Our thanks to one of our most prolific commenters, Nigel, for comments he posted in response to William Collins’s piece, Bashing boys (again):

“Tom Goldrich does a good job of pointing out the actual data in a NSPCC  research survey done by Bristol University Teen Violence — When Ideology Trumps Data ( 3 – Bias Against Men and Boys in Psychological Research) 2010 In fact this fairly large research survey was just one of a series done in the UK. The others being “Attitudes of Young People Towards Domestic Violence” 2007 Published by the Department of Health, Social Services and Pubilc Safety, Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency. There is in fact quite a lot of research done in NI on young people given sensitivities about sectarian divisions and comparatively high, for the UK levels of gang and “terrorist” activity. In Scotland there was ” Young Peoples Attitudes towards Gendered Violence” 2005 Michele Burman and Fred Cartmel of the University of Glasgow for NHS Scotland. “Domestic Violence in Adolescent Relationships” 2006 Nina Schutt 2009 published by Safer Southwark Partnership. And one in Wales some years later.

In all these the hypothesis was the feminist “gendered” one. And in all there were “surprising” results which were basically there was not a gendered pattern of abuse at all. This was of course in a time where rather than “smartphones” the chief concerns were the influence of PCs and Tablets and “Mobile Phones”. A few years later  as smart phones were becoming common a similarly large scale research project found: 

“The high prevalence, absence of gender differences and social patterning, suggests DRV victimization may be becoming normalized and is of significant public health importance for young people in England and Wales.”Dating and relationship violence among 16–19 year olds in England and Wales: a cross-sectional study of victimization | Journal of Public Health | Oxford Academic

All of which suggests.  a. That teenage relationships are fraught for teenagers of both sexes. b. That their responses can often be immature c. Any intervention needs to seek to improve the ability to form mature relationships for all teenagers making the difficult transition from child to sexually mature adult. 

If what was on offer to teenagers was genuinely about improving the ability of all teenagers to form the relationships they seek I’d be all for it. Indeed this is often the complaint of boys about “consent classes”, there isn’t anything very new about being told its bad to force someone to do something they don’t want to but what they really want is good advice about relationships. Hardly surprising as these are children rapidly growing into adults with a desperation to “grow up” and be mature. This applies to both sexes of course and a childishness, an unsurprising lack of maturity, is in reality what is chronicled in the research.

But of course this isn’t what is on offer. Rather the boys’ are to be fed ideology about their own innate badness and shame. I suspect it will in fact backfire because this hectoring approach will simply alienate boys and because boys often want to “test the boundaries” of those in authority I suspect it will recruit more to the “anti feminist” cause. One of the interesting things about the “Documentary” fiction “Adolescence” is the realism of the first part. Teenage boy makes a clumsy attempt to have a girlfriend, she is a bit older than him and dismisses him (because teenage girls favour boys older than them) following this up with a bullying campaign on social media describing him as an “incel” (in a way that in my teenage girls spread rumours that a rejected boy was a “right puff”) In part to make it clear she’s better than him. Being 11 the boy takes this very much to heart! It being incredibly hard at that age to live “sticks and stones……. “. Then we step out of reality to a murder.”

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