Boys To Men: Where The Trouble Is

Submitted by Mastodon on Fri, 2013-07-12 01:48

Article here. Excerpt:

'Some thirty years ago educators and social science types, motivated in part by the women’s movement but also by real gaps in achievement between boys and girls, began to recognize the need to address the particular educational and emotional needs of girls, and to fashion opportunities in the classroom and elsewhere that would allow girls to flourish. As the father of a teenage daughter I am grateful for this; my child has opportunities and accommodations that were not available to girls when I was a teenager, and that were undreamed of when my mother was her age.

But however real the disadvantages faced by girls in an earlier generation, I cannot be the only one to notice that the demographic that is really in trouble today, and that needs our attention, is boys and young men. This is not an original observation — as early as the 1990s some began talking about a “crisis” in the education of boys. There was push-back, I believe, from feminist quarters as well as some disputing the statistics about educational achievement; I’m no expert in education so I’d leave it to those who are to sort out these controversies.'

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Starts well, then goes into two places I have issues with. :) First, the author makes young men out to be, by and large, categorically dangerous, just waiting like bombs to "go off" at a moment's notice, killing everyone they can.

I'd like to point out that for every such action taken by a young man, many more young men do no such things-- many, many more. It just isn't a fair or accurate characterization. Would it be fair to characterize young women as all false rape accusers just waiting for the chance to "go off" and start hurling accusations?

Second, as a fix, he's basically advocating the same approach as Robert Bly and the mythopoetic initiation-oriented approach to help young men deal with the move into adulthood. This has been tried and two things have been revealed: for right or wrong, it hasn't caught on. This doesn't mean it is bad or unproductive/non-useful. Indeed such initiatory rites of passage may, when combined with a genuine psycho-emotionally significant kind of event, do the person a lot of good. Same could be said for women though, too. The next question is, what will be the event? What rites to use? What to do when something "goes wrong"? Groups that used to do this kind of thing or currently do have had to deal w/ these questions. In addition, the opportunity for abusing such processes either intentionally or not is very great. Certain orgs that are involved in these activities have come under scrutiny and courted controversy, either rightly or wrongly. The practical matter of liabilities as well as trying to maintain the basic benignness and effectiveness of such programs is a significant organizational challenge. Eventually, something happens.

But as I said, on a per-person basis, it may well be just the thing they need. I am just saying, there are complex issues around this approach that need to be carefully considered. And would it have prevented the Newtown mass-murder if the murderer had gone through some kind if initiatory experience conducted by men? Hard to say. Would he have gone to such an event if it had been made readily available to him? Can't say.

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Submitted by Matt on Fri, 2013-07-12 02:26