The Activist Gap

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Winnipeg’s Canada Life Centre holds 15,000 people. Compared to mega stadiums that hold 50, 60, or even 70,000 people, it’s tiny — but it doesn’t feel that way when you’re standing in the centre of it, about to have your name read out in front of a packed arena. It feels like a million people are watching.

I found myself in this situation at Winnipeg’s WE Day 2018, when, at age 17, I won the first-ever WE Generation Award for service to my community. WE Charity Canada is a a movement led by young people who want to make a difference and are willing to work to achieve their goals. WE Day was a celebration of these efforts, and I was going to be honoured for the work I’d done. 

I had spent the better part of high school involved in activism. I was in every club or group that had anything to do with social justice or improving the world. From handing out flyers about pollution to staying up all night making cookies for a Winnipeg Humane Society bake sale, I wanted to do everything I could to help. I spent my lunch hours at the social justice club or sustainable living club and I volunteered outside of school too. 

These tasks led to a fair amount of recognition from teachers and school board members. While I had gotten used to people telling me I was a remarkable young man, or even a symbol of hope in young people, I had a hard time accepting that kind of praise. I’d always been more comfortable with a coach telling me I was a good hockey player than a teacher telling me I was a kind kid. I’ve never understood why. 

When I was waiting to go on stage to accept the WE Generation Award, a volunteer named Gwen, who couldn’t have been much older than I was, stood by me, telling me where to stand and when to go on stage. She asked me if I was excited and if my parents were there. I told her yes, and that I expected to hear them screaming from the nosebleeds. They have always been the biggest champions of my activism work. 

Before Gwen could say more, her radio started to static, and she told me it was time. The master of ceremonies walked out on stage and began to read the bio that was written by whichever teacher nominated me. 

I still don’t know who wrote it, but it made me sound like someone who contributed more to society than Jonas Salk or Alexander Graham Bell. I had a hard time taking it seriously. It seemed too grand a description of what I did. But in between the extravagance of those words, there was some truth. I had worked extremely hard to be standing where I was.

Gwen counted down from five while I ascended the stairs. I heard the MC yell my name as I stepped on stage. The crowd was roaring. The lights were glaring. I was handed a beautiful award with my name on it.

As I looked out at the crowd of 15,000 people, all of whom earned their place there through volunteering and community work, one question came to my mind: where are all the dudes? 

From where I stood, I could see probably 500 faces through the blaring stage lights. Finding even 20 male-presenting people would have been a challenge. It made sense to me though. The work I was doing up to this point was almost exclusively with women. The social justice clubs I’d participated in were spearheaded by a female teacher who volunteered to help us. The student body making up these groups was mostly female too. I had gotten used to being the only male in the room, but I never did get used to the feeling that something about that wasn’t right.

I’ve worked with unbelievable women, and I am better for having worked alongside and under their guidance. But why weren’t my male friends and peers participating? Why weren’t they interested? 

Occasionally, I’d drag one of my guy friends to the first meeting of the semester or something where we needed volunteers, but it never stuck. I rarely saw them past the first meeting. 

The day after the WE Day event, I returned to school amidst glowing responses from my female friends. They hugged me and told me how proud they were. They had set up their phones to watch the event so they could see me accept my award. They praised the work I was doing and recognized me for being willing to do it. 

For most of my male friends, I got a metaphorical tip of the cap or some soft compliments that essentially amounted to “that’s cute.” Since then, I’ve been curious as to why men don’t seem to be interested in activism. 

I decided to talk to men in my life who are involved with activism to see if I could find any answers there. Was there something different or special about these outlier men who were involved in activism that would help me understand what prevented more men from getting involved?

The first person I talked to was Phil Selby, my dad. 

My dad runs a small non-profit organization dedicated to protecting whales and dolphins called the Canadian Cetacean Alliance (CCA). While always socially conscious, he didn’t start getting directly involved in activism until his early 50s. One night on a whim, he put on a documentary, The Cove, and what he learned watching it changed his life. He has made the Canadian Cetacean Alliance his life’s work ever since, putting his time, effort, and passion into it. Every Sunday I see him sitting in his recliner, researching and writing about how best to take care of these creatures and ensure their survival. He looks forward to being able to dedicate himself fully to the cause post-retirement.

My dad grew up in St. Lazare, Manitoba, a small French-speaking town near the Saskatchewan border. He left St. Lazare when he was 16 and recalls feeling different from his peers when he was growing up. 

