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Crap dad cartoon: sexist or funny?

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There’s a brilliant short cartoon that’s been doing the rounds on social media and is stirring up a big debate about the way dads are portrayed in popular culture. The one minute animation—“I’ll get the ice-creams”—has been broadcast by the BBC who describe it as follows:

“A man is left to look after his kids while his wife goes to fetch some ice creams. Result = chaos.”

As I watched it for the first time I was at first delighted by the beautifully timed slapstick of the piece, which showed a hapless parent struggling to prevent two young children from hilarious pratfalls. As I watched with glee, my inner gender warrior also asking:”Is that a man?”; “Is it a dad?”; “Is it a generic androgynous parent struggling with kids or is it another sexist portrayal of a useless dad?.”

And then the pay-off arrived, as the competent wife and mum returns to discover the chaos that (according to stereotype) is bound to ensue when you leave children to be cared for by a man.

So then the question arose in me, is this funny or is this sexist? I took to social media to find out how people were responding and here’s a selection of what people said. Firstly some men and women seemed to relate to the comedy in the cartoon:

Arthur Cruz: “God I can imagine that being me when I become a dad xD.”

Irene Adler: “This is not only funny but very accurate.”

Martina Ni Riain Downey: “This is what most women imagine will happen if they leave dad alone with the kids for five minutes.”

David King Wonder: “Kids with dad alone is never a good idea… LOL. I HOPE THEY STILL ALIVE.”

Glenda Carr: “I agree David, many times I left the girls home with their dad for a few hours and got back & my clean home looked like a tornado hit, I was like WTF happened in here?! Lolol.”

Tara Kennedy: “I agree with David men find it a LOT harder than women to care for children bless them, oh well.”

Taking a stand for dads

Then I started to see something interesting happen as men stepped forward and challenged the stereotype that dads are helpless with kids:

Rob Anthony: “I take care of all three of mine from morning till evening before my day begins. Ya’ll must be some sorry a$$ people to believe that.”

Graham Johnston: “You guys need better partners.”

David J Brown: “Good to see gender stereotyping & sexism is alive and well.”

Al Moanin Koasohr Eperiam: “Believe it or not there are a lot of men out there that knows how to take care of children better than the moms.”

Mums supporting dads 

And some mums waded in on the side of dads:

Renee Neri: “I hate going to the playground and my husband is actually MUCH better than me playing with them in the playground, am tired of videos making fun of dads, they are great and constantly trying to help….we need to stop putting dads down.”

Jessica Nitschke: “How sad that women don’t choose to have children with men they believe are capable of taking care of their children properly  I am blessed to be able to leave & know 100% that our children will be taken care of, the house will be in order & that I don’t have to worry! Thank God I made a smart informed decision!”

Sense of humour bypass?

Just as I was feeling justified in my belief that this cartoon is a bit sexist against men, I spotted another group of people commenting who made me wonder if I was having a sense of humour bypass:

Kelly Jo: “Can’t you just laugh? Maybe your day would be brighter.”

Metasymplocos: “Damn it’s an ANIMATION! stop trying to put your real life issues in it! Gees!” I enjoyed it!

I remembered that before my inner gender warrior kicked in, I was enjoying the skillfully crafted comedy in the film. Why, oh why, oh why can I not just laugh at funny stuff? I guess it’s because of the double standards. I guess it’s because jokes that stereotype men are tolerated in ways that jokes stereotyping women aren’t.

Maybe if I felt free to laugh at both men and women then  I wouldn’t be so critical. And  then I saw this comment and it made me feel like some kind of balance had been restored:

OhFishyFish: “Bet it took her so long because she had to park the car. :p”

Humour is often about context (you had to be there!). I don’t personally find jokes about women drivers funny, but as a riposte to a sexist joke about men, it was witty put down that speaks a thousand words about the sexist double standards that are reflected in the humour we will and won’t laugh at.

So what do you think? Is this cartoon sexist or funny?

—Photo:flickr/Fabio Di Lupo

By Glen Poole 

In the run up to the launch of a new film on Fatherhood called DOWN DOG, insideMAN will be publishing a series of articles about fatherhood and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com.  

Down Dog is released in selected cinemas on 14 February 2015. For more information see www.downdogfilm.com

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook.

Women dominate as university gender gap doubles

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The gap between the number of men and women entering higher education in the UK has doubled in under a decade from around 29,000 to 58,000, according to the latest statistics from UCAS.

The latest figures for 2014 also show that two thirds of university courses are now dominated by women. On some courses, such as teaching, nursing and social work, nine out of ten students are female. Last year Dr Mary Curnock Cook, chief executive of UCAS, raised concern about the growing university gender gap saying:

“There remains a stubborn gap between male and female applicants which, on current trends, could eclipse the gap between rich and poor within a decade. Young men are becoming a disadvantaged group in terms of going to university and this underperformance needs urgent focus across the education sector.”

