Britain’s lost boys Sonia Sodha

[WarriorN]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/09/jobless-isolated-fed-misogynistic-porn-where-is-the-love-for-britains-lost-boys?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

I do agree but feel it's men who need to step up here

Boys either want to be women or are turning to Tate et al neither of which is ultimately good for women and girls. Victoria Smith has been saying similar recently.

If you're not into sport there's so few decent role models or movements for boys. From experience they go off track at a very young age too.

That's three, the problem is solved.

I haven't heard of holes but the rest of these are a dirge for most boys as well.

You were saying that there is very little reading material aimed at boys and now you're suggesting that the real problem is that they managed to read all of those long series but couldn't possibly contemplate The Hunger Games because the lead is female so stop reading after that?

There are lots of books for boys. Mine were reading Percy Jackson, The Dead series, books by Dan Smith, Alan Grantz and Steve Backshall. Then they read Stephen King and James Herbert and some biographies of footballers and Ferrari and lots of books by ex gang members, ex MI5 and police snipers. I could go on.
As well as all the literacy and educational benefits, reading books also develops focus and empathy. Something which is quite lacking now that people are online more.

I haven't said that the boys have read those entire series, you have made that up.
I'm saying that those three series are not going to appeal to all boys, in the same way that the boys material that you mention in your other post will not attract all boys.

No, of course they won't, but the fact that I could come up with three famous long series off the top of my head in about 2 seconds doesn't suggest that the problem is really the lack of reading material aimed at boys. There's a huge range of great children's literature out there at the moment and a tonne of non-fiction too.

Just like I said, GCSE English classes have been centred around books aimed specifically at boys for decades and they're still woefully underperforming in English compared to girls despite the girls having to wade through books that are not aimed at them.

Are they aimed specifically at boys? If so its a very stereotypical view of what boys want to read.
IMO its more about keeping to very staid groups of books that enforce what literature and reading should be.

What do boys actually want to read in your opinion, that is missing from the market? Because as far as my experience goes, boys who want to read find stuff to read.

I don't think the problem is the lack of literature 'for boys' but boys not actually wanting to read anything.

Yes, people that want to read will find something to read.

And from discussions that I have had with boys the issue isn't the range of books but the content and how males are portrayed in the books.

You said "I agree that there is little reading material aimed at boys"

But now it's the content of the books that are aimed at boys?

What do you think is missing from the market?

Lord of the Flies would count as being aimed at boys. Beyond that... it's not as if they're putting Monster Hunter International on the curriculum.

You have to be fucking kidding! Asimov, Clarke, Moorcock, Vance, Dick, and Tolkien are giants of sci-fi and fantasy and all have loads of male protagonists. If anything, there's a lack of female characters who aren't love interests, bar Asimov's excellent Susan Calvin who we don't see anything like enough of. I certainly felt underrepresented reading those as a child. Be careful with Moorcock because it can get very dark.

Asimov and Vance did a lot of short stories, which are useful for kids who might struggle with full-length novels. Don't bother with Vance's Demon Princes because it's just same story repeated five times. His other stuff is good.

Lois McMaster Bujold writes stories with a male main character who is disabled. Tom Clancy wrote military fiction, gets a bit samey but The Hunt For Red October is a classic. And of course, Terry Pratchett wrote an entire universe with male and female main characters and plenty of ensemble cast novels. You might want to withhold the books mentioning the Guild of Seamstresses until later teens because it shows prostitution very unrealistically.

Absolutely. No one gave a shit about female representation for decades if not centuries.

Isn’t this because girls mask though?

My dd was diagnosed ASD and ash’s at 16 and 17 respectively. She’d reached burnout by then.

My lovely sensitive ds raised with no father reads constantly. Is very sociable and friendly. Loads of friends.

I'm not talking about autism / adhd, I'm talking about learning difficulties. That can't be masked.

My eldest wasn't as much of a high flyer in reading and didn't get the instant gratification he got from running about and watching tv. Especially when books no longer had as many pictures. Tv then definitely fed the content he was interested in.

Plenty of books aimed at boys; I've bought enough that have been snubbed. I actually thought that research showed that there's fewer books with girls as the main hero/ character?

He hung around with Tom gates and bunny verses monkey for ages, past y6, plus random non fiction books about historical war leaders for adults (he's a history nerd) till about 6 months ago when he got into the Hobbit. I finally managed to get him hooked on Percy Jackson very recently. Thank god as he does need to get his reading stamina up.

