The Lost Boys

As I am sure you know, it was International Women’s Day just over a week ago. The idea of having a day to protest for women’s rights began with the American Socialist Party in 1909. March 8 was chosen by the Soviet dictator and mass murderer Vladimir Lenin, because that was the day in 1917 when thousands of women in St Petersburg took to the streets to protest against food shortages and Russia’s involvement in the First World War . This demonstration soon became a revolution from below as male workers and mutinous troops took to the streets too. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and in the absence of anyone willing to take his place, a democratic government consisting of liberals and socialists took power. How ironic that in the West, a day that has its origin in far left revolutionism is now an opportunity to bemoan the lack of female CEOs of businesses dedicated to capitalist profit.

Although the advance of women’s rights is one of the greatest socio-economic achievements of Western civilisation, it is now clear that a new inequality has emerged, and it is profoundly affecting young males. It is a crisis that is not going to go away.

According to a recent, decent-sized report of 74 pages from the Centre for Social Justice titled rather ominously ‘Lost Boys’, boys and young men up to the age of twenty-four are in a crisis in terms of poor employment rates, educational underachievement, fatherlessness, high rates of involvement in crime, both as perpetrators and victims, serious health problems and the use of socially isolating technology and pornography.

The chief executive for the CSJ, Andy Cook, states in the report’s foreword that the report is the first step in finding out what exactly the problem is; the second step is to do something about it. Cook is confident that this can be done, and that a generation of lost boys and young men can be rescued from their struggles and enabled to have meaningful lives. Good. Help is being given to young males not just because their decline affects society, but because they are human beings who like anyone else deserve the opportunity to make something of their lives.

The report concludes that from the day boys start school until the day they leave higher education (that is if they get into higher education), their academic performance and progress lag behind girls. The report states that by the time boys and girls do their GCSEs, girls are likely to outperform boys by on average half a grade on each subject. At A-Level, if the average performance across their three best subjects is compared, girls outperform boys by an astonishing one-and-a half grades.

There is also a growing problem with regards to the transition from education to employment. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of males aged sixteen to twenty-four not in education, employment or training (NEET) has grown by 40 percent, whereas for females, non-participation has grown by a mere 7 percent. As a result, females in this age category now on average out-earn their male counterparts by £2,200 pa. Feminists have long complained about the pay gap that exists in favour of men; now, if they are true egalitarians, it is time to hear their voices raised on behalf of young males. But let us not hold our breath.

The report goes on to explain how Britain is suffering from an epidemic of fatherlessness, which is one of the most powerful causes of the crisis among boys and young men. No doubt there are neglectful fathers; but there are also many fathers who are locked out of their children’s lives through divorce settlements and the decisions of family courts. Thus, 2.5 million children in the UK, both boys and girls, have no father or father substitute in the home. This has been linked to high crime rates and poor health. Seventy-six percent of children in custody, most of whom are boys, report their father to be absent from the home. Boys and young men are also far more likely to be victims of crime, with young males constituting 87 percent of homicide victims aged 16-24. We often hear sententious and impractical calls for reparations for historical slavery, but how many know that boys under the age of seventeen are the demographic that is most likely to be enslaved today?

As for health, it is known that fathers are more likely to encourage their sons’ physical activity and yet according to the report, one in four boys by the age of eleven is obese. Boys as young as 13 who lack the physical confidence that a father can impart, are using anabolic steroids to gain muscle with all the side effects that such a habit can cause such as heart attacks and liver cancer. Though eating disorders are more prevalent among females, 5.1 percent of boys now suffer with an eating disorder. The male suicide rate has traditionally been higher than those for females, but the extent is now alarming. For every girl between the ages of 15 and 19 who takes her life, almost 3.5 boys do.

As for technology and pornography, the connection between the two is seen in the report’s statistic that children, both boys and girls, first encounter online pornography on average at 13 years of age. Access to porn has had a deleterious effect on boys and young men’s sexual conduct. There has been a worrying incidence of violence on the part of young males as part of consensual sexual encounters. Two parliamentary reports have been written on the increase in the number of female teachers reporting sexual harassment from male pupils. Over 50 percent of cases of the sexual abuse of children is now perpetrated by other children, 90 percent of whom are boys.

I could go on as the report has so much more information. But I think I have summarised its main findings and have delineated the grim and tragic state into which many boys and young men have fallen. Of course, many boys and young men are doing well, but a huge portion are not. Something must be done to reverse this crisis which is also a tragedy. The CSJ has made a start. How quickly the Overton Window can be widened to include the fact that males can be at a significant disadvantage vis-à-vis their female counterparts is uncertain. We have long been told that only females can be victims. But widen it must before it is too late for the present generation of male juveniles, and the lost generations yet to be born.

Peter Harris is a freelance writer. 

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