Key Facts:

  • 512,370 students placed in higher education through UCAS in 2014
  • 44.4% male
  • 55.6% female
  • In 2006, 29,780 more women entered university than men
  • In 2014, 57,790 more women entered university than men
  • Women now 27.7% more likely to enter higher education
  • Women outnumber men in two thirds of university courses

Gender Divide By Subject Area:

  • Nursing 90.9% female students
  • Dance 90.1% female students
  • Education 88% female students
  • Social Work 87.6% female students
  • Engineering 84,7% male students
  • Building 84.7% male students
  • Animal Science 84.3% female students
  • Computer Science 82.3% male students
  • Technology 80.9% male students
  • Psychology 80.6% female students

—Photo: UNE Photos/flickr

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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Making sense of being a 21st Century father

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What will fatherhood look like by the end of the 21st Century? In 2013, insideMAN’s news editor, Glen Poole, was invited to join a panel at the Men’s Health Gathering in Australia to discuss the topic “21st Century Man”. Here he provides a summary of some of the key ideas he covered in this talk.

I remember the 21st Century starting. My daughter was two at the time and my immediate family joined us at our home in London to celebrate. It was the last Christmas I spent in my marital home.

Up until then, I’d had the extraordinary privilege of being a full-time “house husband” spending every day with a little girl, watching her grow day by day. But my wife left and soon after I received a letter from her solicitor, which said:

“You made a valid contribution in the first two years of your daughter’s life but it is no longer in her best interest that you look after her.”

That’s when I began to discover the raw deal that separated dads can get in the UK and that’s when I got interested in “men’s work”— which is ultimately, how I ended up, 14 years later, speaking at the National Men’s Health Gathering in Brisbane about “21st Century Man”.

Women and children first 

I started by looking back over 100 years to the sinking of the Titanic, the greatest single symbol of the historic belief that men as protectors should put women and children first:

  • 100% of children in first and second class survived
  • 75% of all women on board survived
  • Only 20% of men on board survived

I considered the deaths of millions of men in the 1914-1918 war, men with no right to vote, many of whom were collectively shamed into dying for their country.

At the time of speaking my daughter was 16 and had just started Sixth Form college next door to where I live. She was popping in and out on a daily basis and I became aware that it was the first time in 14 years that she’d been in my life on a daily basis in this way.

Everyday fatherhood 

It made me realise that when I was looking forward to the 21st Century back in 1999, my expectation was that I would continue to be with her every day—but things change and sometimes we need to stop and reflect and make sense of that change.

My opportunity to be a stay-at-home-dad arose because my wife was a lawyer and earned considerably more than I did. It was 1922 when the very first woman in the UK became a lawyer. I can’t imagine what it was like being the only woman in a profession dominated by men. Whatever the experience was like, it didn’t open the floodgates. Fifty years later in 1972, just 3% of lawyers were women.

But now, another forty-or-so years later, law is a profession that is evenly split between the sexes and two-thirds of people who attend law school, the next generation of lawyers, are now women. So things can and do change very quickly in the world of gender.

Can men’s roles change too?

I wonder what the world would be like if men could undergo such radical change too? Imagine if men could undergo a similar transition in the areas where we are unequal and/or significantly under-represented.

Forty or fifty years ago, gender roles were very clearly divided: broadly speaking, men were the providers and women were the carers

There’s been a huge diversification of roles since then. Women have a greater diversity of choices. They can provide for themselves and others; they can be a full-time carer who’s provided for; or they can combine providing and caring. When you look at the categories that women fall into, there’s a fairly even spread across these different groups.

When you look at men’s experiences, our roles have diversified too, but to a far lesser extent. There seem to be fewer choices for men, fewer ways to be man. Most men who become fathers will still become the main providers in their families and fit in a bit of caring on the side.

Who cares for men? 

Very few men will have the experience of being provided and cared for in our relationships and that unavoidable fact seems to help create the other category of men—the invisible men, the men who are homeless, excluded, isolated, unemployed, imprisoned, suicidal and lonely. The men who, for whatever reason, are unable to care and provide for themselves, let alone others.

These invisible men are generally boys we have failed, collectively, to nurture; boys our society has failed in some way; boys who we have somehow denied the opportunity to grow up to be either a carer or a provider in life.

How different would our world have to be to stop 90% of homeless people being male; 95% of prisoners being male; 78% of suicides being male? How much more care and concern would we all have to give to men and boys to make this happen?

It would take a radical change that matches the rise of women in the professional world. It will take men, en masse, claiming their right to enter the world of care—for masculinity and femininity to evolve in way that it is natural for men and boys to care and be cared for.

Gender isn’t rigid

As I look to the future, as I look ahead a century, I can see that greater choice is slowly becoming available to the next generation of men and boys. History shows us that gender isn’t rigid.

The way men and women live their lives now, would be unrecognisable to our Edwardian ancestors. And the way our descendants will live their lives by the end of the 21st Century will be unrecognisable to men and women today.

If gender isn’t rigid how will it change over the next 100 years? For me, gender is comprised of a diverse range of quality’s and experiences that we call “masculine” and “feminine”. There’s lots of evidence to show women’s experience of gender has diversified much more than men’s, but that masculinity is also diversifying and evolving in a parallel way.

