Bonus Episode with Lee Chambers -Voice of the Boys: What UK Boys Say About Masculinity, Identity and Gender Equality

As we look towards the future of gender equity, we often focus our attention on women and girls. But boys and girls don’t grow up in separate worlds — they learn together, socialise together, challenge one another, and eventually work and lead together. So if we want a future that is safer and more equitable for women, we must also understand the boys who will become the men of tomorrow.

In this special bonus episode, I’m joined by Lee Chambers, organisational psychologist, founder of Male Allies UK, and one of the UK’s most respected voices on allyship, masculinity and inclusive cultures. Lee recently led a major new study — The Voice of the Boys Report — capturing the lived experiences of 1,000 boys aged 11 to 16 across the UK.

Together, we explore some of the most surprising, hopeful and confronting findings from the research:

• why boys say they care deeply about others — even though it’s rarely reflected in media narratives
• how online influence is shaping identity formation, masculinity and belonging
• the disappearing physical spaces boys say they need to feel emotionally safe
• the tension boys feel between supporting feminism yet believing boys “have it harder now”
• why parents’ fears don’t always match boys’ lived reality
• and how the attitudes and wellbeing of boys today will directly shape the future of gender equality

This is a reflective, nuanced conversation about identity, adolescence, media narratives, parenting and social change. Whether you are a parent, a leader or someone passionate about creating inclusive cultures, this episode offers insight into the next generation — and the shared responsibility we all hold in shaping their world.

To download and read the Voice of the Boys Report go to: https://www.maleallies.co.uk/voice-of-the-boys-report/

To connect with Lee:

Male Allies UK - https://www.maleallies.co.uk/contact/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/leechambers-1/

🔗 Connect with Mary: marygregory.com

📣 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marygregory

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mary_gregory/

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✨ Produced by Mary Gregory Leadership Coaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hello and welcome to GLeads Collective Podcast. I'm Mary Gregory and I'm so glad you're here. This podcast is a space for honest conversations about what it really means to lead as a woman today and how we can all show up with more courage, care and clarity. You'll hear from inspiring women, powerful allies, and bold truth tellers who are changing the game, not by playing tougher, but by leading smarter, softer and stronger. Hello and welcome to this special pre-Christmas bonus episode of the She Leads Collective podcast. So what if the future of gender equality depends just as much on the boys we're raising as the girls that we're championing? It's a provocative question. But as we move towards Christmas, a season that's centered on family reflection and the next generation, it feels like exactly the right moment to ask it. Most of my listeners on this podcast are women. We care deeply about creating workplaces, families, and communities where girls and women can thrive. But boys and girls don't grow up in a separate world. They learn together, play together, challenge each other, and eventually work together and lead together. So if we want a future that is genuinely safer, more equitable, and more collaborative for women and girls, we also need to understand what today's boys are experiencing, how they're forming their identity, what's influencing them, what they're afraid of, and what gives them hope. So that brings me to my guest today. Lee Chambers is one of the most respected voices on allyship, masculinity, and inclusive cultures. He's the founder of Male Allies UK, an organizational psychologist, an award-winning inclusion practitioner, and a regular commentator in the national media, from Sky News to The Guardian. Lee has spent the last decade working in the gender equality space, bringing a rare combination of research, insight, and practical advocacy. Most recently, he led a major news study, The Voice of the Boys Report, capturing the lived experiences of a thousand boys aged 11 to 16 across the UK. It's a powerful piece of work that's sometimes hopeful, sometimes confronting, but always illuminating. And it sheds light on how boys today are navigating masculinity, mental health, online influence, feminism, and their place in a very complex and fast-changing world. In our conversation, we explore findings that surprised even Lee, the compassion boys say they feel but rarely show, their hunger for emotional safety and physical spaces to just be, their confusion around masculinity, their mixed views on feminism, and the pressures that parents often feel, sometimes driven more by fear than by fact. And crucially, we talk about what all of this means for the future of gender equity and the role women and men can play together in shaping a healthier cultural narrative for the next generation. So let's dive in. Here's my conversation with the brilliant Lee Chambers exploring what boys are really telling us and why their voices matter for all of us. Lee, thank you so much for joining me today to discuss the Voice of the Boys report. So Lee, to be fair, most of my listeners on this podcast are women. So why is boys' well-being and identity formation so essential to building a future that is safer and more equitable for women and girls?

