If young men want ‘traditional’ gender roles, we need to know why - Kathleen Stock

Men are told on the internet that women value them for their money, their car, their muscles, for treating women badly. They see in real life that rich successful men are with women who more attractive then the men. Men who are supportive of women are rarely portrayed favourably.

Teenage girls tend to be praised in school and neither boys or girls are educated in the disadvantages women experience when they have children. More women are opting out of having children and those that dont have them later in life.

"Half of women (50%) born in 1990 (the most recent cohort to reach age 30 years) remained childless by their 30th birthday; this is the first cohort where half remain childless by 30 years of age."

Women are opting out of traditional gender roles, men want them back.

I really struggled with the element of The Identity Trap by Yascha Mounk that suggested, essentially, forming sub categories of humans creates problems in diverse populations.

I kept thinking about the importance of equality and protection and the need to be able to highlight inequality in order to have a just and safe society.

However, since reading the book, I do have a new frame. I have interpreted some posts as being a bit 'team girl' or 'team boy', but until we are 'team human' we aren't likely to get anywhere.

It's important to understand what has happened in the past, and what is happening now in terms of outcomes for males and females, but to bring about positive change, we need to understand the whole picture.

This is FWR, so I can understand a desire to focus on the F and the W (and the G). Maybe this isn't the right space to try and fully understand the issues for M and B, but I don't think woman who want to do this, for the sake of men and boys as well as women, should be disparaged.

Do they get to choose? We had a brief. When I did GCSE Drama our options were violent skinheads, date rape, Pinochet regime... I could go on. We wanted to write comedy!

My kids (both sexes) seem to have had the message, especially in primary school, that boys are naughty and rowdy, but girls are good (or maybe that’s girls should be good?). Neither should be generalised by sex.

This is really important I think. DS1 is in Y6 and feels this keenly: the message is girls are well behaved and good and boys are naughty/bad. Alongside this, he lives in a family where both parents have professional jobs and share the household labour equally. He struggles to accept the idea that women and girls might be disadvantaged in the world because that is entirely removed from his experience- his experience/perception is that girls are praised/prized/favoured.

I can well imagine that for some boys and young men, the ideas of patriarchy and misogyny can easily feel like a fabrication.

I think you pretty much summed it up. Many boys no longer see a role for themselves. That is difficult to reconcile.

Or is it that they see that the role they're expected to share now includes some pretty shit stuff that women aren't prepared to take all the responsibility for any more?

I think it's a little bit rich going after GCSE student's plays, when national TV and movies (and lets face it, the news) are full of blokes abusing and murdering women - it's a key plot point. Perhaps rather than bemoan it, they should look at why the kids feel this way, and is it a reflection of reality?

That's rather sad. Personally, I think it's a challenge to show joy and delight without descending into the maudlin. But I don't think we are living in a world where you are socially allowed to feel joy or delight anymore. And I wonder how that affects young people if the only emotions you are allowed to display are depression, anger, or anxiety.

I think most drama courses do do that though.

They study plays that explore tough themes, and Shakespeare etc. and find themes in current affairs

I think that conflict gives the DCs a better chance to show range of skill and thus get higher marks.

Can I just add something sort of related. My DS did drama GCSE. When they are asked to create plays in groups they are given sources to come up with ideas. These could include a photo, a piece of writing, a poem an image etc put forward by the examining body. They choose. The one my son’s group chose was a photo of people kneeling in front of police (dressed in riot gear) on horseback (a US photo related to the BLM riots). The resulting play was all about conflict and anger. I can’t remember much about the others but to me, many seemed to concentrate on what could be seen as the darker side of life - it felt quite depressing.

Breastfeeding is something that isn't discussed in pshe or RSE. There's a missed opportunity there to talk about different parental roles.

Yes exactly this @ISaySteadyOn

I saw my bil being a bit too keen to be the one feeding and I feel he dissuaded his second partner from persevering with their first child because he wanted to also be 'in control' of the feeding/ baby etc.

Was very pleased that his now wife had insisted she bf with their second child and firmly directed him to what he could do (mainly deal with their very 'spirited' first born and his older son.)

Luckily their spirited first child together disproved his idea from his very calm/ passive/ always sleeping formula fed first born, that formula fed babies sleep better

Archive links never load for me.
Fortunately we've got a Times subscription so here's a sharetoken link that should work for everyone.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6b5a20e6-1417-481a-8154-6bb648bf0dd0?shareToken=b2f6a365c344910dff11280c31c01cef

@HappyEDT that is so sad about your son

I wonder, and I may be wrong, if it is to do with how the generation above them treat women? How men often simply leave their wife/GF and kids? This often causes anger and feelings of massive rejection in young men.

they key to happier young men is for them to have fathers, father figures and male role models . But so many men are now shit partners and shit dads. The bar is so low for dads.

boys wanting traditional women probably goes quite deep psychologically and is built on a (subconscious?) wish they had an involved dad in their own lives (traditional nuclear family)

DH managed the supporting breastfeeding extremely well. His philosophy was that since I was doing the very important work of keeping our newborn baby alive plus recovering from giving birth, it was his job to look after everything else as much as he was able.

So he cooked, cleaned, changed nappies while I recovered and thoroughly established breastfeeding. I think that's the sort of masculinity that should be encouraged.

From what I have gathered reading men’s forums, many feel like a man is supposed to be the provider and protector and genuinely has nothing else to offer. They don’t feel that women want ‘nice’ guys and they have seen women go for the arseholes, so they are at a loss as to what women want. They don’t think that men are particularly attractive or physically desirable because women aren’t chasing them down, so they focus on bringing home the bacon.

