Teachers describe a deterioration in behaviour and attitudes that has proved to be fertile terrain for misogynistic influencers
“As soon as I mention feminism, you can feel the shift in the room; they’re shuffling in their seats.” Mike Nicholson holds workshops with teenage boys about the challenges of impending manhood. Standing up for the sisterhood, it seems, is the last thing on their minds.
When Nicholson says he is a feminist himself, “I can see them look at me, like, ‘I used to like you.’”
Once Nicholson, whose programme is called Progressive Masculinity, unpacks the fact that feminism means equal rights and opportunities for women, many of the boys with whom he works are won over.
“A lot of it is bred from misunderstanding and how the word is smeared,” he says.
But he is battling against what he calls a “dominance-based model” of masculinity. “These old-fashioned, regressive ideas are having a renaissance, through your masculinity influencers – your grifters, like Andrew Tate.”
Everything you just said is due to the patriarchy and is toxic masculinity.
You’re completely right though. Men and boys have issues and there are a lot of people out there that have already made their mind up that the problem is men and will use any evidence or stories and manipulate it into it being mens fault and feminism being so great that is has no issues.
It honestly reminds me of the creationists arguments of old.
Boys are getting the short end of the stick and they look around for anyone, absolutely any person that is in their corner that is willing to defend them. They then find Tate. If boys had the support, the lack of orginal sin of being male, and more equal world (instead of just women’s issues being addressed) they wouldn’t give a shit what Tate has to say.