This isn’t simply about women becoming more like men or men becoming more like women—though there may of course be examples we can point to of women being more “masculine” and men becoming more “feminine”—it’s about men becoming more flexible and adaptable and ultimately having more freedom and choice when it comes to being a man.

And there is probably no better place for us to develop that flexibility and adaptability than in our roles as fathers to our sons and daughters who will be the ones to reshape gender in the 21st Century.

—Photo: flickr/CarbonNYC

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

See Also:

In the run up to the launch of a new film on Fatherhood called DOWN DOG, insideMAN will be publishing a series of articles about fatherhood and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com.  

Down Dog is released in selected cinemas on 14 February 2015. For more information see www.downdogfilm.com

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook

Five people I really hate now I’m a dad!

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UK daddy blogger, The DADventurer, used to think he was the kind of men who didn’t let much get to him…….and then he became a dad!

I’ve realised though that this part of me died, or at least left home, when Baby L (my daughter) disembarked the mothership six months ago. Whatever the reasons, I’m now more annoyed, wound up and pissed off than I used to be, which is a bit of a problem when there are so many muppets in the world purposefully trying to aggravate me on a daily basis.

I either didn’t use to care, or more likely, didn’t realise that these people were annoying until I became a dad and was required to go different places and do different things to that of a childless, married man.

I therefore want to share with you the different groups of people that really get on my tits, partly as anger therapy and partly to get you to stop being annoying if you are one of these people

ONE: People Who Use Parent And Child Spaces:  The good folk at supermarkets, shopping centres etc had the great idea of creating parking spaces for the sole use of parents with children. Often wider than your normal space and closer to the entrance, the clue really is in the name, but still, some plebs decide that they have the right to park there even if they don’t have a child. I was raised to be polite, be courteous and respect rules, so I just don’t get what goes through people’s heads when a sole shopper purposefully chooses to park somewhere which is designed for someone else. There’s nothing more annoying than waiting for a parent and child space to become available or choosing to park somewhere else because there isn’t enough space, only to see some trumped up bloke in a suit return to his Audi parked where it shouldn’t be. What a dickhead

TWO: People Who Park On The Curb:  People who live near us have decided that it is acceptable to park half on the curb and half off the curb with their car. Pretty harmless, isn’t it? No, not really when I’m expected to walk in the middle of the road with my wife and little baby because we can’t physically get passed your shitmobile which you’ve selfishly parked on the pavement. A pavement is for pedestrians, a road is for a car, you massive imbecile. If I was in charge, I’d put a blanket ban on pavement parking in order to protect those people with a pushchair or in a wheelchair etc who have little desire to participate in what can only be likened to the obstacle course from Wipeout.

THREE: People Who Use Lifts, But Don’t Need To:  When you have a pushchair, shops become a more difficult place to visit. If it’s not the weaving in between racks of clothes which are too closely situated together, then it is a (sometimes) endless search for a lift to get to other floors. We all know that lift designers intentionally built them to go as slow as possible, so when they do arrive, what is more annoying than waiting in line or being unable to enter because of other people using the lift when they don’t need to. Again, stop being selfish and putting other people out when you have an option of using the stairs or escalator when they don’t. Obviously, those with disabilities which you can or can’t see should get priority, but I shouldn’t need to wait because of the three fat women too lazy to walk up the stairs or the hyperactive kids who think that a lift is a new game. (P.S. for anyone who says being fat is a disability, it’s not, you’re just fat).

FOUR: People Who Don’t Clean Up After Themselves:  I’ll set the scene. You are in the supermarket. You’ve just heard a massive, squelchy fart come from the babies direction and realise they’ve crapped their pants. You head over to the baby change facility and are relieved to see that it is vacant. You open the door, but are immediately struck by the pig sty scene you find in front of you. Used nappies on the side, wet wipes hanging out of the bin and questionable stains on the changing mat. You’ve then got to spend time trying to make the place as clean and usable as possible whilst your little one festers in her own waste. I appreciate that these facilities exist and understand that they can’t be kept spotless, but it doesn’t take much to put used nappies into a bin or wipe up your child’s faeces which are strewn across the mirror before you depart. Life would be so much better if everyone was that bit more considerate, but instead we live in a world wear people use and abuse these public facilities without giving a seconds thought to the person that next walks through the door.

FIVE: People Without Kids: That’s right. All you people out there who haven’t created life before, I hate you. I hate that your life is simple. I hate that your life doesn’t revolve around a milk-drinking leach. I hate that you don’t have to take nappies and wet wipes with you wherever you go. I hate that you can have a solid night’s sleep. But more importantly, I hate that you don’t understand what life with a baby is like and that you try to understand but fail miserably. Saying things like “It’s only a stage, I’m sure it’ll pass”, “Oh, she hardly ever cries, does she” or “You’re looking a bit tired today”, isn’t helpful and will more than likely result in you experiencing physical pain. Just wait until you have a baby and can experience our pain. Then I’m going to recite the things that you said to me whilst I enjoy the fact that you have bags under your eyes and baby sick on your shirt. Just you wait.

