I’ve written a book! Out 19 November (International Men’s Day), 'What A Man Is Not: New Rules for Masculinity' aims to transform how we think and talk about men. Pre-order it here: https://t.co/GMjDWn9i0s (Pre-orders dictate what bookshops stock – they make a BIG difference!)
Far too often people pay lip service to the idea that we take issues facing boys and men seriously, but fail to put that into practice when it comes to actually changing the way services work.
The Independent Inquiry into White Working Class Educational Outcomes is vitally important. It also essentially ignores the specific problems faced by boys in a way I'm truly shocked by. 🧵
There is no plausible world in which today, if girls were doing vastly less well than boys in any given service, that would be swept aside and its importance explicitly diminished in this kind of report.
Men have specific needs and issues that are not adequately addressed. We need designated advocates giving voice to those needs and addressing those issues built into the way our services are designed and delivered.
Great to see the BBC tackling this - men are often sidelined in fertility conversations and by fertility services. I think the answer is designated advocacy for men in areas like these. 🧵https://t.co/TTwxl3aWw6
The common counterargument is men’s health throughout history has been treated as the default, and there’s a lot of truth to that. But those same age-old prejudices lie behind men being an afterthought in areas like fertility.
Misogynistic grifters and charlatans currently hold a monopoly on validating the entirely legitimate anger boys and young men have about issues like these. We need a pro-feminist alternative that channels that anger into positive change.
Perhaps this is a function of other features of boys: they are, on average, more naughty, present their work less neatly, focus their talents and energy across a narrower range of subjects. Regardless, the institutional bias is still there, as is the urgent need to address it.
Great to be on @bbc5live yesterday talking Gareth Southgate and whether we need to "teach boys differently". (We don't! Here is an area doing better for boys is most obviously not a zero-sum game - what narrows the gender gap improves outcomes for girls in absolute terms too.)
And it's funding to enable all that to happen, rather than spending billions on supply teachers. While there isn’t much spare cash in government right now, the path to future prosperity is through a better-educated workforce. That path promises better gender relations too.
I love Gareth Southgate, and it's great that he's taking the underperformance of boys at school seriously. But there's good evidence here and the answer is not to "teach boys differently." It's the opposite. What works for everyone works best for boys. https://t.co/3KhvL5zZI8
It's consistent discipline and high expectations and delivering information in bite-sized chunks. It's teachers who know what they're talking about and are able to build positive, mutually respectful relationships with their students.