Response to The Guardian newspaper’s survey on boys’ attitudes towards girls

Feb 6

The Guardian newspaper launched a survey a few days ago, asking “what do you think of boys’ attitudes towards girls in the UK today?”

Given the Guardian’s previous stories on this topic, it seems likely that most of their readers will give them answers that reflect the opinion that boys’ views about girls are created by nefarious online influencers. For this reason I think it can be useful for people who have other ideas about this topic to take the time to share these views.

Here is what I submitted to the Guardian’s survey. The main question was: “Whether you're a parent, a teacher or a community worker, tell us what your thoughts are on boys' attitudes towards girls today, and what you think is shaping them”.

My response was:

“I don’t think you can generalise about boys’ attitudes to girls. Attitudes will vary depend on various factors, such as personality, social background etc. The more important question is what is shaping their attitudes, and whether it is for the good. My recent survey of 4000 men found that younger men are more likely than older men to believe that masculinity makes them inclined to be violent towards women. This raises the question: where did the younger men get this idea? The answers is that masculinity has become devalued and misunderstood in our culture, and the idea that masculinity makes men behave badly to women is pervasive. It can be seen in the Guardian newspaper, universities, the government and even in the classroom. In my opinion, this toxic narrative about masculinity is a key influence of boys’ attitudes.

Whatever the intention behind the narrative is, it is likely to be having a negative impact on boys. Boys will vary in how they respond. For example, some boys will internalise the negativity about masculinity and become withdrawn. Others will internalise the negative view of masculinity a make it a self-fulfilling prophesy, embodying all the negative things they are told epitomise masculinity. Others will reject masculinity altogether and strive to become the opposite of masculine. This pervasive narrative, which uses terms like ‘toxic masculinity’ or ‘hegemonic masculinity’, is poison to boys.

My recent survey also found that the more negative a man’s view of masculinity, the worse his mental wellbeing. My paper on the survey concluded: “If we want men to have good mental health, a useful strategy might be to help them to appreciate the ways in which their masculinity can have a positive impact on their behavior and the people around them. You can find my survey here https://ijhs.qu.edu.sa/index.php/journal/article/view/7968/1173 ”

It’s unlikely that my comments will have much influence, if any, but my hope is that they might be read by someone at the Guardian and at least give them pause for thought before the publication of another article that agonises about the attitude of boys to girls but leaves out an essential part of the picture.

For those of you who are interested in my survey, I have written a brief article about it here, and the full text of the research paper can be downloaded for free here. You can respond to The Guardian’s survey here.

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