So, that’s the five groups of people that I’ve realised that I hate now that I’ve become a dad. Does any of this ring true with you? Is there anyone you started hating once you became a parent? Let me know in the comments below so that we can bitch and whine about it together.

—Photo credit: Flickr/Adam McGhee

The DADventurer is a UK daddy blogger who describes himself as a late-twenty something, happily married, newbie Dad. You can find follow his blog The DADventurer, where you’ll find him chronicling the trials and tribulations of being a new dad whilst juggling the pressures that come with modern life. You can also follow him on twitter @the_dadventurer or on facebook at The DADventurer.

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We want to hear your fatherhood stories

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Are you a dad? Do you have a fatherhood story to tell? If so we want to hear from you!

We’ve joined forces with the makers of a new film about fatherhood to get more dads involved in conversations with other dads about their experience of, you guessed it, being a dad.

In the next few weeks we aim to publish dozens of articles about fatherhood written by you, the dads of Britain (and beyond). We’re calling this initiative #MenBehavingDADly because the writer of the film we’ve teamed up with is Simon Nye, writer of the hugely popular sitcom Men Behaving Badly.

Simon’s new film,  Down Dog, follows the heroic struggle of an emotionally absent father as he tries to build a relationship with his teenage son. That’s the film’s fatherhood story—but what’s yours?

DADpreneur 

Maybe you want to tell us about being a DADpreneur who balances work and family or maybe you’re a full-time stay-at-home-dad with a tale to tell.

You could be a champion of young fathers or a younger dad who has a view on how old is too old to be a dad.

You may be a political dad like Labour councillor Ralph Berry who’s keen to make a difference for dads in his city, or a supporter of better rights for separated dads like UKIP’s Deputy Chair, Suzanne Evans.

Maybe you’re a dad with strong opinions, who’s sick of big brands ridiculing fathers or ignoring dads altogether. Or perhaps you have an expert opinion to share on the way advertisers portray dads or some personal observations about the etiquette of men pushing prams.

DAD tips 

You could have views about what it takes to be a great dad or have some great fatherhood tips to pass on to other dads, like some advice on giving “the talk” to your teenage daughter’s boyfriend.

You may want to share your struggles with personal issues like being an unemployed dad, dealing with a miscarriage or going into counselling because your shouting at your kids.

Maybe you have questions you want to contemplate like whether we should buy kids gender neutral presents or encourage your sons to play with dolls, like Torsten Klaus who thinks we need to create a new generation of fathers.

DAD legacy 

You might want to contemplate the legacy you could pass on to your children, share a funny story about being a dad or reflect on your relationship with your own father.

Maybe you’re a campaigning dad who wants to explain why you staged a public protest or a thoughtful dad who wants to work out if he’s a masculine or feminine father (and consider which one is best).

Or maybe you have a view on why the NSPCC thinks we value fathers less than mothers and why some employers pay mums 60 times more parental leave pay than dads.

All of these stories have appeared here at insideMAN in the past few months and if you’d like to add to our evolving conversation on all aspects of fatherhood then we’d love to hear from you.

—Photo: Flickr/Paul Downey

In the run up to the Down Dog‘s launch on 14 February, insideMAN will be running a series of articles about fatherhood and we’d love you to get involved. You can join the conversation on twitter by using the hashtag #MenBehavingDADly; leave a comment in the section below or email us with your thoughts and ideas for articles to insideMANeditor@gmail.com

For more information see www.downdogfilm.com

 

 

 

 

Male circumcision can be worse than FGM rules senior judge

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One of the country’s most senior judges has courted controversy by declaring that male circumcision can be more harmful than female genital mutilation (FGM).

Sir James Munby acknowledged he was entering “deep waters” by highlighting inconsistencies in the law, but said it would be “irrational” to dispute the fact that male circumcision can be more harmful than some forms of FGM. The High Court judge made the comments as he passed judgment in care proceedings brought by a local authority seeking to take a brother and sister, from a Muslim family, into care on the grounds that the girl was a victim of Type IV FGM.

While the case failed on the grounds that damage to the girl’s genitals was probably caused by a condition called vulvovaginitis, Munby, who is president of the family division, felt compelled to highlight the sexist double standard that the case brought to light.

In summing up the judge noted that while subjecting a girl to Type IV FGM could result in that child being taken into care, male circumcision would not lead to a boy being removed from his family, even though the procedure is more harmful than at least some forms of Type IV FGM.

An inconvenient truth 

Campaigners against male circumcision have long been hampered by the myth that subjecting girls to FGM is different and always worse than circumcising boys.

The uncomfortable truth, to which Munby has now given judicial credibility, is that male circumcision is different and sometimes worse than FGM.

This is particularly true of Type IV FGM which incorporates practices such as pricking, piercing and nicking the genitals, which are less harmful and invasive than removing the foreskin in it’s entirety.

Male circumcision in the UK is often performed without anaesthetic, in non-medical conditions and can cause complications such as life threatening haemorrhage, shock, sepsis an in extreme cases death.

In 2012 a Freedom of Information request revealed that two boys a week are admitted to the emergency department of Birmingham children’s hospital as a result of male circumcision.

