A Discussion on Māori Masculinity

27 May

Masculinity for tāne Māori has a long and complex history, impacted by colonisation. Tutakangahau Williams and Hirini Kaa share some thoughts on where we might head as tāne Māori to renew our ideas around masculinity.

First up Tutakangahau shares his whakaaro around being tāne Māori:

Despite the dominant and negative narratives about who we are as Māori men, our tīpuna were loving and affectionate fathers, open in their emotions and vulnerabilities. Balance was paramount to living a healthy life. Over time, colonial models of masculinity have disrupted that balance and influenced how many of us express ourselves as Māori men today.

I have been brought up by both strong women and strong men whose life lessons—and even the unspoken moments—are etched deeply in my mind.

More than the skills or lessons themselves, it was the way they carried themselves that shaped me. The tikanga and values they lived by—te noho whakaiti, te manaaki i te tangata—remain embedded in my whakaaro.

As a father, husband, son and koro, I hold tightly to the lessons of the tāne who raised me or were prominent in my upbringing.

I believe it is important for a tāne Māori to feel useful—to their iwi, hapū and whānau.

What is my contribution?

Am I going to be a great ancestor?

Sport is one space where I’ve reflected deeply on masculinity and mana tāne. Rugby, boxing and MMA as physical sports are often associated with harmful, hypermasculine behaviour—and in many cases, that is true. I don’t dispute that.

But two things can be true at the same time.

Sport, particularly whutupōro, gave me pride in representing my iwi, I built lifelong relationships, and it provided an outlet for weekly stresses and pressures. It offered a space of controlled challenge—where competition was intense, but temporary. When the game ended, so did the conflict.

Now, as a father, I see my boys navigating their own challenges—ki te taha hinengaro me te taha wairua. Their world is different from mine, just as mine was different from my father’s.

Yet some things remain.

They yearn for physical expression, movement, and challenge. This is not something to suppress—it is something to guide.

I want them to be strong enough to protect their whānau if needed, but also gentle enough to show love to others and themselves. We as Māori men are many things- protectors, advocates, counsellors and providers and we navigate through these roles all the time.

There is balance between Tūmatauenga and Rongomātāne. When that balance is right—when it is tau—that is one way I believe that we can flourish as Māori men.

Hirini Kaa shares his thoughts:

I was brought up Ngāti Porou, where we had wāhine speaking on the pae and our marae are nearly all named after wāhine. My own marae Hinepare was named after one of three sisters who presided as Rangatira over the Northern end of the Waiapu valley. I grew up surrounded and shaped by women of great mana and tapu.

The Empire brought models of masculinity that were destructive. As new Victorian ideas of domesticity and the place of women were taking root in England, they were also being enforced here. Legal structures which disinherited our wāhine Māori also elevated tāne Māori in often unhelpful ways. Ideas of a woman’s place being in the home and the man being the provider became a model enforced through the colonial education system.

So tāne inherited unhelpful models that didn’t fit. And when combined with the violence we learned in schools and society it made for some terrible, oppressive, domestic environments which spiralled into intergenerational trauma. When it came to our pain, men learned to be angry and silent, and passed that down.

There were of course always exceptions. I experienced loving, gentle, men who shared their joy of life and of living. But I also had lots of angry, violent whanaunga that found solace in drugs and alcohol.

The renaissance has renewed our celebration of being as we were created – Ngāti Porou and miscellaneous others. We can find joy and pride in our mātauranga and its expression in tikanga. We don’t have to hide our culture or live in such fear.

However, we still have some work to do around being tāne. Our celebration of our toa spirit can be expressed as a form of hyper-masculinity that worries me at times. After all the truest expression of toa is in violence, and violence is a problem for us in all its forms.

We also look for a pure expression of masculinity in our haka, in our pūrākau, and in other forms. This can be essentialised, where there’s little room for diverse sexualities and those who don’t fit as well into these cultural notions of gender.

Let’s find joy in being as we were created, while ensuring that we bring forward the life-giving dimensions of that creation.

A Discussion on Māori Masculinity

He aha tēnei me te Reo Kairangi?

A Pōwhiri of Value