SPEAKER_00: 3:38

So I think there's probably three points, Marion. It's great to be with you today. Thank you. I think firstly, many people I know are parents of sons and uh in some ways concerned, or at least want their boys to be able to have the opportunity to thrive, uh, be able to achieve their potential and navigate the world in a way that's respectful and positive. Also, many of the listeners will also be uh parents of girls as well, and boys and girls don't live in a separate world, they live in a very together world. Uh, and I think that how they interact is actually vital for us going forward too. Uh, I think the second thing for many listeners is many of the boys in our research who are between 11 and 16 are actually not that far off the workplace themselves. They are our next generation of people working across lots of different sectors and industries, and the fact is they will be working with us in workplaces before we know it, suddenly four generations in the workplace, and all the challenges of navigating different perspectives, different lived experiences, and all the vitality and naivety of youth in all its power and glory, uh, is not far away. And I think the third thing is because if I think about our work, you know, I spent 10 years in the gender equality space looking at many different angles from health to women's experiences, now more fruiting to men's experiences and how they engage in this work. And the truth is it's quite a bold statement, but a big part of the future of gender equality is how boys are navigating this planet, uh, their attitudes, their perspectives, how they step into allyship are potentially influenced by voices that are instructing them that they are victims and they should be unhappy with other groups in society taking their opportunities away. And we've got everything in between that. And obviously, speaking to a thousand boys from up and down the country, it's been interesting to see how they navigate the world, their you know, thoughts about technology, the education system, their future, and conversations around gender and inclusion. And obviously, this episode today we can expand upon that. But everyone should, everyone should, and everyone does have an entry point to actually thinking uh about the boys in this country, what they're going through, the hopes and dreams, the concerns and worries, and how we're helping shape them to be the men of the future.

SPEAKER_01: 5:56

That really buys into my whole view that to shift the the whole system, we've all got to come together to do it. So we need to really understand each other. Doesn't matter what our gender is, we have to do it together. So let's hear a bit more then about what what boys are actually telling us through the through the research that you've done. You say you've spoken to a thousand boys. What were the biggest misconceptions that your research shattered?

SPEAKER_00: 6:23

So it's really interesting because there's lots of headline statistics that have come out from it. Um, I think some of the surprising things was just how much boys actually cared about other people. I think we don't necessarily see that in societal discourse, and we probably have it in our own some of our own sons and young people that we know. Uh, but how much they actually care about other people was quite significant. I think sometimes we hear lots of stuff around boys being lost and boys struggling and bad influences. We don't actually hear the boys who really care, and also the growing cohort of boys who think the world's quite unfair, so they're actually doing something about it. The boys leading climate change groups, the boys who are creating diversity forums at school to make sure things are fairer, the boys who are out there tackling you know class and socioeconomic challenges. There's lots of boys who are actually quite active in not only kind of activist stuff, but bringing other young people together to make change. They don't get amplified in the same way that some of the negative aspects do. Um, I think some of the other things that we saw, there was a growth of talk around AI companions and girlfriends in quite a significant way over the course of the research. Uh, that's a trend that's really coming, but not something that was on our radar towards the start. Um, and one of the interesting things as well was so many boys were craving more physical spaces, both in terms of physical spaces to play, to hang out in, but also physical spaces to be listened to, just to be emotionally safe and heard. Uh, and boys are saying there's simply less of those spaces than there historically was, which I think in itself gives us something to think about.

SPEAKER_01: 8:08

Is that a symptom of sp of us being online more?

SPEAKER_00: 8:10

Yeah, I think these young these young boys said in many ways that it was uh a result of the pandemic had made it harder. Um, even with like education going online and so many things, was pushing them towards that. Uh they kind of reminisced about youth clubs they used to go to, how scouts is oversubscribed, you know, how they built flats on the field they used to play on, and even hanging about on the street, they feel judged. Uh, both in terms of judged because this isn't productive use of our time, boys are starting to feel that they have to be productive all the time because adults are expecting them to do productive things like revise, not to hang about. Uh, and also in terms of being judged as well, people crossing the road like we're antisocial or we're gonna we're gonna start causing trouble, and all we're doing is just you know, just hanging and just just being just being together with each other.

SPEAKER_01: 9:05

Uh, and then it feels like um we're a nuisance and yeah, so it is they they feel lots of different things, but fascinating the difference in terms of it's okay to have leisure time, you don't have to be productive all the time and doing stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 9:20

But but I think that's it's been role-modelled by adults, this always-on culture, and now then seeing that and thinking that's how you get ahead, and they're being told by these online voices that you need to hustle hard and always be always be grinding, because that's how you're going to be successful, and it's all that noise is making them think can I can I even like just put my feet up and do nothing? I mean, teenagers are supposed to be quite lazy. That's part of being a teenager.

