Ontario Boys: Masculinity and the Idea of Boyhood in Postwar Ontario, 1945–1960 by Christopher J. Greig

Abstract

Ontario Boys: Masculinity and the Idea of Boyhood in Postwar Ontario, 1945-1960, by Christopher J. Greig. Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014. 220 pp. $39.99 Cdn (paper). Recently, more scholarly attention has been paid to the significance of as an important category of historical analysis. Once treated as a sub-sect of broader categorizations, is now the focus of a number of key works helping to broaden our understanding of childhood throughout Canadian history. Christopher J. Greig's recent book, Ontario Boys: Masculinity and the Idea of Boyhood in Postivar Ontario. 1945-1960, contributes to this burgeoning historiography on Canadian children. Greig examines the immediate postwar years, which he dubs a age because of its focus on children as Canada's best hope for the future (ix). Due to the upheavals caused by the Great Depression and World War II, these events prompted a re-examination of the importance of proper physical and psychological development during boyhood (defined as ages six to fourteen). As postwar Ontario struggled with the sense that traditional, heteronormative ideas about masculinity were at risk, a host of childhood experts emerged, claiming that institutions charged with shaping boys' development, mainly home, church, and school, had failed to stem the so-called crisis in masculinity. Fatherlessness during World War II, and the influence of overbearing mothers, was producing a generation of sissies (19). Fears about the future were projected onto male children, resulting in, as Greig shows, a host of new definitions of boyhood, constructed in an effort to reinstate masculine ideals and patriarchal norms. The book is organized into five thematic chapters, the first examining stable homes as key sites for the raising of proper boys. Class played a significant role here, with well-adjusted allegedly coming from comfortable, middle-class families, while poorer, working-class neighbourhoods produced troublesome boys. Greig acknowledges the changing role of the postwar father and pressures to develop a unique father-son relationship that was kind yet authoritative. Though central to boyhood, overprotective female figures like mothers and teachers were criticized for hindering masculine development and contributing to the social feminization of boys (10). Greig neglects to mention here, though, how much other female figures, like sisters and classmates, also shaped boyhood. Chapter two discusses how male-bonding was intrinsic to narratives of survival in the postwar era. Male collectives, like sports teams and clubs, were thought to act as training grounds for masculine behaviours. In popular discourse, sport, and hockey especially, were deemed natural vocations for because they taught character-building traits like strength and competitiveness. If, through boyhood fraternizing, ideal masculine characteristics could be achieved, would go on to become the leaders of the corporate world. …