Society more tolerant of male circumcision 

However, despite Munby’s assessment that ”on any objective view” male circumcisions is sometimes worse than FGM, he also made clear that current judicial thinking is that there is no equivalence between the two practices.

“In 2015 ,” he said in his judgment, “the law generally, and family law in particular, is still prepared to tolerate non-therapeutic male circumcision performed for religious or even for purely cultural or conventional reasons, while no longer being willing to tolerate FGM in any of its forms.

“Given the comparison between what is involved in male circumcision and FGM WHO Type IV, to dispute that the more invasive procedure involves the significant harm involved in the less invasive procedure would seem almost irrational. In my judgment, if FGM Type IV amounts to significant harm, as in my judgment it does, then the same must be so of male circumcision.”

The phrase “significant harm” is important as this is the first threshold that must be crossed before a child can be taken into care under section 31 of the Children’s Act 1989. There is another criteria which must also be considered in care proceedings and this is whether the care given to a child is “what would be reasonable to expect a parent to give”.

Why the law is different 

According to Munby, while it can never be reasonable parenting to inflict any form of FGM on a child, the position is quite different with male circumcision.

Munby argued that there are at least two important distinctions between the two practices. Firstly, that FGM has no basis in any religion, while male circumcision is often performed for religious reasons. Secondly, that while FGM is said to have no medical justification and confers no health benefits; male circumcision is seen by some people as providing hygienic or prophylactic benefits, although opinions are divided.

Even taking the conflicting medical evidence on any perceived benefits into account, Munby concluded that “reasonable” parenting should be seen to permit male circumcision.

And that is where UK law stands on the matter today. The Head of the Family Division of the Family Court has judged that while male circumcision is sometimes worse than FGM, it is deemed to be reasonable for parents of all backgrounds to circumcise their sons, while carrying out a less invasive and less harmful from of Type IV FGM on their daughters is not considered reasonable parental behaviour.

A welcome coup for campaigners

Having a senior judge acknowledge that FGM can be less harmful than male circumcision is a welcome coup for those of us who advocate for the right of every human being to enter adulthood with intact genitals, except in rare cases where therapeutic surgery is unequivocally unavoidable.

The fact that our society, led by politicians and the judiciary, is still prepared to tolerate greater harm happening to boys than to girls, reveals a great deal about the sexist double standards we apply to the issues that affect men and boys in 2015.

The fact that we are collectively more tolerant of the harm that happens to men and boys, than the harm that happens to women and girls, doesn’t begin and end at genital mutilation.

Our shared cultural beliefs that “boys don’t cry”; that men should “man up”; that women have problems and men are problems; that females are the weaker sex and that we should always put the protection of women and girls first; is reflected in our inability to tackle a whole range of social issues that, predominantly impact men and boys, head on.

Why this is a men’s issue

These include male suicide; male homelessness; the high rate of male workplace deaths; men’s lower life expectancy; the expulsion of boys from school; the exclusion and marginalisation of separated fathers from their children’s lives; the way we respond to male victims of violence and the harsher treatment and sentencing of men and boys in the criminal justice system.

What Sir James Munby has uncovered is an inconvenient and important truth about men, manhood and masculinity in 2015 which is simply this—while the harm that happens to men and boys in our society is different and sometimes worse than the harm that happens to women and girls, we still view any harm that women and girls experience more seriously.

Munby is part of the problem he has raised, for while he acknowledges that male circumcision can be more harmful than FGM, he has essentially declared that while it’s reasonable for parents to harm their sons, it is never reasonable to harm their daughters.

Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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Ched Evans should be allowed to play football again, says Professor of sport

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Professor Lincoln Allen, a world-leading scholar of the politics of sport, has called for the convicted rapist, Ched Evan, to be allowed to play professional football again.

In April 2012, Evans was convicted of raping a woman in a hotel room in Wales. According to his legal team he “maintains his absolute innocence and his family, friends and many who know the true facts of the case believe that his conviction was a gross miscarriage of justice”.

Evans’ case is being reviewed by the Criminal Cases Review Commission and in the meantime his attempts to return to football since leaving jail in October 2014 have failed, due to the pressure placed on clubs wishing to sign him.

On Thursday, Oldham Athletic, dropped plans to bring Evans to the club after fans, staff and sponsors received a barrage of abuse including death threats and threats to rape members of their family.

Speaking to BBC Radio Sussex, Professor Allison said:

“This is a very different character from Marlon King who was serially beating up women and who reappeared on the football field without anybody making the fuss that they have about Ched Evans. So I think the press have reacted in many ways and I think a bullying and hypocritical way to this case.”

Asked about the treatment of the female victim who has been the subject of abuse on social media which has led her to change her name and change address, the professor said:

“There’s no justice in vilifying the victim and that’s a function of bullying on social media and obviously I don’t condone that in anyway whatsoever, I’m not defending any of that, but he hasn’t done that.”

However, Allison said he had personal reasons for understanding why Evans hasn’t apologised for the crime, acknowledging the he had been wrongly accused of a minor offence at a university in Australia. He said:

Loopy!