Except now they can’t because women are also earning so they feel that there is no clear role left for them. There used to be pride in blue collar jobs like the shipyards or the mines, but now that has ended and no one seems to care. We have a bunch of confused, demoralised men trying to work out why murderers in prison get female fan mail but they can’t get a date. It seems there is nowhere left for them to be accepted and appreciated as just straight white men. Society has made it difficult to be a normal bloke and it’s sad.

Who is this "we"? Surely this is men's job, to find a version of masculinity that works for them, for their families, and for society? A version that isn't toxic to themselves and to women? Women have spent the last 50-odd years figuring out our roles, figuring out what is toxic to women about traditional femininity and what the alternatives are, and what the downsides of those alternatives are too.

There seems to be a trend to misinterpret descriptions of commonplace toxic masculine behaviour as saying "men must be just naturally toxic" or "men don't want to be men nowadays because everyone just says they are toxic". Way to blame feminism, guys. And some male detransitioners have described huge amounts of actual "toxic masculinity" - absence, sexual aggression, bullying, authoritarianism, homophobia - they experienced from their own fathers and brothers and schoolmates.

So it's nice to hear about "Men at Work". I guess that as a lesbian mother Kathleen Stock has her own point of view on parenting. but mostly sorting masculinity out is not our job. Women / feminists can't be expected to fix it for men as well. Men need to sort themselves out.

I don't blame young (and older) men at being annoyed at the lack of reasonably well paid, secure jobs - I would also not blame young women for this. It's interesting to think about the lack of collective role models for men for fatherhood. I'd like to think there are plenty about but they don't gather round as collectively or tribally. Do we need dads-not-in-sheds?

It's so sad. There's so much more young men can do within a parenting relationship.

I feel that breastfeeding isn't supported enough from the father's pov. I see them wanting to actually feed the baby so encouraging mum to express or mix feed. Rather than doing the other supportive stuff.

Getting sexism and ideas of equality balanced for children as they grow up is very difficult and nuanced.

Will Hitchens on Instagram tackles this narrative from young men saying that basically all they have to bring to a relationship is money and if women are earning their own money, they have nothing else to bring.

Instead of developing themselves into the type of man that would attract independent confident women, they’re on podcasts and shows saying to avoid independent women and look for women who are basically naive.

Its horrific.

https://www.instagram.com/willhitchins?igsh=MXV1YWR0eXJ0czQ0YQ==

I've only read the first few paras but what jumped out at me was the teachers (many likely to be young women) may have been doing "misogyny workshops."

Whilst I agree there's so much to do around tackling misogyny I really do think it needs to be more subtly addressed within education and given opportunity for the type of balance that celebrates how men can be. Looking at behaviour, taking responsibility for actions, tackling sexism.

Some detrans men have described not wanting to be a man thanks to awareness of how awful they can be in the world.

I think the kettle story line is lovely though.

A gay friend started following some exercise pages on facebook and found he was then being algorithmed with faintly misogynistic content. Why does that go hand in hand fgs? That's the impact of Tate et al.

I really like the work that Men at Work are doing. menatworkcic.org/

I do think we do have a problem with the messages we send to boys.

My kids (both sexes) seem to have had the message, especially in primary school, that boys are naughty and rowdy, but girls are good (or maybe that’s girls should be good?). Neither should be generalised by sex.

High school brought many opportunities for (specifically) girls to get involved with STEM stuff, but no similar opportunities to encourage boys to broaden to arts and languages.

In the workplace I (rightly) see attempts to increase women’s representation in some areas, but no similar drive to increase the number of men in more traditionally female roles such as nursing. Also, it is important to remember, even in areas dominated by men, that that privilege has not been felt by the young men just starting out, and we need to offer balanced opportunities to everyone. Saying everyone in department X is male, so all graduate entries need to be female is just as sexist as allowing them all to be male , and we should be able to do better

That's an interesting point actually.

The next step is to ask whose responsibility is it to provide the guidance, to model the behaviours, to be the support and share learning?

Other men, older men or does the work automatically default to women? Why are fathers, brothers, uncles , makefriends and cousins not stepping up in the wat female friends and family seem to for the mum?

But Tate isn't right wing in any meaningful sense. The reason he is "coded" right is because he is mostly popular with young men. Its a circular logic. Young men= "alt right." X is popular with young men therefore X is right wing. Xs popularity with young men demonstrate further that men are moving to the right.
Women =lefties losing it. Women like Stanley cups/hair dye or dislike sexual harassment. therefore cups/coloured hair/being anti sexual harrassment is left wing. I know loads of right leaning types that are not ok with perves. Or sex trafficking.

Its self fulfilling and self perpetuating.

I disagree that women's politics is seen as good, men's as bad. It depends on whether the source /media is left/right wing . Stock is still fairly left though so it makes sense that's what she is most exposed to/who she is addressing in her piece.

When I taught adults, I met a number of young men who were about to become fathers. For the most part, they were eager to be involved and keen to be supportive and to be a good husband/partner and dad. But they felt marginalised and lonely, caught up in a process they didn’t properly understand, emotionally disconnected and often ignored - they felt - by the mother-to-be and by her female family members, whose expectation was that they would always be there to do or buy things when required, but otherwise left them on the sidelines. They felt there were great expectations of them, but no guidance as to how to properly fulfil those expectations. I felt sorry for them.

Ooh… coming back later!