SPEAKER_01: 9:45

That's part of your job, isn't it, as a teenager? Very much so. Okay, I so there were some really intriguing things that I that I picked up on when I was reading through your report. I mean, first of all, your report shows that boys are far more discerning online than the headlines tend to suggest, because what I noticed 62% don't trust sexist influencers, which the way the press reports it, you'd think every teenage boy was being impacted by sexist influencers. But why is this the narrative we hear? Why do we not hear about the more positive elements?

SPEAKER_00: 10:17

It's a very, very uh controversial topic, Mary. Let's just say that our media runs as an attention economy. And firstly, as humans, we have a negativity bias, like we love negativity, and it's more likely to stick, pull attention, get people reading. Uh, because the media is an attention economy, like a$10 trillion economy, they have to put out things that will garner attention, which is usually sadly the polarised end of the negative stuff that makes people think, oh my, like a next generation is terrible. Um, because then people fall into a bit of panic, and then there's a like a more some moral outrage around how we could fail our fail our youngsters, and that just gets lots of clicks and lots of eyeballs. Whereas the talking about young people leading on change, people don't read that. So part of it is just sadly this media narrative that is fuelled by attention and energy. And the truth is, stories from the polls of extremes either way are the only things that get attention, the nuanced things in the middle, the the things that showcase change happening, just not seen as very interesting by media right there.

SPEAKER_01: 11:36

Success stories don't sell. And I you know, you're mentioning about the physical spaces that came through there that boys need for a physical safe space. In fact, I'm I picked up that 81% um feel they don't have enough physical spaces that feel safe for them. How is this actually shaping their well-being and their relationships?

SPEAKER_00: 11:57

Yeah, so that lack of physical space is it's kind of there's multiple impacts of that. Firstly, they are desiring that connection with others, uh, and not just over the headset in the bedroom, but actually being in spaces, being able to run around, connect, even like be in a place where they've got that proximity. Um, and having that makes them just feel a bit more disconnected. They are they do feel like they're being pushed into the online world, which then it then makes them feel that they have to find connection there, uh, rather than in the real world. It's it's making them feel like they can't spend time together making mistakes and just being silly like boys do, like everything has to be really serious, and they're being fed lots of serious information in on the internet, it's full of adult conversations. Whereas when you're you know you're together in cadets, you've got an aim, you're not having to worry about all this stuff going on, all these wars and all this famine and all these financial problems. You don't have to worry about being an adult, you can just be a boy. And what they're saying is we're losing those spaces and access to those role models, that scout leader, that butcher, you know, my dad's friend who used to come round, like these men who they see in their ri own lives who they've shaken their hand, and they'd like to be like them when they're older, they're just got less access to them, so there's lots of different things, it impacts, and I do feel you know, these young people are saying we miss those spaces, we really value those spaces, and actually, you know, it's more nourishing and more kind of it feels better than the online stuff, but then we feel like we've not got much choice.

SPEAKER_01: 13:42

Yes, yes, okay, and when it comes to masculinity and identity, you mentioned that in your report that 79% of boys are unclear about what masculinity is. How does that vacuum affect not only boys themselves but also the girls and women that they grow up with, work with, partner, and parent with?

SPEAKER_00: 14:04

Yeah, a massive question, Mary. And to be honest, I think if it went out to wider society, there's a really big confusion in what masculinity is amongst men as well. Um, from my perspective, when we dug a bit deeper with the boys about this, what they were saying is quite often there are lots and lots of messages about what it is, they're constantly being told what it is, but there's not much agreement on what it should be. Uh, and they can't almost feel like many of them not, it can't be like how it was, because that's not compatible with the world. And they they're very vocal and say, look, how my granddad probably did things is just what probably wasn't respectful of my grandma, you know, the world was different back then. I don't want to live that life, but it's not really clear what masculinity is gonna be in the future, and they don't sit around talking about masculinity, but they do think like what are men gonna be in their own little head and what man are they gonna be? And that's the thing at the minute where the feels like they're being told online you need to be like this, you need to be like that. You know, on one side they're being told you need to be dominant and control and get lots of money and get lots of power, on the other side they're being told you need to be caring, you need to be compassionate, you need to think about looking after other people, and they're like they're just looking and thinking there's no clear definition on what it is, so they almost feel like they're in between what it used to be that isn't gonna work, and what it could be, but no one's really agreed on what it looks like.

SPEAKER_01: 15:31

So there's no clear vision for them to f to move towards, and I suppose the lack of role models, which is why male allyship is so important.

