That adolescent boys encounter difficulties and challenges as they negotiate their masculinity is not in doubt. All the boys in my study negotiated their masculinities differently in their transition from being adolescents to young men. My intention to go further, to explore how young men made this transition over a long period of time and growing up as they did in a South African township environment, characterised by poverty, overcrowding and with no guarantee of basic amenities, delivered inspiring stories as well as some distressing ones. Some of the boys in my study managed to deal with these challenges, but others lost focus along the way. Some struggled to see a way through or around the many difficulties they encountered. Some watched with anger, sadness and regret as these obstacles derailed their life plans.

Simon's story

As with the other boys, I first met and interviewed Simon when he was an adolescent. He was 15 years old and already an impressive, intelligent young man, highly articulate and confident in himself. He had a clear idea of what it meant to be a young male who was ‘different’. He was one of the most reflective boys in the research project and embraced what I considered to be alternative, non-violent and non-sexist voices of masculinity. These alternatives were characterised by tensions and contradictions, but on the whole Simon managed to resolve them healthily.

When he was in high school, he identified as an academic boy who was also Christian.

Simon was one of the boys who grew up without a father in his life, but he had three older brothers he looked up to and whom he saw as father figures. In one of our interviews he said: ‘When I grow I wish to be a good father, especially when I have a boy child so that I can treat him how I wanted to be treated as a little boy.’

According to Simon's mother, his father left when Simon was three weeks old. Simon spoke about his wish to meet his father but also accepted that this would probably never happen as his father had never bothered to visit him, despite knowing where he lived. He indicated that he ‘just [needed] to accept the situation that my father would never come and visit me.