“One of the procedures involved was that I should show some contrition and apologise and I wasn’t going to do that because I didn’t do it, in that sense I have an empathy with him. If you believe yourself to be innocent it would be ridiculous to show contrition. He has always said he was innocent.

Professor Allison also said that the idea that sportsmen should “show a higher moral standard than other people” was “loopy”. He said:

“Professional sportsmen consisting of young males, often from the lower strata of society, often have higher rates of criminality than the population as a whole, so this general expectation that they should be exemplars to us I think is simply a throwback to the days when the England rugby fullback, you know, was a surgeon who stayed up all night saving lives and so on. It’s a legacy of amateurism. It’s not a reasonable expectation of modern professional sportsmen.

“American professional sport in particular is full of people who’ve been in and out of jail. In my view, given that he has served a conviction for a crime that he’s always claimed he didn’t commit—to absolutely ruin his career by not allowing him to do what he does best would be ridiculous.

Can footballers be role models?

“It’s never been invoked in the case of any other footballer whose been accused of a crime. I was going through the list yesterday. George Best spent time in jail, so did Tony Adams, during their careers–okay mostly for offences involving assaults and driving—but they were offences that endangered life, which is a great deal more that what happened in that hotel room ever did.”

Asked whether he would want his sons to have a poster on their wall of Ched Evans as a football hero he said:

“My sons are grown up now and they were both football fans and basically there are not many footballers I would want them to have posters of in terms of their moral worth to be perfectly honest. You can have reservations about anyone’s personality or record while watching them do what they do. So no, I would discourage my sons from having a poster of him and a lot of other footballers on their walls, but I certainly wouldn’t wish to stop him working.

“I’m a shareholder in Burnley Football Club and if a Burnley came in and said well you’ve been vilified, you’ve always maintained your innocent, you’ve served your term and you can play for us and we’re not really going to be bound by what many of these clubs have been bound by, which is their sponsors image, in doing the proper thing here, then I would have been perfectly happy.”

How can offenders makes amends?

Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust also spoke to the programme about what action is needed to help an offender rehabilitate when they leave prison. She said:

“There’s absolutely no doubt that it’s a difficult thing to do, to leave prison and re-establish yourself in the community. Obviously that’s what everybody wants, you want people—if they have had to serve a prison sentence because their offending was serious enough to warrant that—you want them to lead a responsible life in the community. The way that happens is to have a job, to have somewhere safe to live and to the have the backing of your family.

“Some of the most effective work that happens is restorative justice where people are really encouraged to think about the impact that their crime has had on the victim and on society and in some cases very courageous victims are engaged in talking to offenders about the impact on them or the family members and when somebody realises the damage they’ve done there is a better likelihood that they will be remorseful.

“People don’t spend time in prison feeling good about something they’ve done, I think it’s unusual to find somebody who’s enjoying the fact that they’ve done harm to somebody else, but of course you want people to understand the impact on victims and be remorseful.

It’s complicated

“If somebody has a high profile—and certainly this case is absolutely atypical and unusual in that way—then you would really hope that remorse would be shown and it made clear that a case like this is very terrible and should never happen again.

“It can be complicated if somebody is in a process of appealing a sentence because in that instance while, if they’re approaching the Criminal Cases Review Commission, that means that they are maintaining that they’re in fact innocent of that crime and while they’re maintaining that and in the process of seeking to appeal their conviction, it does mean it’s very difficult for them to say anything at all about the crime in question.”

Rachel Anderson, the first female football agent, also spoke briefly to the programme about the sex of the victim. She said:

“I don’t think we’d be having this conversation had he been convicted of raping a man, then football would not, in any shape or form, entertain having him back.”

—Photo/Flickr: Richard Potts

Why are some young men drawn to terrorism?

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By David Plummer, Griffith University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. 

Recent coverage of counterterrorism raids in Australia featured hard-core gyms, anabolic steroids, nightclub bouncers, gangs and weapons. Footage from the Middle East regularly depicts truckloads of young bearded warriors bristling with ordnance.

Is this a view of masculinity that merely happens to be violent? Or does masculinity actively underwrite and sustain extremist movements?

The paradox is that while the world sees extremism as dangerously anti-social, the men themselves appear to see it as a profound social duty.

They exhibit dogmatic conformity to group social norms, they see an opportunity for masculine notoriety and to have a risky “boy’s own” adventure. Above all, they see it as the ultimate demonstration of manhood.

Understanding how this occurs should be a top priority – especially how young boys go down the path of terror – because this understanding ultimately paves the way for interventions, de-escalation and peace.

From quiet kid, to terrorist warrior

A number of alternative explanations exist for the prominence of hypermasculine imagery in reports of terrorism. The imagery may well reflect Western media biases and serve the propaganda purposes of Western governments. That is to say, the reports largely speak to Western cultural viewpoints and political agendas.

While this may well be the case, there is clearly much more to the story. It is also possible that hypermasculinity is a side-effect of the posturing of war. But this merely reinforces the view that masculinity is indeed a potent force at work here.

