Mum's The Word! The Parenting Podcast - Matt Pinkett on Toxic Masculinity

Episode Date: June 5, 2022

Full time secondary school teacher, author and blogger Matt Pinkett joins Ashley to talk about toxic masculinity and what we can do to address the issues that cause boys to educationally underperform.Matt's book, 'Boys Don't Try? Rethinking Masculinity in Schools' is available in paperback in all major bookshops. If you'd like to reach out to Matt he's on Twitter as @PositivteachaIf you want to ask Ashley a question, get in touch at [e-mail]---A Create Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Well, I feel very, very down with the kids this week because I joined TikTok. I can only imagine this is what it felt like when our parents joined Facebook. I feel totally out of my depth. But also one thing that I'm really surprised about is I feel like Instagram, whilst you have trolls and stuff, is quite a nice space. Whereas I thought like a lot of the younger generation were much more woke and accepting. But I have found that there has been quite a flurry of misogynistic comments from, I mean, young boys, so teenagers. from, I mean, young boys, so teenagers. And it made me think a lot about the Everyone's Invited campaign that came out recently, which I'll talk about in more detail later. But anyway, it's made me really excited about today's podcast guest.

He is actually someone that I have wanted on the podcast for, well, since I started it, because the moment I found out I was having a boy, I read his book that he did in conjunction with someone else. And actually, I had a suggestion this week from someone called Catherine on the emails. And she said, I came across your podcast in the early hours whilst feeding my youngest. And it made me feel so much less alone. I'm really glad I found it. Thank you for that. She said, I'm a mom of two girls. And my youngest is a alone. I'm really glad I found it. Thank you for that. She said, I'm a mom of two girls and my youngest is a boy. I'd really love to hear from a guest

who could talk more about raising boys in the modern world. This is a new journey for me. So Catherine, good news is I have a really special guest to join us to discuss perceptions of masculinity, how we can raise better boys. And I'm just so excited. Like I said,

I read his book as soon as I found out I was having a boy when I was dealing with gender disappointment, which was a topic for a whole other podcast episode. He is head of English in Surrey. He is an author with a personal and professional interest in gender in schools. He's written numerous publications on this topic, including a blog and also his book, which he co-wrote with Mark Roberts called Boys Don't Cry. It's Matt Pinkett. I should also say, you're also a father yourself, aren't you? I am, yeah, yeah. I've got a five-year-old daughter. What's your sort of background, obviously, because you're quite a difficult man to find out much about. So I know you're a teacher, but what was kind of your background

in what made you so interested in what I would call toxic masculinity? That's a great question. An interest in teaching precluded the interest in masculinity and the way it kind of permeates everything. But certainly, so I teach English and male English teachers are quite rare. And I remember early on in my career, I just became like quite like hypersensitive, I guess, really to the way that boys were being talked about by teachers. And I cottoned on to like I think like this culture of low expectations academically but also behaviorally and so I just started thinking and writing about boys and then

specifically in education but then that kind of just widened out I guess to masculinity more generally and also it helps I think it's fair to say that I've been gendered and like I'm a pretty heterosexual, typical man, I guess, really. And I recognise the way masculinity has impacted itself on me, really. And I just want to be honest about it and talk about it and write about it with people, because I think something has to change. I think there's some quite deep rooted problems with masculinity that we need to sort out. It's so interesting, isn't it? Because I feel like often when we talk about the patriarchy or toxic masculinity is quite a kind of buzzword

in today's sort of landscape where we talk about gender and quite often it's sensationalized and it's kind of seen as this thing of like man hating or hysterical women kind of making things up or, you know, and it's interesting because I was at a wedding last weekend and even the father of the bride, he did an amazing speech, but he kept saying, oh, it's very unmanly of me. It's very unmanly of me because he was emotional. And I was like, wow, I really forgot that that's still such a sort of a talking point and what I also think is interesting it's also we know a lot about the kind of issues that girls face growing up and you know the kind of idea of being made to feel ashamed of their bodies or facing sexual harassment but then when we talk about it in the sense of boys, I feel like, for example, whenever there is like a horrific news story, like in the case of Sarah Everard,

there's a meme that goes around saying, protect your daughters, and that's crossed out. And then it says, educate your sons. And I feel like a lot of mums, particularly mums, feel this pressure of like, wow like now we're responsible for raising these boys but we don't actually know anything about our lived it like you know we grew up as women and often a lot of what we experienced is through the lenses of being girls so where do you even start with raising a good boy because surely every parent wants to raise a good boy or a good son. But how can you protect them from a sort of like culture of gender stereotypes, which, you know, we forget affects men so much. It's a big job, isn't it?

