Even cowboys sing the blues: Difficulties experienced by men trying to adopt nontraditional sex roles and how clinicians can be helpful to them

Abstract

Difficulties clinicians experience in appropriately treating men attempting to adopt nontraditional sex roles are discussed and suggestions made to ameliorate these difficulties. While the impact of the women's movement has made therapists more sensitive to societal influences on the behavior of women, comparable attention has not been paid to societal influences on the sex-role stereotypical behavior or to the price paid by men who violate stereotypical sex-role expectations. Further, clinicians who have been socialized into dominant societal values may have difficulty tolerating men who are trying to abandon higher status “traditional masculine” values for nontraditional ones; such clinicians are unlikely to provide decent treatment for males espousing new sex roles.