In addition to obvious hypermasculine imagery, three other features strike a chord with my own research:

  • First is the youth of the recruits, including many teenagers
  • Second is the transformation from quiet kid into terrorist warrior – think “lone wolf”
  • Third is the way that young men identify with a cause and affiliate with extremist groups

These features – young male, group identification, transformation into warrior – have much in common with, and should draw our attention to, the more familiar rites of passage that mark the transition from childhood to manhood.

The Boy Scouts is one way many Western countries have imparted masculine ideals to boys. Freeparking/Flickr, CC BY

The transition from boyhood to manhood is a crucial time in boys’ lives. Becoming a man is the ultimate social endorsement and personal accomplishment.

Most boys apply themselves to the task without question. In part, this is because the change seems so normal and because they rightly sense that failure is associated with some of the deepest social taboos of all.

Most cultures, including those in the West, have limited tolerance for members who “deviate” from accepted gender norms. For all intents and purposes becoming a man is compulsory.

Initiation to manhood invariably involves confronting fear

For most, becoming a man seems natural, probably because it appears to stem from the biological changes of puberty. But there are actually many pathways to manhood and many possible outcomes. The natural “feel” is deceptive.

There is plenty of research that shows that masculinity is highly variable and above all is a social achievement, which is largely independent of biology.

Different societies define manhood very differently: they define what a “real man” is, set the standards that boys ought to aspire to, and orchestrate the transition to manhood through a variety of mechanisms.

Indeed, becoming a man is potentially so variable that anthropologist David Gilmore reminds us that:

Boys have to be encouraged, sometimes actually forced, by social sanctions to undertake efforts toward a culturally defined manhood, which by themselves they might not do.

Traditional societies seem to have addressed the uncertainties in the transition to manhood by developing initiation rituals to guide young men through. These rituals typically entail some form of risky challenge, which boys use to prove their manhood and to earn the right to be called a man.

The boys always underwent initiation under the guidance of older mentors and in the company of their peers. The rituals served to make the transition orderly, meaningful and invested it with shared social purpose.

Boys teaching boys

Modern-day social change has witnessed a decline in all but the most basic rites of passage. Yet becoming a man is as important as always, and the transition to manhood remains very challenging.

This raises the question: how do boys navigate the transition now? I argue that many boys now invent their own rites of passage.

Research in the West Indies showed that social change has led to a loss of older mentors from boys’ lives due to long working hours and commuting times, fewer men in teaching, suspicion about men in youth clubs, changing family structures and so on.

These shifts have left a power vacuum that is vulnerable to exploitation. Boys are spending more time in the sole company of their peers: on street corners, in shopping malls and in their cars.

Instead of growing up with the role models and standards of older, more experienced men, most of their role modelling comes from peer groups. In the absence of alternatives, these groups resort to raw physical masculinity as the yardstick for what masculinity should look like, how boys should behave and who should dominate.

Terrorism as a passage to manhood

They also develop their own rituals to admit members, some of which are extreme, anti-social and high-risk. It is a willingness to take risks that is considered the hallmark of a “real man”.

So how does this relate to terror? Hypermasculine imagery is prominent in the media. Terror recruits are young, group-affiliated and primed to take risks. They are supposedly disaffected and therefore susceptible to mentoring by like-minded peers and older men, whose motives differ from those of their parents and community.

There are key similarities with classic rites of passage and key parallels with my own work on masculinity elsewhere. The social pressures and events around the transition to manhood are especially susceptible to exploitation.

It is difficult not to conclude that masculinity is a key force that underwrites and sustains extremism. In terrorism, we are witnessing a very specific configuration of the passage to manhood.

David Plummer does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.

Read the original article.

Photo: Flickr/DVIDSHUB

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Watch out, the journey towards being a lonely old man starts young

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Researchers predict that 1.5 million men over 65 will be lonely by 2030, men’s health writer, Jim Pollard, is worried he might end up being one of them. Here he shares his experience of being a lonely, younger man.

—This is article #14 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

A recent report from Independent Age suggests that some two million men over 65 in England are lonely and that with more and more older men living alone – a predicted 1.5 million by 2030 – the number of men with such feelings looks set to increase rapidly.

The media coverage featured often touching interviews with older men. Although I’m still many years from retirement, their stories struck a chord with me. It is hard to admit. It also feels very ungracious. (And I’m certainly not blaming anyone but myself.) I am in the luckiest fraction of this planet’s population – a roof over my head, not poor and I know I’m loved by both my family and my long-term partner who accepts me as I am – so what am I whining about? But I say this not to whine but because I wonder if others feel the same. The report talks of older men but, for some of us anyway, the road to loneliness begins earlier.

The report says that isolation is being by yourself. Loneliness is not liking it. We all want to be alone sometimes. Indeed, being happy in your own company is often considered a good thing. Especially in men. But too much, even of a good thing, can be dangerous. Addictive. We don’t admit to being lonely, we just tell ourselves we’re loners. (Perhaps it’s no coincidence that my job – writing – necessitates vast periods of time on your own.)