There is so much. The key thing is trying to understand, right? I think a lot of the work I've done, I think there'll be so fewer problems if actually people just talk to boys and ask them, you know, how they're feeling. And when they're performing this kind of toxic masculinity, when they're, you know, when they're wolf whistling at somebody or when they're telling a sexist joke

or when they're, I don't know, they're punching a wall because they're angry. And actually these follow-up conversations, like that behavior you just exhibited, sexist joke or when they're, I don't know, they're punching a wall because they're angry. And actually these follow-up conversations like that behavior you just exhibited, does it really align with your values? And I think just people aren't really talking to the boys about these more negative aspects of their masculinity. And I mean, this process of talking, it needs to start from day one, getting them to confront masculinity and gender as well I don't it's such a big topic in society I don't get why we're all kind of skirting around the issue almost like you know it's like people that say they don't see color

and what good does that do anybody I think we do need to talk about masculinity I think it needs to be happening at a really, really young age. In your book, Boys Don't Try, I just thought I would read out just the little section from the introduction, because I think it helps to really frame what you talk about. And also for anyone who's listening, who's thinking, well, what is wrong with being masculine or what is wrong with boys? I really liked this little section which says the problem with boys. So it says boys underperform at all key stages of primary and secondary education compared to girls. Boys are more likely to be excluded from school. Boys are less likely to go to university, less likely to become apprentices, less likely to find paid work

between the age of 22 and 29. And when these boys become young men, they are three times more likely than women to be victims of suicide. They also belong to the gender that makes up 90% of the UK prison population. I just think that's so telling, especially because, you know, we hear a lot about inequality in the workplace

and the gender pay gap and men outperforming women. And actually, I remember at school that we were, like, it was always the girls that were top of the class and being higher performance. So in a nutshell, why is education failing boys? Quite simply, it is just low expectations. It's some kind of quite deep-rooted belief system. So things, you know, in a school setting, for example, just this kind of casual acceptance that boys will be boys. And what that means is, yeah, they will be a little bit sexist, but, you know, that's just the lads.

You know what boys are like. The idea that they're these kind of raging testosterone monsters you know and and this testosterone that's causing through their veins is what causes them to fight and this idea that well he's a boy so he only likes practical subjects like there's there's so much going on that that i think just limits limits boys and it's part of a wider societal thing as well. It's not just teachers or schools. I think this constant drip feeding, you know, right from day one about how boys should be, I think is kind of completely at odds with the kind of values

that they need to do well at school. It starts from such a young age. I had Laura Bates on my podcast a few weeks ago and she you know was saying things like how we say we joke about locking up our daughters and we talk about boys always going to be such a heartbreaker as if it's like a really good thing but then the girls are going to get locked up rather than teaching them about their own values and morals and empowering them to make their choices it's like the men have to lock up the girls but the boys can go off and be heartbreakers.

And that's from when they're literally still breastfeeding or still in prams. Yeah, I mean, I know a lot about Laura and her work. She's doing amazing work. I think in schools, I don't want to just keep talking about sex and sexism, but it is so important. I think there's just a lack of knowledge as well about what is acceptable and what isn't. And that's students, but also teachers. So, for example, drawing a penis, drawing a penis on a wall or on a desk. The government

in 2018 released a report that said that that constitutes sexual harassment. Now, a report that said that that constitutes sexual harassment. Now, you go into any state secondary school up and down the country, and there's whole dictionaries full of pictures of penises now. And we laugh about it, even though I'm laughing about it now. But that's sexual harassment. That image could be potentially triggering. And teachers aren't being told this, and students aren't being told this, until now. When I wrote the book, yeah, so in Boys Don't Try, we've got chapters on boys' academic performance, boys' mental health, boys and violence. And when the book came out, schools were, me and Mark were going to schools all over the country talking about these issues. But the chapter I wrote on sex and sexism, nobody wanted to get me in to talk about that because nobody wanted to admit that this rape culture that Britain is, is a culture that is being built in schools. And nobody wanted to confront that. And then luckily, Everyone's Invited happens and there was a big list.

