM, we worked with 3 x youth groups to explore positive masculinity.

Find out more

Practitioner Resources

The practitioner toolkit and training resources can be found here.

Find out more

Building Positive Masculinity with Young People

Online E-Learning

The free, fully accredited 3-hour Imagine a Man E-Learning course can be found here. Contributes to mandatory CPD requirements for teachers and CLD workers.