Interesting. I’ve posted a couple of comments and invite you to post your own.
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Justice for Men & Boys 
I have long thought that our society would not have put so much effort into socialising males into managing their emotions, if they didn’t have any. As usual Harrington’s piece can’t resist the sensational 3% of the male population whose lack of management of their emotions lands them in Courts and Prison (proof that “society” doesn’t “condone” violence and aggression). Of course she doesn’t really tackle the fact that generally it is the least at risk sections of the population (such as herself) that fear crime the most. The most at risk being young men, from other young men. And again there is the assumption that “emotion” is crying. Though Harrington does query this. What always seems to be forgotten is the range of human emotions, experienced by both men and women. A good example over the past 3 years has been interviews with Ukrainian men about being in their army or the war (and though unreported in our media probably true of Russians). Where there are all sorts of mixtures or pride, anger, loyalty, love of wives and girlfriends, hope, hate, disgust, longing, fear, shame and so on All “managed” to propel them into doing their “duty” and marching into “hell for a heavenly cause” (both sides feeling right is on their side). Given the circumstance for Ukrainian men, constrained to stay while their women and children fled abroad, not once have I seen resentment or envy but relief that they are safe. This chimes with the correspondence in WW1(from a “Pals” Regiment Project) and WW2 (local history project) which reveals the rich emotional life of the men writing home. Which chimes with my experience of that older generation and indeed mine, where emotions are not “supressed” but are managed, for instance are shared with other men who’ve shared the experience but not with those, wives, women or children, who might find them harrowing or frightening etc. It is interesting that in the classic war films the supposed “supressed” emotions do get expressed once the danger, duty, task is complete and there is time/space to let it out (be it tears or rage or whatever).
Broadly I think Harrington is right that reverting to an emotional incontinence without impulse control is dangerous for society, but actually for both sexes because what happens is chaos. It is after all girls and women’s mental health that has nosedived in recent years as emotional incontinence and uninhibited impulses turn out to be a recipe for mental strife and being “diagnosed” with a “disorder”. As i have often commented no one looks to see why it is that boys and men are so much less likely to suffer the panoply of anxiety, depression, conduct, self harm, body dysmorphias and so on that we are constantly informed beset women and girls in ever greater numbers. Could it possibly be that being helped to develop techniques to deal with the ups and downs of life and the attendant emotions is a positive thing? Ahh. but then that would mean admitting that part of “masculinity” is actually a good thing.
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A hilarious contribution to the current panic about “toxic masculinity” is this Nottinghamshire fire crew defends nail painting after backlash – BBC News The first funny bit is of course that the “event” only works if one assumes the “firefighters” are in fact Firemen, for it would be of no note if they were women. The second is it highlights the most frivolous and vain aspect of “femininity” and of course it looks pretty naive because right from the early 70s young men, Heavy Rockers, Goths, Punks, Metalheads and on and on have painted their nails! Its hardly something new or profound. No doubt it livened up a boring Wednesday afternoon for the watch at the station and of course I’m sure the Firemen were won over by the idea of “allyship”, yet another project to prevent nasty men hurting women. After all the very easiest ask of masculine men, to protect women and children.
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Unfortunately , can’t find your comments..
but then others have pointed out that their comments have dissappeared.
it appears that freedom of speech much lamented by starmer doesn’t actually exist( rather like some of the conjecture in the article), but at least there is some pushback in the comments
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Thanks Rob, Unherd has pulled them. Seems a bit random, what they pull and what they don’t. But they show no interest in having anti-feminist contributors to balance the many feminist contributors.
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