And now all of a sudden everybody wants to talk about it and that is a positive thing although you know you can see I'm resentful that it shouldn't have taken that for people to deal with this issue. That's interesting so the everyone's invited campaign it revealed that one in three girls were or are assaulted at school 90% of them receive unsolicited dick pics. And in 2021, Ofsted reporters said that sexual harassment within school was normal. So there was obviously this huge problem, but you're right, it is kind of passed off. I mean, you can see it even with our current government. I think something like 50 MPs are currently under investigation for sexual assault and sexual harassment.

Like this is it comes from the top all the way down into the education system, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. And we need to do something now because even as adults, it takes a lot to unlearn. You know, we're talking about these politicians. i mean they're horrible for doing it right you know i don't know the details and i'm not excusing it but we need to start early because you become a 56 year old man groping somebody in an office because you think that's appropriate that's 56 years of of learning masculinity that you've got to somehow unlearn if you're to change so we do need to get to to boys and men in their adolescence or in their childhood because the job's less big I guess I mean it's literally like teaching them right from the very beginning what's acceptable and what isn't acceptable if you don't mind me asking if

we take it all the way back to the beginning how would you describe your upbringing as a boy so before you became a teacher and like your sort of experiences of toxic masculinity and... I grew up with, like, you know, like the Guy Ritchie movies. You remember Snatch? Yeah. I live in Surrey, mate. Like, I live in middle-class Surrey, but I speak like... Do you know what I mean?

I've just walked off the set of EastEnders, and it's because it was like me and all my boys at that age, 14, 15 years old, we wanted to be like them, you know. We wanted to be like these kind of lovable kind of gangster, cheeky, chappy, roguish types, you know what I mean? We didn't have a criminal bone in our body, but we walked the walk and we dressed a certain way and we talked.

And the way I talk, it's just how I talk now. But I've been performing masculinity for for so long now but it does just become a part of you and yeah I look back at I look back at the way I've behaved as as a young boy I was very angry I think back to the way I've treated women as a young man even yeah as an older man, you know, and it's not good, you know, it's not good. And I'm speaking as somebody that I call myself an expert, you know what I mean? I'm writing and I'm talking, I'm thinking about this all of the time,

but even I still let myself down sometimes. Not sex and sexism necessarily, but my mental health. There's times where i should have spoken up but i didn't because to speak up would be girly and i'm someone that goes around the country telling people that they need to open up and i'll let me it's a big job you know to unpack years and years and years and years of being gendered a certain way. But it's got to be done. If we look at women have worked their arses off to change for the better. And I just think it's time that men started working a little bit harder as well. What was sort of like the turning point for you where you realised,

because obviously like, no, I remember what the boys were like at school. And looking back, I was like, I can't believe that we kind of tolerated that sort of behavior. But I mean, how do you know that something's not right if it's the environment that you grew up in? It takes being an adult and being a bit older and doing research and learning different mentalities. And, you know, I was sort of like a very male boarding school. It was a rugby culture, exactly the sort of behavior that you probably see in parliament is that sort of like boys will be boys. And we were always the ones that were in trouble. If we reacted to bad behavior, we were attention seeking. We were always told by the teachers, you know, this is what boys are like. There was never

conversations around consent. I grew up in a time as a teenager where no meant the boy would keep trying until eventually it was a yes, but then you'd be the gullible one for falling for it. So whilst it's amazing that there's all these conversations now around things like consent and how we shouldn't just accept that boys will be boys. I imagine for you, like you're saying, you reflect back on behavior, but we were all, like you said, even about people in their 50s and stuff, like if you're taught that that's acceptable, then it is very hard to suddenly unlearn all of that. When did you sort of realize there was an issue? Was it because you were witnessing it in school as a teacher,