SPEAKER_00: 15:39

Yeah, and I do feel as well that we've still got a world where even young girls still think that, generally speaking, quite a lot of them think that men should still be providers. There's still a bit of that kind of gender stereotype that sits with girls as well, that then puts pressure on boys to think I need to provide. But then the world today, like we've tipped over the balance two years ago, and now the most common partnership in the UK in terms of working arrangements is two people working full-time. It's not even one working full-time and one working part-time anymore. It's the most common arrangement is two full-time jobs, which means that everyone's providing. I'm really passionate about helping these boys to see that you don't need to not be a provider and try and remove that from your life. You need to just move from being the provider, as in the only, to actually a provider and realise you can provide economically for your family, but you can also provide from a caregiving perspective, from a friendship perspective, from a partnership perspective, as a colleague. You know, there's lots that men can provide when we explore all those parts of ourselves.

SPEAKER_01: 16:46

Yes, lovely. And it's like we provide rather than just I provide, as well as what I'm hearing. It also came through about the tension between boys' attitudes towards feminism, and actually what I what I found encouraging was that the majority of boys actually think feminism is a good thing and that life is better because of it. Yet many also feel that boys have it harder. So there's a real tension between that. Feminism's good, it's helping society, it's helping us overall, and yet we as boys feel like we've got it harder than we used to have it. How do we work with that tension, do you think?

SPEAKER_00: 17:24

Yeah, I think it is being honest, Mary, that obviously a lot of boys don't actually have that much context on the waves of feminism and why everything exists. It's not a typical lesson in your history class or in your curriculum. So if they've got any foundation from that, it's usually from their own parents or people in their own lives. Um, I mean, when you dig deeper into this with the boys, they kind of know that women's rights are important because they hear that stuff in the world around them. You know, they are hearing about like abortion and reproductive rights, they're hearing about you know menstruation and they're hearing about menopause, and they're hearing about these topics that you know, me as a 15-year-old boy, I was not thinking about those things. Uh, so it's a very different world now. Uh, and they kind of they generally know that women's rights are are important, but also some of them think that women's rights are just kind of they are. Women have already got those rights because in their world they've not lived in a time when women didn't. So when you talk to them about well, yeah, it's only been 50 years since women could have their own bank card and have their own mortgage without having to bring the dad or the husband along to sign it, and if they didn't bring them, then they couldn't have anything or weren't allowed to do these things. And these little boys are like, Oh, but my like, but my like my grandma's like 65, so when she was 15, she couldn't do it. And I was like, No. And it's like little things like that, most boys don't know. Uh, but what they feel in their own world is sadly, they see things such as International Women's Day and Women's History Month, they see Pride, they see Black History Month, but they don't really see much around International Day of the Boy or International Men's Day. So, unless they've got bigger perspectives, sometimes they actually think, Oh, well, there's not much celebration of boys, why would that be? And then they're like, Oh, I quite often hear people talking about toxic masculinity online, but why why is it always toxic? Why is it not like good? Um, and then they're like, also, in my world, I'm seeing girls being able to do all these things. I look at the posters, and there's girls doing skateboarding, girls doing engineering, girls doing all these things, there's all these covers for girls, but actually it doesn't feel like there's as much for boys, so maybe it's not is that actually fair? Um these they they that's in their world from their eyes. It's not true in many in many ways, but they've not got the lived experience or the context to deeply understand that. So I think some of the boys thought it was harder because they keep being told how they should be all the time, but it doesn't always make sense. They think They think it's easier to understand how to be a girl, but then they've never had to really navigate that as a girl. Um, they've had you know, they're talking about like always seeing these fitness models online and then looking at their own bodies and thinking, I look like a piece of spaghetti, and that's terrible. I wish I and you know, all these bits of angst that you have as an adolescent, I think also play into that because it is quite challenging to navigate adolescence as a as a teenage boy or a teenage girl. I think a big part of it is it all feels quite hard at that point in your life where you're trying to find where do you fit, who am I gonna be, you know, how do I understand myself? My p my parents annoy me, I listen more to my peers, all this school stuff's complicated, I feel a lot of pressure. So I I think a part of it is actually just feeling that their own experience is hard. But then you speak to any 15-year-old from the past 50 years, we've all been there to a point.

SPEAKER_01: 20:57

Fascinating. I mean, this is really, really important stuff that you're talking about. And you know, as a parent myself, my my my daughter is uh, you know, she's an adult now, but it's really making me rethink about gosh, you know, how did I parent and what conversations was I having? So coming back to uh parents then, because part of your research was looking at parents, but when we think about parents, especially mothers, parents are very concerned about their their sons' futures. Um, what do you think is driving the disconnect between what parents fear and what boys themselves are expressing?

