【Corruption (1983)】

If you're a boy on Corruption (1983)the internet secretly looking for guidance about how to be a man, you might end up in a popular, misogynist Reddit forum or on a 4chan board about "incels." Or maybe you're watching video lectures by Jordan Peterson, a psychologist who saw boys and men hungry for guidance and developed a cult following by talking to them about male dominance and self-help.

SEE ALSO: You haven't heard of this masculinity movement, but it's exactly what men need right now

While it might be easy to find sexist or conservative advice for becoming the man you always hoped you'd be, it can be difficult to find counsel from those who champion a more expansive, inclusive vision of masculinity.

There are no viral YouTube stars preaching about healthy masculinity, even if there's a movement that's been reaching boys and men in real life with that message for decades. And threads, boards, and forums about throwing off the shackles of harmful male stereotypes just don't grab our attention like the ones dedicated to misogyny.

Nevertheless, there are decent places to start if you're a man who's tired of pretending to be someone he isn't or looks at what society expects of him and feels angry.

The below videos are your gateway to understanding that it's possible to define your own masculinity, and that its foundation need not rest on dominating others, including the women you know and love. Once you've watched one or more of these videos, don't stop there. Find men (and women) who will join and support your journey to create a definition of masculinity that's authentic, safer, and more fulfilling for everyone.

1) Tony Porter

Porter, activist, author, and CEO of the violence prevention organization A Call to Men, gave a TEDWomen talk in 2010 about trying to break free from the "man box." The personal story he tells includes a disturbing anecdote from childhood about knowing that a male friend had sexually assaulted a mentally ill 16-year-old girl -- and being invited by that friend to do the same. Porter describes feeling conflicted between the pressure to stay in the "man box" and knowing that what happened to the girl was horribly wrong. Porter's talk was an invitation to boys and men to join him in the fight for gender equality and healthy masculinity, and you can learn more about that work via Facebook and Twitter.

2) Justin Baldoni

Baldoni, an actor on the series Jane the Virgin, has been engaged in a very public reckoning of what it means to be a man today. His web series "Man Enough" gathers several men around a table to talk openly about topics like #MeToo, emotional vulnerability, and body image. In a TEDWomen talk he delivered last December, Baldoni breaks down the harm of traditional masculine stereotypes.

"I've been pretending to be a man that I'm not my entire life," says Baldoni. "I've been pretending to be strong when I felt weak, confident when I felt insecure and tough when really I was hurting. I think for the most part I've just been kind of putting on a show, but I'm tired of performing."

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You can find Baldoni on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

3) Michael Kimmel

Kimmel, a speaker, author, and distinguished professor of sociology and gender studies at Stony Brook University, has spent his career writing about masculinity. Kimmel has authored several books on the subject, including the new Healing from Hate: How Young Men Get Into―and Out of―Violent Extremism. In his 2015 TEDWomen talk, Kimmel explains why gender equality, particularly at home, makes meaningful, positive differences in men's lives.

"So, what we found is something really important, that gender equality is in the interest of countries, of companies, and of men, and their children and their partners, that gender equality is not a zero-sum game," he says. "It's not a win-lose. It is a win-win for everyone."

You can find Kimmel on Twitter.

4) Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In 2012, the Nigerian author and novelist gave a TEDx talk entitled "We Should All Be Feminists." While Adichie reflects on her own journey of understanding feminism, she also addresses how the constraints of traditional masculinity can hurt boys.

"We do a great disservice to boys on how we raise them; we stifle the humanity of boys," she says. "We define masculinity in a very narrow way, masculinity becomes this hard, small cage, and we put boys inside the cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear. We teach boys to be afraid of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian speak, 'hard man!'"

Adichie's talk was adapted into a book of the same name. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

5) Jackson Katz

Katz, founder of Mentors in Violence Prevention, is known for his Tough Guisedocumentary series about masculinity and the media. In the below clip from the series, which is not currently available on streaming platforms, Katz skillfully breaks down how media representations of men and violence leave men little room to develop or embrace their complex inner emotional lives. "In many ways, they're putting it on as a survival mechanism," says Katz. "They have to do it to survive whatever peer culture they happen to be in. But putting on the tough guise comes with a cost, and that is a cost in terms of damage to their psyches and their ability to be decent human beings."

You can find Katz on Twitter and Facebook. You can also watch his TEDx talk on violence against women here.

6) The Mask You Live In

This feature-lengthy documentary explores what happens when boys and men try to express their authentic selves but feel pressure to conform to a narrow definition of masculinity. The film enlists experts from various fields, including science, sports, and education, to help viewers learn how to deal with the challenges that boys and men face today.

You can watch the movie on Netflix, and rent or buy it on YouTube, iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon.

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