or was it maybe when you became a father to a daughter? I became very frustrated with boys' lack of engagement in school. And what I also found very strange was perhaps it's because I present a certain way, but these young boys that I was teaching, it was almost like they were performing masculinity to impress me. So I found it very annoying or very frustrating that boys thought it was okay to, you know, I once had a boy ask me, sir, what's your body count? I've had boys joke about rape to me. And all of these things are obviously completely unacceptable. boys were saying things to me or revealing things to me or doing things in front of me that just weren't acceptable that when I spoke to other teachers they kind of they hadn't noticed it or or if they had noticed it they were female teachers and the culture of schools that you know 10 years ago when I first started teaching was oh well they're just boys and you're a teacher

so you've got to be tough or maybe you shouldn't wear that skirt that way if you don't want the boys to make comments. And I just became very aware of it. And then, of course, that makes you think about your own masculinity. The root of the whole problem is a lack of education. There's nobody, even now, a lot of the, in schools, certainly like the, what is it, social education, PSshe and sex and relationships education it's still very much focused on femaleness so girls this is what you need to do you know consent and and all the rest of it and actually nobody's talking about masculinity in schools and which which is bizarre to me given the grit, like the kind of toxic grit that masculinity has on men and women.

I just don't know why in schools we aren't talking openly about masculinity and the pernicious elements of it. Instead, we often expect that boys will just learn how to be a gentleman or they will just learn about consent or they will just learn that it's not OK to be violent. But we don't do that with algebra. We don't assume that kids will just naturally learn algebra or how to analyse a poem or how to write a science report. We teach them explicitly. We say this is what a science report looks like. You must do this. You must do that, practice at it. But there needs to be some element of that with masculinity. This is what being a man means. This

is what a good man does. This is what lots of men do. What can we do to change that? What does masculinity look like in this school? What could masculinity look like in the future? It's just not, it's not happening. It's frustrating. It's interesting, isn't it? Because even when there's cases, I mean, I think there's something like one woman is murdered by a man every three days and then domestic violence cases are up in the millions every single year.

But yet we still very much, anytime there is an incident, whether it's Wayne Cousins, who was in the police force or wherever it is we always say oh he's a bad apple it's a mental health issue it's an isolated incident we hear these sort of words and no one's actually being like no actually there is this sort of systemic problem like the people who are saying it they're usually asked aside by the media as being hysterical or

oh catcall how can you say catcall is the same as murder? How can you? But obviously, it all starts somewhere. And I thought your book was brilliant at pinpointing the things that we think of normal, like the blurred boundaries between banter and bullying or humor and harassment. Even we talked about the juvenile jabs about boys make about their moms. And I hear that even now as adults and sometimes I think oh you just we just accepted that as normal it'd be like yeah your mum whatever and I think these poor mums who are trying so hard to raise good sons and they're kind of the sort of butt end of a sexual joke it's it's mad isn't it so what I'm sure there's

lots of mums listening or maybe even fathers listening thinking like okay this is all very well we understand that there's a problem but what on earth can we do and especially when like obviously Alf's almost 18 months but he's not even at that school level but sometimes I think well it's all very well me trying to teach him things at home but like school is a bit of potluck, isn't it? You don't know who he's going to get in with. And is it going to be, is he going to be a character who's quite susceptible to peer pressure? And maybe he would rather be in with the boys, whether that's because of insecurity or the type of character he is rather than like achieve good results. Or what can we do as mums, as parents to kind of do our bit with raising good sons?

I guess it goes, you've got two phases, really. So if we deal with like early childhood, primary school, I think what parents need to do is they need to be involved. The school needs to know that you are a parent who cares passionately about gender equity. cares passionately about gender equity. Now, for example, I went to my daughter's summer fete and they had a tombola and it was a blue one for boys and a pink one for girls. Now, I complained to the head teacher about that and I talked to my daughter about it as well.

