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

I do agree there's a bizarre disconnect, that's got worse over the last few decades.

But do young men want ''traditional'' roles? ie, no sex before marriage? to be sole breadwinners? To be, on the surface of it, protective, respectful, chivalrous as would be expected behaviour from a traditional man (whether it was felt internally or not).

We have the worst of all worlds now, men have been 'freed' by anything goes norms to behave as badly as they want and their needs are still met, through porn, prostitutes, and mostly, sadly, through women who don't know them and are full of optimism.

My own son is awful and obviously if I were stupid enough to start a thread about him, I'd be blamed. But I never modelled anything except respect, communication, warmth, support, understanding et cetera. His anger when I tried to limit his gaming shocked me. His entitlement to intimidate me and make demands in the home where I pay for everything shocks me. He has witnessed a single mother work hard as an employee, provide, support and parent. His absolute contempt for me shocks me and I don't know where it comes from. Inside him? from the internet? It's all so weird. I wonder what he'd be like if he'd been raised in the 80s before the internet. (he doesn't live with me anymore).

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

I did think it was an interesting line “girls’ political opinions are seen as important and worth listening to - boys are seen as sulky, silly and backwards” (or something - paraphrasing).
Liberal left not listening to the opinions of the deplorables again. They really really need to start as the tactic “just another bigoted woman” is not working at all, in any sphere.
It’s just as important to bring boys with us. They need to see a role for themselves. They need to feel powerful and able to accomplish anything, just as girls are hopefully being encouraged to do.

There are a lot of factors here and I do t think this is simple. Society has changed a lot in structure in the last few decades. The changes started before that but the push for equality, while not complete, has come further than ever before of late.

Women work, can be executives, can be tradespeople, can own property, can drive, can live independently, and can even have children without a partner if they desire. We no longer actually need men to be able to function in the world.

for certain people this is seen as an assault on them. They don’t see it as a call to do better and be better, but a call to take us down.

So you end up with men wanting to be women, men wanting to go backwards as a defence mechanism, and men wanting to harm us to scare us into line.

Look at Andrew Tate and all the beardy men with mics on TikTok and Insta telling the young guys “what women , (reader, we want none of it).

They Are getting this messaging from all over, so even if their dad’s and male role models are decent guys, supportive of the women in their life, of which there are very many,they can still see this stuff online.

It’s like a cornered animal lashing out. Except they aren’t cornered really, it’s just a large number of men either don’t want, or aren’t ready, to change and say that what a woman does doesn’t matter or have any impact on them.

All leads me to say, that I think there needs to be a concerted effort to engage and educate young men.

Tbh they sound great in terms of their imagination and reflecting the darker side of being female. Not being able to find the kettle after your wife dies is beautifully poignant.

I did A level drama in the 90s and my character was relentlessly cheery and annoying but was about to be raped as the "it's obvious what happened next" ending of our examination board assessed group piece. We were trapped in a bunker after a nuclear holocaust.

The archive link won't load for me?