Back in 1983, I had just become a mother for the first time. I remember a specific incident during my short maternity leave when I brought my baby to work to introduce him to my friends and coworkers.
Unfortunately, a “friend” made a shocking comment that has stayed with me all these years. She callously remarked, ‘So, poor you. You’re going to have to raise one of the enemy.’
I was appalled by her words and her serious tone. I immediately expressed my anger at her ignorance. How could she label my precious child as an adversary? How could young boys grow up to be good men if their own mothers viewed them in such a negative light?
Yes, we’ve had thousands of years of men subjugating women so there may be some who insist on payback for the old adversary.
Although I’m a committed feminist, I’ve never seen it like that. Even before the 80s when, while no one spoke of toxic masculinity, talk of a sex war was common as women fought for better opportunities. I guess with my first son and then a second, I refused to see it in terms of a war. I wanted to ensure that boys and girls were treated equally and given equal opportunities.
All this came back to me this week when I read a report from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) think tank called Lost Boys. It highlights how a generation of young men is facing far worse outcomes than young women.
From primary school to higher education, boys lag behind girls. This legacy follows them into the workplace. Women and girls aged 16 to 24 make nearly 10 per cent more on average than their male peers, while changing social attitudes can leave them feeling isolated and even ostracised.
As my husband and I raised our sons, it was relatively easy to keep them on the straight and narrow. Their masculinity was valued but they learned respect for women and there was no shame in liking things such as cookery. There was no internet on which to waste endless hours watching pornography or engaging in social media. We chose to send them to an all-boys grammar school where hard work, academic achievement and sport were all valued.
Jenni Murray: I guess with my first son and then a second, I refused to see it in terms of a war. I wanted to ensure that boys and girls were treated equally and given equal opportunities
They had girlfriends who were as keen on getting on as they were and they had a wonderful role model – a father who chose to be their main carer, loved rugby, was more than handy around the house, cooked, cleaned occasionally and taught them all the things at which I was useless, notably maths and physics. I fell into the English, French and history camp.
They grew up to become hard-working professionals, as are their partners. Maybe I, a dedicated and successful career woman, had some influence in their perception of women as their equals.
It’s all quite different from what I observe in the families of a number of younger friends and acquaintances, where daughters have steamed ahead but sons appear to be exactly what the new report says they are – lost. One boy fell apart at university and his parents are struggling to keep him away from drugs. Another got into terrible debt in his late teens. He’d been using his student loan to gamble.
It has become a familiar problem according to the not-for-profit charity Gamstop, with boys more at risk of becoming problem gamblers than girls. My friend’s son had found it all too easy to bet on the horses and his favourite football teams using his mobile phone. As many as one in five students have been found to use their loan for gambling. It bodes ill for their future if gambling becomes an addiction.
So why the dramatic change within a generation? Is the kind of feminism expressed in that awful comment about ‘raising the enemy’ to blame for the lack of attention given to boys from primary through secondary education and into university?
Was it an assumption that boys will always push their way through that led to attention only being paid to girls?
The question now, of course, is what do we do to help those lost boys? Schools must have been neglecting them. There can be no other explanation.
Among 16 to 24 year olds, far more young men are out of work than young women.
Girls, in my experience, have been taught that working hard will make them attractive to employers. They’ve been told how to dress to impress and how to give the best of themselves in interviews.
I’m told schools have had a hand in preparing girls for the outside world, as have some parents. Boys, friends have said, have had no such training, largely because it was assumed they wouldn’t need it.
The CSJ report warns that young men lack good role models and traditional male qualities such as courage, resilience and competitiveness have been undermined. At the same time, half of men aged 16 to 24 say men are too often shown in the media as ‘a bit pathetic’.
The former Conservative MP, Miriam Cates, a senior fellow at the CSJ says: ‘Far from creating equality, we have penalised young men for the crime of being male, labelling them “toxic” and “problematic” and failing to provide a positive vision of masculinity. Things need to change.’
Family breakdown has clearly left a lot of boys without a good father figure in their lives. Fathers must make every effort, separated or not, to set a good example to their sons.
So, no more Andrew Tate, filling them with sexist ideas about women and the idea that a fast, expensive car is all you need to be happy.
The role model I would choose for boys today would be Freddie Flintoff. There’s a young man who was a wonderful cricketer and a little bit wild – but has shown us all an example of how to help boys value themselves and their masculinity by creating a cricket team of youngsters in tough situations, and taking them to India to learn and compete.
I didn’t expect to see Mark Zuckerberg as an ally in all this. After all, as the founder of Facebook, he ranked female fellow students at Harvard University on their sexual attractiveness.
Now a father of three daughters, like me he’s disturbed at the use of the term ‘toxic masculinity’ and wants companies to embrace more ‘masculine energy’. He thinks the corporate culture has become ‘neutered’ and needs to encourage both masculine and feminine energy.
He’s right. Boys should never feel only women are valued and girls must see the value in good men.
As a mother of sons, I know what boys and young men need. They must be allowed to express their love, their sadness, their worries and their pride at a try scored, an A-grade exam result and passing their driving test first time.
They need to know there are lots of good men who see women as their equals and they must be taught to do the same.
A huge quantity of angry, unemployed young men in crisis is dangerous. We must all help them learn how to survive and thrive.
The Brutalist sent me to sleep
I’m sure Adrien Brody deserved his Best Actor Oscar for his role in The Brutalist. I’d seen all the other nominated films, but not his. Last night I settled down to watch it on TV but I can’t give an opinion. Twenty minutes in, I fell asleep. It was soporifically slow.
Zoryana’s horror at Vance attack
Zoryana, who lived in my house as a Ukrainian refugee, came to see us on Sunday in a most frightfully anxious state. She was staggered at the Trump/Vance attack on Zelensky and frightened for her mother, her sister and her son as the war continues without help from America. She’s desperate to bring them here, but her son won’t leave the country he loves.
Why I wish I’d married for money
The common fictional story – Pride And Prejudice for example – where a woman seeks to marry up for money or status is untrue, according to new research. We are, apparently, drawn to our social equals – someone of the same class and education. I did that. I did have one chance to marry for money, but he was a terrible bore.
Is it unfair to say I sometimes wish I’d gone for the money?
Who’d have thought mice would care for any other mouse in trouble? Mouse-to-mouse resuscitation was found to be common in a new study. I’ll never trap another and I’ve had a word with Suu the cat. No more mice, Suu. Keep them out of the kitchen, though.
Melania Trump’s new suit is so sharp, she might cut herself. She wore it to announce the latest steps in her fight to make the internet safer for young people.So at least one of the Trumps is doing something useful.