I said to her, you know, colours aren't boy or girl colours. I remember an incident at nursery where every time we picked her up she was playing with the princesses or the barbies now that's fine if she wants to play with barbies but again i did say to the teachers i just noticed this she does know that she can use the sandpit or she can use the tool the play tools and i'm constantly there i guess being that annoying parent but I need to be you know and what that does do is it does make teachers think but it also it does provide points to discuss gender with my daughter for example or or you know with your boy certainly

at secondary school the research on peer pressure and the way it impacts boys. Again, just like you'd have a chat, hopefully about consent or, you know, sex and the birds and the bees. I think every parent of boys needs to sit their kid down and say, look, just so you know, boys tend to do worse at secondary school and they tend to do worse because of peer pressure. Boys think it's cool to not work hard. They think it's da-da-da. Now, you've got a choice. Either you can be part of that narrative or you can change it. And you need to know that as a parent, I'm going to do everything in my power to change that narrative.

You need to somehow find some strength. And, again, these conversations, they really do need to be happening. They need to be happening. I wish I had some sort of magic bullet but unfortunately there isn't one but the problem is and i know it's a well-trodden narrative is just nobody's listening to the boys and nobody's talking to them about these issues that's what i'd say as a parent you need to be discussing these things all the time and you know even stories in the news, the Me Too movement

and stuff like that, there are ways you can talk to a five or six year old or seven year old about those things. You know, you can dilute the issue and you can make it child friendly, but there are ways of talking. I think that's really important. Welcome to Paranormal Activity with me, Yvette Fielding, a brand new podcast bringing together people's real ghost, extraterrestrial and paranormal stories, as well as getting some inside details from those who study the supernatural. I'll be listening through your paranormal stories every week and try to understand them as well as chatting about my own encounters with an occasional paranormal investigator too you can find us wherever you

get your podcasts from including apple podcasts spotify and acast just search for paranormal activity with yvette fielding it's interesting i'd love to know your perspective on the whole pink and blue thing because for example i did a sort of gender reveal as they call them mainly because we're in lockdown so we didn't get to see anyone and we wanted to try and make it exciting for our family to find out so i very much adhere to that sort of blue pink gender stereotype, even as someone who now is actively trying to allow Alf to kind of experience who he is without confining him into a gender. But from your perspective, because I'm sure that there will be people listening, thinking, well,

what's wrong? I like my daughter in pink or I like her pink nursery, or I like my boys blue or like, you know, I don't want him to be bullied at school if he's into dolls or whatever it might be. Like what, from your experience as both a boy, a man, a teacher, and I suppose an activist and expert in this field, what is wrong with forcing gender stereotypes? And I say this because my partner, Tommy, is someone who I would consider like a very good man. He talks about his feelings. He kind of doesn't adhere to this sort of toxic

masculinity. He'll stand up for what's right. But in France, people that follow me on Instagram will know that Alf has this love for who he calls Baby, who is this little pink doll that he picked himself and in the French shop Tommy and I almost had an argument over it and luckily his mum was there and she was backing me up but he was when Alf was going baby baby baby and wanting this pink doll and I said okay I'll buy the pink doll and Tommy was like no don't force the doll on it like look look Alf and he was showing him all the blue dolls like Alf why don't you get this one and I was like tommy i can't believe that you're like this i thought you wouldn't be like this he was like no i know but it's just it's a pink doll isn't it and his mum was there she was like he can have a pink doll if he wants and actually you asked for a pink bike when you

were young and we got you a pink bike but what is for people that maybe don't understand it and i i think like i said i still adhere to it in some areas and i don't in others but what what is what is the harm you've got to ask yourself let's take it right back to like a preference for blue for boys and pink for girls if you just like girls wearing pink and boys wearing blue well that's that's fine but are you investing purely in that color or are you investing in the wider idea that girls and boys are predisposed to certain preferences and behaviors? So it's fine if you want your boy to have a blue bedroom because you're traditional. But then the moment you slap that blue paint on that wall can you wholeheartedly tell yourself that it's just about the color blue and boys or is it a wider belief that boys prefer blue because the

