India Knight, writing in the Sunday Times, says that's what we're turning out nowadays instead of boys.
Despite its shortcomings, I thought parts of this column were interesting. Her sons' friends are "feminised". Boys generally are discouraged from "roaring down the stairs brandishing weapons and playing cowboys". She notes that boys have a "pointlessly aggressive streak", which cannot be wished away.
She's right about that. Boys are aggressive. Agressive and competitive. Boys are naturally - and yes, nature, not nurture - much more aggressive and competitive than girls.
This move to lessen the aggression and competitiveness of boys is also one of the key reasons for boys falling behind in education. Boys need a much more disciplined environment. That aggression and competitiveness has to be properly focused and put to work to encourage boys to learn. All this "understanding" is only playing into boys' hands when they desire to be doing anything other than learning.
Another problem for boys in modern society is that there aren't enough of them around. From my observation, girls can be happy only when they play in small numbers. 2 or 3 at most. Boys, however, like to play (& hunt?) in packs. Modern society's smaller families have eliminated this prospect for many boys. When I was a kid, my 3 brothers and I could always find another 6 or 7 boys to play ball with. That's no longer true in most US (and I'm guessing, UK) neighborhoods. Families are smaller, houses are more spread out, both of which reduce the chance of a "pick-up" game breaking out. Boys are lucky to find another 1 or 2 boys to play with.
{One of the benefits of living in a non-descript housing estate in suburban Dublin is that there are just under 4 million children living in the 100 houses in the neighborhood. I don't think we'd get that in the US.}
Her point about books for boys not being masculine enough was interesting, only, I couldn't help wondering if boys read books. I guess I did for a while when I was a kid. I read the Hardy Boys - the first 6 or 7 were the best - but after that I have no memory of reading anything for about 4-5 years (ages 9-14). Other than the sports pages, that is.
I could live without Germain Greer's "appreciation of the beauty of young men". Also, preventing boys from expressing themselves ("girls suck") doesn't have to be because such expressions are "womanunfriendly and divisive", but because such expressions are crude and vulgar. I would discourage my son from saying "girls suck", but if he said he "can't stand girls", that would be fine by me.
