Not sure I am on board with feminism any more.

Gosh yes op, those bloody feminists always trying to give females a strong sense of self. It's just laziness that they don't do the same for men.
I mean, it's almost as if feminism is for females only or something.

There may not be an equivalent of 'girl power', but there's also not an equivalent of 'run/throw/cry like a girl' either.

It's alright saying that feminists need to say nice things to boys, but men need to stop calling boys girls as an insult too. Or is it mean of me to say that?

I had this conversation with DH a while back; he commented that feminism has done a good job of teaching girls that they can be/do anything, but that boys need to be taught the same. He looked at me expectantly. I asked him if he thought that was feminism's job and he said yes. I asked him why and he looked perplexed at the question

Look, I tell my boys that they can be anything they like in the world and that there are a lot of bad people out there who do bad things and who are RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS. I'm hoping that they will a) have the courage to be what they want and b) try to avoid doing bad things. I'm certainly not going to stop talking about the impacts of those bad things on women.

Btw my autocorrect put all those capitals on ‘male’!

@Her0utdoors, exactly, its like that song: "who runs the world? GIRLS".... er no they dont.

This has made me think about the message my 6yo and 2yo get about masculinity from the media. The children’s tv they watch has an overwhelming preponderance of Male characters as leaders/explorers/rescuers, and the ratio of Male/female characters is still heavily dominated by the Male (shows like Octonauts and Go Jetters have 5/2 and 4/1 male/female leads respectively). These shows thus represent several different positive ways to be male, and a far more limited range of femininity.
I think the reason why there is this explicit messaging for girls around ‘girl power’ is that this balance still dominates so much of our culture. And I don’t at all agree that it’s not out there for boys too- there’s a lot of equivalent clothing and merchandise targeted at boys linked to being heroic/adventurous/intelligent etc.
Having said that, better representation of masculinity as gentle, caring, artistic is badly needed (though that does come through in some kids shows).

OP i dont know if you're male or female but this hand wringing "what about the poor menz" attitude is not helpful to an equality agenda. I see a lot of male rights advancements in the name of equality whilst female rights currently being trampled (e.g. trans agenda).

@gingerpusscat Girl power was a thing when I was a child (didn't the spice girls invent it?). Its not done much to smash the glass ceiling in mine or any other industry i know.

In fact i saw my friend's dd singing little mix ive got the power and i thought how girl power has come around again and its still the power to dress sexily and sleep around. Would be nice if girl power was linked to leadership and real authority, but that wouldn't make a good pop song and sell well.

Exactly GCAcademic, I saw a t-shirt with a similar slogan in M&S, don't gaslight my daughter, girls will never take over the world as it proclaimed.

I need factual examples of the negative educational role models for boys

I have two sons. Im 100% sure they don’t get the message that men are violent/rapists/abusers/toxic/untrustworthy. At some point they will find out that jails mostly contain men but won’t relate to these men because he’s a nice boy and has plenty of nice male role models who are community minded/caring/trustworthy/considerate. In the media men are also superhero’s, life savers, fire fighters, uphold law and order, make pets better, explorers, positive risk takers and sporty.

Lets not forget that the negative message about abusive and violent men is largely confined to news channels so children not really as exposed as adults. Same news channels that sensationalise female crimes because its less usual.

I did see an ad recently, in Vogue I think. It was a little girl wearing a t-shirt saying 'The future is female.' I did feel a pang when I looked at my DS. I've never seen a 'Boy Power' equivalent

Rest assured, the future will continue to be male. Patriarchy is not going anywhere, if anything it’s aggressively reasserting itself at the moment.

I love men, personally, but building a positive form of masculinity would be a particular concern for men, accompanied by women who have sons and teachers, rather than the job of feminism.

There are in fact lots of positive images of men in the media

You must be walking around with your eyes shut. Positive male paradigms abound. Largely male leaders of government and business. The example in home lives where it is more common for women rather than men to care for children and dependants, and dads to be the main earner, the economic imbalance that brings. Prevalence of women nurses & male doctors.

Our society says one thing and does another . Tells kids (not just girls) 'you can be anything you want' to counteract the harsh reality. By the time today's children get round to having children the same imbalance will show itself. I hope the tide is turning.

I did see an ad recently, in Vogue I think. It was a little girl wearing a t-shirt saying 'The future is female.' I did feel a pang when I looked at my DS. I've never seen a 'Boy Power' equivalent. They even had an "International Day of the Girl' theme on Play School here recently. I'm not sure what the intention of that is, given the intended audience is 2 - 5 year old Australian children.

Male privilege has existed for millennia, it's about time the pendulum started to swing in a different direction.

Thing is, dont spend too much time on social media, that's where the negative messages will be exaggerated.