Demonising boys won’t turn them into angels
The tragic murder of a young woman in London recently highlights how dangerous it can be to walk the streets of London alone at night. However this story has turned into a moral panic, with one politician suggesting that there should be a 6pm curfew for men (which incurred a reaction she referred to as a “misogynistic hissy fit”), and a survey by UN Women claiming that 97% of women in the UK have been sexually harassed, though 20% of the women surveyed reported not having ever experienced any of the types of harassment listed (see Figure 3 ).
Moral panics tend to lead to poor decision making. In the aftermath of the London murder, the government Minister for Policing called for more PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education) in schools to teach boys to respect girls. Trainings and workshops in schools based on this theme are well-meaning and seem like a good idea, but the impact on boys is an unknown factor. Given the present volatile context for such workshops, the seemingly innocent message that boys need to treat girls with more respect could, quite possibly, have a negative impact on boys. For example, some boys might get the sense that they are, as a male, a bad person who can’t be trusted. Shame can have very destructive effect on men, and can even lead to violence. Alternatively, some boys may feel they are being told they are a bad person, which could leads to the self-fulfilling prophecy of them behaving like a bad person. I think it is naive to presume that telling boys to treat women with respect will lead most of them to do so. A lot of boys will ignore this message or find it irritating. In the end, these schoolroom strategies might alienate boys from their teachers, school, girls, and even alienate boys from a positive sense of their own selves.
I ran a survey last year which found that around 85% of respondents agreed that the idea of ‘toxic masculinity’ may have a harmful impact on boys if they hear or read about the term. So why do schools think it’s a good idea to expose boys to ideas that might make them question the value of their masculinity? We should consider the very real possibility that these interventions may do more harm than good, maybe even creating the problem we are trying to cure, and then blaming the people they have inadvertently caused to do harm. If we keep telling boys they are bad, let’s not be surprised if they start acting that way.
Something that is often overlooked or even dismissed is that the majority of boys are not a risk to women. Probably lots of us have experienced in school the situation where one pupil does something wrong, and then the whole class is punished. This is unfair of course, but these PSHE workshops are in danger of doing a similar thing. This type of punishment fails to take into account the Pareto principle, a general phenomenon suggesting that the majority of one thing is caused by a minority of another thing. This is true in many areas of life (e.g., wealth distribution, health care consumption, sporting excellence etc.) but this principle is overlooked as an avenue of exploration when it comes to crimes by men against women. Another elephant in the room is that men are more likely to be the victims of violent crime than women are, but in the throes of a moral panic, rational thinking gives way to knee jerk reactions.
In the end I hope we, as a society, haven’t become so cynical that we can no longer agree that the vast majority of men want women and girls to be safe, so let’s think carefully about whether demonising schoolboys the best way to ensure this remains true.
About the author
Dr John A. Barry is a Chartered Psychologist and Professional Researcher. He is a leading expert in the areas of male psychology including men’s mental health and the psychological aspects of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). His new book, Perspectives in Male Psychology: An Introduction (ISBN: 978-1-119-68535-7), co-authored with Louise Liddon, is published in the new year and is available to pre-order now.
