Q-and-A with 2025 Casey Fellow Dr. Brendan K. Hartman

Dr. Hartman is a Vancouver-based sociologist and consultant who provides educators and parents with tools to help boys and young men navigate gender-related challenges, emphasizing how this support is woven into the wellbeing of all. He holds a PhD in education from the University of Edinburgh and has taught at the University of the Fraser Valley. His visit comes through the Casey Fellows Program for Mental Health and Student Wellbeing, initiated in 2018 with the generosity of Matthew Casey ’83.

 

As in an email, the “Re:” stands for “regarding,” so it means anything regarding masculinity, and how that impacts emotions and relationships. My work consists of two broad categories, depending on the focus of the school, organization, or business. Some care more about mental health and social-emotional development. And then there are gender dynamics: the increasing gender divide in Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and navigating gender dynamics in the workplace, whether it’s sexism, misogyny, or people feeling like villains or victims around certain gender issues. Often the two categories are connected. 

Headlines focus on the extremes. We’re so desperate to brand “healthy masculinity” or “toxic masculinity,” whereas the vast majority of boys and men exist somewhere in the middle, where it’s messy, complicated and nuanced. 

I have no problem calling certain behaviours toxic, but I don’t use the term “toxic masculinity,” because I don’t think it reflects what’s actually going on. I see three messages commonly associated with masculinity that are harmful, and they represent what I call “restrictive masculinity.” It’s when one feels the need to be emotionally suppressant, the need to be hyper-independent, and the need to be dominant over others. 

The first disconnects you from yourself. Hyper-independence disconnects you from community, and being dominant hurts other people — this hierarchy of men being better than women, or gay people being less than straight people.

The goal is to have honest conversations about what they’re going through, but also to counteract those three harmful messages and what we can practically do. Of those three messages, the most difficult to get buy-in is for dominance, or “power over.” Can we reframe that as “power for” or “power with” others? That’s what I’ll be working on. 

 

I want to dive into what it’s like to get connected and listen to our bodies and our emotions, and what’s it like to show up for our brothers as well as the girls, women, and LGBTQ community in our lives in a way that is empowering and healing. 

 

 

I want adults to look in the mirror. We can tell boys to be emotionally vulnerable and how important it is to have good relationships that know how to repair, and to be able to apologize and be held accountable. But if the adults in their lives aren’t modelling those things, the chances of them learning that are way less. For parents and for myself, I like doing the U-turn and asking, “What’s our relationship like with emotions? What’s our relationship like with boys, men, masculinity, and with healing and change?” Those are the questions.