William Collins: “Bashing Boys (Again)”

Interesting.

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5 thoughts on “William Collins: “Bashing Boys (Again)”

  1. 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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  2. Thinking about it another reason for hope for an unintended consequence is in the “surprising” result in the surveys I site in my comment. One such is that the girls report themselves as perpetrating “Abuse” at much higher rates than the Boys report being victims of “Abuse” this contrasts with the reports of behaviours themselves. In effect the boys and girls are equal in both perpetrating and being victim of abusive behaviours. But the girls are far more likely to label these as “Abuse” the boys not using the label. Of course this isn’t surprising at all, given that by the time of the research women and girls had been the target for national, local and educational campaigns about Domestic Violence and Abuse for 30 years.

    This chimes with research into adult male reporting of Domestic Violence and Abuse. One commonly reported factor is that men simply don’t recognise that their treatment is Abuse, in terms of the law and public services, and frequently assume their experience is unique. Again unsurprising given the decades of feminist inspired campaigns.

    However I’m sure if boys are bombarded with information that this, that and the other are “Abuse” they’ll notice that they themselves are in receipt of the very same behaviours from girlfriends and are more likely to “name their abuse” and who knows might seek help more actively.

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  3. Labour launches anti-misogyny classes in response to Andrew Tate. But they are doomed to fail

    This is interesting as I watched the Daily T referred to. Classic in that here we had Camilla Tominey and Rachel Johnson, of course no men because somehow they can’t have an opinion, even though neither Camilla nor Rachel had been boys (one has to check these days). I was also interested in how the discussion proceeded. They begin with agreement that the plan wouldn’t work. However as the conversation proceeds they persuade themselves that actually it might be a good thing. In Rachel’s case only useless because “deep deep down” males are in fact misogynists. Their evidence for this shift during the conversation, their jealousy of their older brothers! Indeed only a brief consideration of Kemi Badenoch’s response, that the idea is based on a TV drama and distracts from actual threats from early release and undocumented migrants, interrupting tales of brothers being meanies. What struck me, coming from an extended family with a lot of boys, was that the “evidence” brothers being mean is not actually different from the general experience that older siblings can and do be “horrid”. For many years I had a scar on my hand where my younger brother stabbed me with some nail scissors, sheer frustration my teasing . While my oldest son has often apologised for his mean actions to his younger brother. Interestingly he was sweetness and light to his sister, because she’s a girl? Or maybe the greater age difference? Sex, age gap, order of birth, sexism? Lots of research and many theories in fact.

    To me the interesting thing was how the conversation went, moving rapidly from the general or evidential to the personal and how the two people felt with conclusions based on their own personal experience and feelings and an assumption that these simply applied to everyone! An object lesson in fact of the problem we face where feelings, egged on by that old game “you thing you had it bad, well my brothers ……” ends in application to whole societies.

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  4. On the BBC, concurrently: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9qednjzwv1o

    The original title of the article was even worse, if anything, with its overtones of ‘thoughtcrime’: “Teachers to be trained to spot signs of misogyny in schools.”

    The clear intent is to imbue boys with a lifelong sense of guilt and shame before they can develop the critical reasoning faculties which would allow them to defend themselves. How typically female! In violence F ->M, the victim is usually age-compromised or defenceless. Here, in the classroom, this is an abuse of authority by female authority figures against targets who tick all the boxes.

    ‘The Rape of the Mind’ was written in the mid-1950s by Joost Meerloo, a Dutch psychologist who worked for wartime British intelligence, and was probably acquainted with George Orwell. He dissects the techniques of mind control utilised by totalitarian regimes, and these are scarily similar to those currently used by feminists, and the political left in general.

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  5. Labour’s plan to lecture schoolboys will not protect women and girls Somewhat heartening to see a Party Leader and a woman point out that a policy based on a fiction not only will miss the real problems but is likely to cause a backlash. The way to impact actual crimes is to enforce the Law so potential perpetrators are deterred. Not create anxiety and resentment by labelling millions of boys criminals in development and creating anxiety in girls teaching them every potential boyfriend is secretly a fiend. It could indeed damage vast numbers of boys though I suspect, as Badenoch says the result will be millions of boys who think “f….k it” and decide the whole thing (feminism) is mad. I note once again Andrew Tate is getting tons of free advertising curtesy of pompous politicians and the “blob”. It strikes me he must be laughing.

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