“When I was a little kid, I was very much an outlier in my hometown. I didn’t particularly care about other human beings, but the animals, I did. I was bothered by the fact that it seemed like every animal that wandered into town had to die,” he said.

He remembers when a deer, bear, wolf, or other animal would wander into the town and spur a competition between local men to see who could kill it first. He also said the kids next door would run over coyotes with their snowmobiles to see who could kill the most. 

“They’d be stacked up like barrels of hay,” he said, “I was the only one in town who seemed to have a problem with this.” 

He remembers that saying anything to the people in town or trying to make them see his perspective, would result in being ostracized, ignored, and humiliated. 

“I couldn’t help myself, but it was always the same thing. “Oh, there goes Selby again.” Nobody was gonna listen to that.”

His efforts to speak up negatively impacted him — other boys took his empathy as a sign of weakness. 

“I was tormented and teased a lot because I tended to cry easily when I was a kid, which was unusual for boys. And yeah, it wasn’t a good thing. And I felt that my life became a lot better in my teenage years when I toughened up and know if I felt sad about something, no one was going to see it, you know, at least not publicly.” 

My dad put into words what I had always believed. It’s not that boys don’t care — they’re just taught to pretend not to. 

My dad’s stories got me thinking about early childhood sensitivity in boys.

A 2002 article from The Counseling Psychologist analyzed the findings of multiple reviews of the literature around the relationship between biological sex and emotion. The conclusions mirror my and my dad’s experience: “Girls are socialized to be emotional, nonaggressive, nurturing, and obedient, whereas boys are socialized to be unemotional, aggressive, achievement oriented, and self-reliant.” This process continues as the children mature, shaping how and where emotions are expressed and constrained. 

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst found that women who expressed happiness at appropriate times were judged as more popular, whereas men who expressed anger at appropriate times were judged as more popular among their peers. This suggests that people who have difficulty portraying the emotions that align with traditional gender stereotypes may experience negative social outcomes or repercussions.

Reading this brought me back to one of the most interesting experiences of my teenage years. I was volunteering with an organization called The Pay It Forward Foundation, a non-profit that focuses on doing random acts of kindness. Nine classmates and I were at Cityplace giving out gift bags to strangers, no strings attached. While not necessarily fighting on behalf of something, it just felt like a small way to make the world better. We weren’t asking for anyone’s time or money, just the opportunity to give them a gift bag. 

My friend Scott and I were the only boys in the group and decided to pair up. Each group received a sack of gift bags to give out to people as they walked around. Our leader told us to meet back in the lobby in an hour. Scott and I had a hard time giving the bags away.

People swore at us, waved us away, or just tried to avoid our gaze as they walked past. It was a weird experience, but we attributed it to people being uncomfortable with strange people offering them something. In the end, we gave out about half a sack of bags.

But when the hour passed and we met up with the other volunteers, we were shocked to see that every other pair had gone through multiple sacks. None of them had experienced what Scott and I had. They were glowing as they talked about how great people were. I’ve thought about that day a lot since then. 

The female members of our group were seen as more trustworthy and less concerning to people than my male friend and I were. I don’t take it personally. I understand that for many people, two young men walking up to them in a mall might be disconcerting. 

The statistics corroborate that fear. Men commit the vast majority of violent crimes. But if I was volunteering for the first time, and didn’t have the perspective I did, would this experience have put me off? Could these perceptions be contributing to a lack of men volunteering? 

To gain the perspective of someone who’s directly involved in the social activism community right now, I spoke with Rusty Robot, a Winnipeg-based musician turned activist. 

Rusty has had a decorated 20-year career in the music industry as a singer and songwriter. He has been nominated for and won multiple Junos and Polaris Prizes and collaborated with artists like The Weakerthans and The Sheepdogs before putting his music career on hold.

For Rusty, the lack of response to the widespread wildfires that devastated much of Canada in the summer of 2023 convinced him to change careers and focus on activism.

“I didn’t want to fly across Canada to play a 45-minute set anymore. That just didn’t sound like a good use of time or jet fuel anymore. I realized that a lot of what I was doing was just feeding into this economy of destruction that we are doing to the planet.” 

More recently, Rusty has been an active participant and leader in the movement calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine. His choice to prioritize activism over his music career has led him to face backlash from family and friends, which has been a struggle for him. While he still grapples with the responses from those close to him, he’s come to terms with the fact that his passion for global issues is more important to him than losing friends.

“I’ve had to get used to that cold silence. I want them to say ‘good job’ but when they don’t, it’s like, what did I do wrong? Did I lose a friend? At a certain point, it’s like on the one hand there are a million kids dying and on the other hand, my friend doesn’t like me anymore. You’ve got to have that perspective in this space.” 