SPEAKER_00: 21:33

Yeah, so I mean the parents' work is interesting. I think parents are concerned that their sons might not get the opportunities that they were expecting them to get uh when they get into the workplace and are worried about AI, you know, impacting their job potential, are worried about them financially not being able to move out uh and build their own families and own lives. They're worried about quite often lots of the talk about these online influences, but that's actually driven by the media more than what boys are actually going through themselves. And yeah, most parents have very, very different content bubbles than their children have. So you hear all these things that are telling you boys are lost, boys are struggling, and that can make you feel really like, oh god, like I don't even know where to start. And then we've had things such as adolescence, like the programme that came out this year, that stoked a lot of fear for parents about is my child safe online, what might happen. Uh, and I think it's created conversations, but it's also created a lot of sensationalism that has made parents more concerned. Uh, so I do feel that it's easy to be concerned, but actually the biggest thing to do is to just open up like communication with your children and just find out what's going on for them. Uh, that's the way to then think about how you can work together to understand their world because their worlds are different. The things that they do, you know, they're quite often not using AI to cheat on the homework, they're using it for all sorts of wild and wonderful ideas, like we like we did just with very early technology. Uh, because obviously, for me being I was 15, 25 years ago, but I was teaching my parents how to use the early internet back then and doing all sorts of things that my parents had no idea. And every adolescent group has been through that journey of and they've got their own, you've got your own acronyms and your own slang and your own things that adults have no idea what it means. It's just part of being that teenager, but I think it's so important for you know parents to it's it's okay to end, uh, but it's just make sure you bridge that gap to your own children and realise that actually some of the concern is again stalked by the media in a helpful way, and actually your children probably sometimes just want to come to you and have a chat uh without being told what told what to do, but actually just want you to listen.

SPEAKER_01: 23:51

What I'm hearing there as well is just be open to your children, to come from real love and wanting to understand them and not be not have your fear fed. Because I think the thing is all the dialogue that's going on outside and all the noise that's out there in the world just it it it evokes our anxiety about our children and how we should be with them, but actually just connecting with them and staying connected with them and what makes them tick is what's what's so important. So, Lee, if we want a generation where boys and girls really support each other rather than po it becomes polarized, which is what can happen. What is the one environmental or cultural shift you think would make the biggest difference?

SPEAKER_00: 24:32

Well, personally, I feel that the next generation needs to see adults role modelling, connecting across that difference, having conversations where there's some debate and maybe some healthy disagreement, uh, but just seeing their own parents not being stuck in a place of judgment and not being curious. Because if we want them to be curious and explore the world and be more critical over the things they consume and actually think about the very varying different perspectives that make the fact that there's not one source of truth, I think we as adults need to role model that with our own children and role model that between other adults. Have that have those healthy conversations, get out of our phones, be present, um, and more than ever, just create a space where you can co-design things with your children and actually go to them and ask them, How do you use this? You know, my parents did for dial up internet and sending emails. I think we can do the same for our children and ask them, how do you use all this technology and what's going on for you instead of presuming what they're following or what they're watching, actually get in there and see yourself, get a bit closer to their content world, uh, and that'll help you probably see some of the trends, see who's influencing them, and then you've got a bit more perspective that can help you have those conversations with your child.

SPEAKER_01: 25:56

And what I hear is the importance of curiosity and staying curious, suspending judgment, but also the whole co-creation that parents and children, men, women can all co-create that between them. Thank you so much, Lee. That's been a fantastic conversation and a lovely review of the report. How do people access the report so they can read it for themselves?

SPEAKER_00: 26:18

So the best place to go to access the report would be maleallies.co.uk slash voiceof the boys. Uh, and Mary will put that in the show notes. So it's easy to access and download, and uh you can read all 48 pages. Uh fascinating, hopeful, optimism-driving, a little bit frightening in places, but actually full of recommendations and things you've probably not considered. So really powerful read.

SPEAKER_01: 26:45

It is a powerful read, and there are lots of solutions at the end that are suggested. And I might add, you say 48 pages, the way it's set out and laid out, it's quite visual. So it's not like it's a heavy read, but yeah, it's a it's a really insightful read. Thank you so so much, Lee. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the G Leads Collective podcast. If this episode resonated with you, follow the show or share it with a friend and leave a quick review below. Or leave us a comment. Change happens through conversation, so let's keep this one going. Listen out for the next episode and join me as we keep lifting the lid on the stories that matter. Take care and keep leading with heart.