Where are young men’s voices in the gender debate?

I agree. Certainly among my two sons and their friends there seems to be appetite to discuss some of these issues among themselves and indeed with their female friends. So it is curious and I wonder if it is sometimes that they simply aren’t asked to contribute. It seems that in the media the go to position appears to be to ask specific groups “representing” women. Almost like the high victorian/edwardian notion that women are the natural guardians of morality we appear to have transmuted this into the modern “orthodox” morality “political correctness” (for want of a better term) where aain certain groups of people are quite clearly given the platform. I suspect that this then feeds into what people feel it is legitimate to bang on about.
Even in research its quite striking how often there are pontifications about what boys or men think or do, based on only asking girls and women the questions.
So in subtle ways the cuture retains this area of life as a form of female preserve.
In not so subtle ways women and men who express their views are frequently attacked and labelled all sorts of things, even though from my reading many the original comments are quite straightforward. Again it appears to be axiomatic that contrary views will be in some way dangerous and doubly so if expressed by a male, consequently the growing internet presence of male friendly blogs etc. appears to provoke a crushing response whatever the actual content.
In conclusion there are a variety of ways that males get the message that looking at their issues,things that concern them or their perspectives are somehow not “legit”. It is a different version of the “puppy dogs tails” division of the past and is ironic in its very traditional basis.
At the very root is also a notion that men are responsible. One can see it in so many ways where the negative results (in education or health for instance) are the cummulative results of individual males failings (convenient for the servies that should be doing better) and therefore males are “undeserving” and any focus distracts from the deserving.
As an entirely personal observation this seems to feed into young men in particular (the sample being only my children’s circle) being deeply cynical about institutions that they regard as applying a double standard to them. At the moment this appears to be regarded with a form of fatalism,that somehow their expectations are that females will be favoured as a sort of given. I can’t help think this combination of factors may provoke anger. The real paradox from my observation of the younger generation is that they have been given a stronger sense of fairness and equity (than in my day where there were still taught about ladies and gentlemen)and thus can quite clearly identify double standards and they observe and comment on those double standards ,expect them. Leading to a deep sullen cynicism about the very progressives that supposedly embody these ideals. There are two things that often come back to my mind,one a comment “its like keep being shouted at for something I haven’t done” and the other the pro feminist Michael Kaufman who observed that people like him should listen more to young men about their exeriences otherwise they would “be percieved as telling lies”.