I’ve had many lonely Saturday nights

It should be easy to tackle loneliness. Just phone someone. So why can’t I? (The rational part of your mind tells you that your friend will be as pleased to hear from you as you would from him.) Why, since I write, can’t I even think of something to post on Facebook? When I was single I had many lonely Saturday nights, never phoning friends because I assumed they had something better to do. Now, thanks to social media, I know they have something better to do. Or, at least, that’s the impression – and it makes it harder to make that leap of faith and get in touch.

Most of my friends date back years to school and university. In other words, they date back to a time when I had an ascribed place in the world. Over time, things can change – values, incomes, locations, lifestyles – or the little differences – in intelligence, talent, ambition – can become bigger. You can, even with the best intentions, drift apart.

As an adult you have to find your place in the world yourself and if you struggle in that, you can become detached. When you become detached you start seeing the differences rather than the similarities between yourself and others: you’re not exactly a journalist, you’re not really an author. You find excuses for disengagement. I lived abroad for a long time. If I didn’t fit in there, well, it was the language. That story won’t wash back home.

It’s relationships that make us happy

‘I am condemned to be free’, said Jean Paul Sartre, a very unhappy man, but we know exactly what he meant. Only you can give your life a meaning. We do it most often through family, work, a hobby, interest or pastime: the bloke who will do anything for his kids, the driven careerist, the guy who hates his job but loves running. It is giving meaning to our lives in these ways that gives us a place in the world. But this alone isn’t enough. It’s not an end in itself. What me and perhaps a lot of other men have forgotten (if we ever knew) is that through the things we make meaningful we also develop and nurture the only thing that really makes us happy – relationships.

Never mind Sartre, look no further than the film ‘Up In The Air’when George Clooney’s self-obsessed character says: ‘If you think about it, your favourite memories, the most important moments in your life… were you alone?’

The answer, as George realises, is no. It’s not the time alone that makes you lonely. It’s the neglect of relationships that too much time alone results in. Don’t realise it and you could be on a lonely road: lone wolf at 30, isolated at 40, lonely at 50. Do realise it and that’s when you need to start building bridges. (And hope you haven’t burned too many.) But that’s another article.

—Picture Credit: Flickr/DeusXFlorida

Jim Pollard is a writer and editor with an interest in men’s health. He edits menshealthforum.org.uk.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

If you think men don’t care about having kids, listen to what these childless men have to say

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Have you ever stopped to think what if feels like for men who don’t become fathers? Robin Hadley has and here he shares the thoughts of some of the men he’s interviewed about being childless.

— This is article #13 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

In my research, I have been honoured to interview men in the UK about their experiences of wanting to be a ‘Dad’. All the meetings have been moving and reflected some aspect of my own thoughts and feelings regarding not becoming a father – a status so easily achieved and important that it can’t usually be talked about. What do the men say?

Well quite, a lot and I can just give a flavour of the depth and range that the impact of male involuntary childlessness has had on them.

Shane (33) blamed his two divorces on his desire for fatherhood. He saw the children as completing a family and himself as person, “You need to have the child to make you blossom as a person, as a family.”

Such was the impact of not achieving his dream of being a father by the age of 30 that, “I was very, very depressed last year, suicidal.”

Many men wanted to repeat their own experience of being fathered, “I saw him as a role model. For being a good Dad. Enjoying being a Dad. He was delighted to be a Dad. And I’d always assumed I’d become a Dad” (Phil, 51).

Harry (64), a widower, had assumed he would die first and so when his partner of 39 years died two years ago he was left bereft, “If we’d had children there would be a little piece of her still around”. In addition, he now thought that because he was now a solo living, older man, he had to be careful “I don’t want someone to look saying, ‘Watch that old man’.”

The fear of being seen a paedophile has been very strong with the men I’ve spoken to. Frank (56) single and solo living in a large rural village said:

“How is a man supposed to be a man?”

I believe his questions reflected the dramatic changes that have taken place socially and economically over the past 60years. How are you supposed to be man in the 21st century? How are you supposed to be a young man, a middle aged man, a young-old man, an old-old man? Is the breadwinner, provider, unemotional, yet virile ideal-man stereotype still valid? Was it ever? Where are the new resources that will provide the narratives to support men who ‘don’t quite fit’?

Finally, one of the most moving chats I had was with a man who had nothing to do with research. ‘John’ (45) was laying a concrete ramp at my home. As we chatted I explained my research and about my own expectation to have been a Dad. John (45) stood up and looked me in the eye and said with real emotion in his voice, “I don’t know what I’d do without my kids.”

In that moment, we shared an understanding. Men talk – it is the listening and the hearing that is the difficult part.

—Picture credit: Flickr/RogerSchueeber

To find out more about the Robin Hadley see his profile at the Keele University website. Robin has a chapter on recruiting me for interview called “The impotence of eanestness & the importance of being earnest”. In Studies of Ageing Masculinities: Still in Their Infancy? Edited by Anna Tarrant and Jacqueline H. Watts, ISBN 978‐0‐90413‐923‐5

For information about Ageing Without Children see the website www.awoc.org.
You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com.