Boys NEED role models

Thankfully, there's plenty of really great ones available despite what you might be being told.

I was recently talking at a secondary school.

It had been mentioned that around the year 10 age, some of the boys were moving towards the misogyny of incels led by the fidgety and intrusive hand of Andrew Tait. I thought it best to place my short Greta Thunberg poem into the mix. The tale of her fast and crushing reply to Tait showing off about having thirty three cars that go brum brum brum very loudly. Her reply to his boast that he would sent images of his big big fast fast cars to her was met with a “yes, please do enlighten me. Email me at smalldickenergy@getalife.com"

Greta Thunberg speaking at a rally in Denver. Photo by Andy Bosselman

Tait did not take it well.

A handful of year 10 boys then suggested I listen to some podcasts that promoted woman-fearing ideology.

What encouraged me was the teachers attitude to this.

Not only are they aware, they are taking it seriously.

These are not the days of “Come on, Debbie, boys will be boys, you need to develop a thicker skin” etc etc etc.

With mainstream politics becoming an increasingly garish showground for the regressive and lazily bigoted, this is not a time to bat away concerns with a “thety’ll grow out of it and, you know, all in all, the world is moving forward”. Sometimes, before we can move forward, we first have to keep moving to stay where we are.

I often here that boys are in trouble because they lack role models.

“Where are the Jordan Petersons and Andrew Taits and Joe Rogans of the progressive and/or the left??”

An equal and opposite bigotry doesn’t really help.

Bigotry travels fast and is potent because it is propelled by the negative and negative feelings are far easier to spread and monetise because they require less thought. They are not about change, but about lazy presumptions. They don’t require a change of opinion, but the reigniting of something that lies within, the fear of people who are “not like us”, ethnically, sexually, philosophically.

The bemoaning of the lack of male role models seems to be ignoring a reality, a reality which includes many of the English football team such as Marcus Rashford, characters in Ted Lasso, Michael Rosen, Bruce Springsteen, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Tennant, James Acaster, Daniel Kaluuya, Joe Lycett, Chris Packham, Steve Backshall, Daniel Radcliffe, Tim Peake…

Look at the way both Tim Peake and Andy Murray will pick up interviews when they forget women astronauts or tennis player’s achievements.

England Forward Marcus Rashford.

Or how Ultimate Fighting Champion Paddy PImblett used a 2022 victory to talk about suicide and opening up and continues to discuss his own mental health.

But beyond all that, surely what we really need is to move on. To create a world where the sex of your role model doesn’t matter, that first and foremost it is about their brilliance as a human rather than about one of their chromosomes. We are still in the blue or pink romper outfit stage and we really should be further on than that.

Boys NEED role models

Or we’ll Mollycoddle them to disillusionment

Disavow then of their power

Their right to lead

Should we Gove them men with muscle

Make them tussle

Let them become the Marlboro Man.

Show them what they can truly achieve

With fine examples of prime meat

People who refused to accept defeat

Let them be inspired to be

As mighty as Greta

As brave as Malala

Or Kamala

Or MAYA ANGELOU

Let them dream off space with Tereshkova, Cristoferritti and Sharman

Or take to the stage like DOLLY PARTON

Teach them to take a seated stand like Rosa Parks

You can have a spark without needing to “grow a pair”

To breath revolution into the air

We will only be fully grown

When the letter of our chromosome

Can be Y or X

And role models can be any sex.