UK: No wonder young men have a problem with self-esteem

Article here. Excerpt:

'The emotional needs of young women have (quite rightly) been discussed at length by experts, journalists and politicians over the past five years. Yet what those who present low self-esteem and body insecurity as "feminist" issues fail to grasp is that their male counterparts are struggling just as much, they are simply less able to articulate their needs. After all, generations of social conditioning tells us that men don't "do" feelings.

I walk into a classroom of today’s teenage boys and I see a large majority overstimulated by 24 hour internet access, jittery from the sheer pace of their lives, sometimes apathetic towards a society from which they feel utterly disenfranchised, occasionally asserting a kind of laddish, vaguely misogynistic aggression in an attempt to carve some sort of identity for themselves.

Great swathes of their generation have fathers who are absent, either physically or emotionally, and have probably spent their school years being taught by women. In the absence of male role models, many have turned to social media and online pornography to learn about life’s fundamentals. If they have any doubts about their personal and social rejection, they need only refer to our press, which has taken to harping on relentlessly about how men are the enemy in the name of female empowerment.

As someone who regularly attends meetings at Parliament to discuss ways in which the Government can help young people navigate the toxic culture we have created for them, I often find myself wanting to scream when it is assumed we are only there to discuss the vulnerabilities of a female demographic. Make no mistake, a beauty and fitness industry which has relentlessly pursued the male market over the past decade, coupled with the increasingly visual nature of a society which communicates almost exclusively via the net, has taken its toll on young men.

Having said that, the ways in which this vulnerability manifests itself is completely different. Teenage girls tend to be self-analytical and eager to communicate. They know what their issues are and how they have arisen and they want a practical solution. It is much, much harder to approach any kind of pastoral issue with a teenage boy. Ask them to explain how they feel and they’ll usually shrug. Given time, patience and reassurances that their feelings are valued and important, the blood will begin to pour forth from the proverbial stone.'