29 Mar 2023
Columnist Eris isn’t afraid to address the issues nobody else will talk about…
Boys are being told that the notion that men should be physically strong, emotionally contained and aggressive is wrong. They are encouraged to be more feminine, show emotion and seek help for their mental health. Working to obtain power and social and financial status and thus gain the respect of others is ‘toxic masculinity’. They are being taught and examined in a way that favours girls. The problem with boys appears to be that they are not girls.
Girls outperform boys in school and everyone outperforms white working class boys. Only 13% of white British boys on free school meals get a higher education compared with 59% of poor black African and Bangladeshi pupils. 33% of white state school pupils, 48.6% of Black, 54.9% of Asian and 72.1% of Chinese go into higher education. Getting into a top ranking university is almost impossible for white working class boys, with more than half of England’s universities having fewer than 5% of poor white students.
Discrimination extends into the workplace, with an unemployment rate of 13% in men aged 16-24, compared to 8.5% amongst women. Male job opportunities have disappeared in traditional industries and manufacturing, and employers like the Civil Service, local government, the armed forces and the police are increasingly discriminating against young white males.
Young white men are not liked. A YouGov poll found that just 8% of people have a positive view of white men in their 20s, by far the lowest of any ethnicity or age group.
So what happens if a young, white working class man does well? Harry Styles won Album of the Year at the Grammys and in his acceptance speech said “this doesn’t happen to people like me very often”, sparking a huge backlash.
Styles, whose parents divorced and who was working in a baker’s shop when he got his break at 16, was considered a beneficiary of white, male privilege and thus unworthy.
Traditionally, young white working class men settle down when they have a family and their own home.
However, marriage has gone out of fashion in this group. Working class women have become economically independent, or can rely on state help, so don’t really need an under-performing man, which means many men are unlikely to have a stable, family life.
How are these young men reacting?
They are not turning to crime, with limited growth in the crimes committed by young white men, unlike the growth in crime by young black men.
However, online, violent, misogynistic pornography is widespread. Andrew Tate, the disgraced influencer from Luton, created an online empire by appealing to teenage boys who haven’t bought into teaching on ‘toxic masculinity’.
Interest in extremist left/right wing politics is also growing, with increased online political ‘grooming’ of young boys, although no charismatic figurehead has as yet emerged. Are we at a tipping point?
What will the millions of lost boys do next? Social and political unrest? Or a passive uneconomic underclass?