While most of his friends have been supportive of his work, some members of his family haven’t viewed things the same way. Growing up, he was exposed to vile language and beliefs and has continuously tried to overcome the challenges that come with that upbringing to be a kind person. Rusty has gone as far as estranging himself from his family over the past four years. He believes it’s given him the freedom to grow as a person and community leader without the fear of repercussions from loved ones. 

“I felt like the black sheep in my family my whole life because of my open-hearted compassion. Without throwing them under the bus too much, I just didn’t feel like that was a safe space to be a good activist at all. […] It’s complicated because I know it’s also baked into me because that’s my upbringing and I’m trying to just get it out of me as much as I can and just be a kind and compassionate person that gives away as much of my privilege as I can.” 

Both Rusty and my dad say they felt different from their peers during childhood and were seen as overly sensitive. Is this also true of those who make up the majority of the activism community? 

I connected with Mireille Lamontagne, a Canadian heritage specialist who focuses on teaching de-colonizing Indigenous and Canadian heritage, to hear her perspective on what brings people to activism. Mireille has played a pivotal role in the development of volunteer and educational programs for organizations like the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) and the Government of Canada. She told me about her start in activism and gave me her perspective on why men aren’t as involved as women. 

While male volunteers are still less common, she sees more of them today than she ever has. She also believes that upbringing and the way people grow up around activism affects who decides to be part of it, paying attention to the history and societal pressures behind volunteering. 

“Women outnumber men in volunteering nine to one and I think there’s a lot of historical context to that. Giving back was part of what was expected of every proper girl and woman in her life. It was also a way for women to get educated when they wouldn’t have been otherwise. I even remember my dad giving my mom heck for taking classes and telling her ‘maybe you should just get a job’ I think a lot of the roots start there. So much of what happens in our childhood kind of determines who we become as adults.”

Mireille’s activism has ruffled some feathers. In her life, she’s been asked why she chooses to be active in her community when she could live her life quietly instead. For her, it’s about being unable to rest when she knows there’s work to be done. 

“My dad used to say that people who understand what’s going on are the very people who can’t stand it in their brains and have to do something about it. I think it’s harder if you don’t have that perspective and not everyone has it.”

This rings true. Across the board, men care less about social issues but none more so than women’s issues. Research by Gallop strongly suggests that men care the least about women’s issues because they don’t believe it affects them personally. These issues also tend to scare men away from action the most. 

A worldwide study from Ipsos of people in 32 different countries found that 37 per cent of men are scared to speak about women’s issues because they’re afraid of what could happen to them and how others would react to them taking public stances. 

The statistical evidence supporting the claim that men, on average, care less about social issues, particularly women’s issues, underscores the need for a deeper examination of how societal expectations and gender norms have affected the way we treat each other. 

Reflecting on those insights, it becomes obvious that cultivating a more empathetic upbringing for our children and challenging traditional gender-based roles are crucial steps toward a world where social activism is viewed as a collective responsibility for all of us. 

I have hopes that we’re making those steps. I’m still a participant in local social justice events, even though I don’t do as much planning and commandeering anymore. I see more and more men in the news and on social media, on the streets fighting for what they believe in. Men are waking up to the world around them, and they are engaging in the duty they have to make it better. 

In the last few months, I’ve become actively involved in coaching youth sports. The teenage boys I work with every day are nothing like what I remember. From what I could see, young men have started taking the pressure off themselves to be known as strong. There have been continuous movements, even since I was a teenager, to normalize discussion around men’s mental health and end the stigma.

Men who these kids look up to, like professional athletes and musicians, are more open to talking about the struggles that they face and the difficulties in handling them mentally. I’ve watched how these boys carry themselves through wins and losses, and how much effort they put into being good teammates. They don’t hide that they care for one another. They don’t feel like they can’t cry, be hurt, or be sad. They allow themselves to be human and feel their emotions publicly. Much more than most of the men I looked up to growing up and even my peers today.

Knowing what I know now, I believe the WE Day crowd would have looked different if I walked onto that stage in 2024 instead of 2017. While there are still steps to take for men to feel like they have a place in social activism circles, I can see that kids and teenagers are more open to the emotional vulnerability that comes with it. 

Advocating for issues we care about isn’t just an act of social expression, but an important contribution to the collective well-being of society. Each instance of advocacy, bold or subtle, stands as a guiding light, illuminating the path for meaningful change.