This is a really good article looking at the research. I am fully aware of bias in diagnosis for girls plus other factors such as how girls are with emotional regulation/ behaviour and also masking.

However it does link to biological factors in boys being at play too. And notes that boys are more likely to be visually impaired.

www.durham.ac.uk/research/current/thought-leadership/2023/11/girls-less-likely-to-be-diagnosed-with-special-educational-needs--new-research/

Linked research article
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6509633/pdf/CroatMedJ600_0141.pdf

I personally think that research article is part of the generalised reading issue for boys

The thing is, communication is the bedrock for social interaction. Poor social interaction leads to social exclusion and frustration. Often also accompanied by poor emotional regulation.

In way two things can both be true - this paper says there are both cognitive differences between the sexes that seem to affect reading and referal bias with dsylexia and boys.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5438271/
It is now clear that we can divide the over-representation of males with dyslexia into two parts: one invalid part explained by referral bias, and one potentially valid residual part found in epidemiological samples (Rutter et al., 2004; Shaywitz, Shaywitz, Fletcher, & Escobar, 1990). The male : female sex ratio in referred samples ranges from about 3:1 to 5:1, whereas the sex ratio in epidemiological samples ranges from 1.5:1 to 3.3:1 (Rutter et al., 2004; Shaywitz et al., 1990), depending in part on the criteria for severity of the reading deficit and minimum-IQ for a diagnosis of dyslexia (Olson, 2002; Quinn & Wagner, 2015).

I found the paper interesting as it links common morbidty of ADHD with dsylexia - both are issue in my family though girls frequently harder to diagonse with ADHD as presnetation differs.

My issue isn't that boys struggle - I accept more boys are at lower end of attainment - it's more but that get's muddled to a more general message of boys struggle with reading or boys don't read - delaying interventions or so engained that it's trotted out about a boy who clearly was reading. The bias becomes enforced an accepted as "truth" so rather than early support to help the back end of boys the lack of progress gets entrenched and becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

All my DC verbal skills were developed early and were very good and had plenty of practice with social skills - they still struggled with reading - there seems to be a mix of hearing issues - partly not hearing sounds clearly and another issue of correcting words written and spoken to their expectations - it's most visble in dialect words form wider family which they just automatically correct to something that makes sense to them.

I've not has any real problems finding books for DS vs my DDs so while I've often seen that touted as a reasons it wasn't an issue for us.

Yes I agree with your post. There are so many nature and nurture factors going on it's hard to fully appreciate what might best help.

Undoubtedly the generalised 'negative' and self fulfilling stereotypes for men and boys does fuel problems that may exist already via nature.

Current Tate like 'nurture' culture is certainly a factor.

And I am at no point saying that provision and better diagnosis for girls should be dropped. It is very clear that diagnosis is often slower or completely missed, which harms attainment for girls.

I'm picking up surprising implications from some posts:

1. that young people only read fiction.
2. that young people only read YA fiction.
3. that young people only read fiction that is in some way supports the gender stereotypes of their sex.
4. that young people will not read fiction where the main protagonist is not of the same sex as the reader.

There is an entire world of books which are non-fiction, and which cover just about every subject under the sun. When I was about 12 I read a book about the the Kon-Tiki expedition by Thor Heyerdahl. It was a bit challenging for me, but the story was so gripping that I stuck with it - and I gained a lot of new vocabulary, history, ethnography etc., without even noticing
Then there is all that 'old' fiction written by people like the Brontes or Evelyn Waugh or T.H.White or Gaskell or Huxley or Dickens or Steinbeck - there's no reason why young people - even boys! - can't read 'old' books that are not targeted specifically at them.

Maybe broaden the definition of 'books that boys and girls can read' beyond recent ones aimed at a readership that can be categorised by age or sex?

I don't know the exact science but reading fiction / chapter books relies on more stamina and has a different impact on general literacy and comprehension skills than non fiction.

I don't have to be "fucking kidding" you at all!
With the exception of Tolken when was the last time you heard of any of those writers put forward/encouraged by a school?
All come under classics which is an almost instant put off for most boys.
Very few modern writers put forward balanced well written male and female characters with growth in their story lines.

What do you mean by the content, and how boys are portrayed? I agree w a lot of what you said- people are being unnecessarily snippy. We need to hear all views rather than going w easy answers.