moment you say boys prefer blue you're also saying and boys probably like to be a bit more physical boys like a bit more rough and tumble boys are actually a bit sexist sometimes and do you know what boys are predisposed to sexual harassment and you know and all that sort of thing like where's your where's your limit and do you know what it's it's strange talking about your husband there I understand it it was very easy for me as a father of a daughter to try and challenge things so I had a spreadsheet so whenever ever somebody would buy her a doll i'd have a spreadsheet and i'd say next to where she gets is a truck and it wasn't about forcing anything i just wanted balance it became very apparent very

quickly that my daughter despite all my efforts she she loves Disney and princesses and da-da-da-da-da. But I always ask myself the question, I was very – had I had a boy, would I be doing the same thing? Would I be buying him a doll? Or every time somebody – I can't – I'd like to think I would, but I don't know. But that's that fragile masculinity thing. It's a tricky one. And also for all of us, how ingrained it is into us, you know,

like I even, I realised, you know, what are the name of those books that are called like Little Heroes or something? And they've got one on like Elton John and Dolly Parton. So I found that I was buying out all the boy ones, you know, he's got Captain Top of the Wall and Stephen Hawkins. And then I was thinking, I walked past one that I think was Dolly Parton, who's a legend. So I was like, oh, I'd love to have a girl so I could buy a Dolly Parton one.

And then I was like, hang on a minute, why can't I? And also surely isn't it really important for him to learn about all these like women, especially women who aren't just Disney princesses. And as somebody that I loved Disney growing up I still love Disney growing up and I remember Keira Knightley being totally ridiculed for saying that she wasn't going to let her daughter watch Disney films and everyone saying how extreme it is but actually my friends and I often talk about the fact that even into our 30s and even when we're like financially independent we have this sort of built-in narrative that we're waiting for a boy or a man to come along and save us and a friend of mine is a dating coach and she says that actually she the type of women she

helps the most are the high achievers the women who are like really high up like whether they're CEOs or whatever it is in their line of work but they still have like really high up, like whether they're CEOs or whatever it is in their line of work, but they still have like really poor boundaries and, you know, they want boys to come along and fix them. But yeah, it's just really interesting, isn't it? That it can have such a knock on effect. And I wonder if somebody at the time had spoken to me about, I don't know, watching Cinderella, which obviously, of course you can appreciate it's an amazing film, but maybe being like, oh, maybe she didn't need the prince to save her or you know maybe like i don't know i mean it's as

damaging for boys as it is girls as well because the pressure to the pressure to always be a hero and to always be able to provide and to always be flim rider or whoever it is you know like this good looking i'm gonna ride in on a white horse and save the day and sort everything out. And on top of that, I'll be able to provide and I'll be able to be funny and well-dressed. All that is such a, it's problematic. How can you parent?

And let's say, for example, I was really strict on my feminist views with Alf. So anything he came home and said, or his friends will come home from school one day and I hear them talking about like, oh, your mom this or having sexist banter or whatever it is. I mean, I don't agree with the term sexist and banter, but there we go. You know, how can I almost encourage him to fit in in society whilst also pulling them up? I don't want him to be like, oh, mom, my friends come around. But is it important for us to always stand up?

And how can we do it in a way that will still allow them to feel like they're fitting in? It is important you say something. Parents always underestimate the impact of society. Always underestimate the impact of society. So you might feel that you have total control about the type of boy and man your son will become. And so as a result of that, you might want to pull him up every time you hear something that you don't agree with or anything that contravenes kind of feminist values. But there's a side of you, a nagging side of you thinking, I don't want to keep going on at him. But actually, you can be overzealous because at the end of the day, right,

school and the media and social media and cartoons and sports heroes and music videos and all of that stuff is going to win over eventually or it's got considerable more sway than you have as a parent. And so it's like me with my daughter, you know, I was relentless in trying to raise her as not non-gender, but certainly I made concerted efforts to ensure that clothing, the kind of things that she watched, the books that we read, even the toys that she had were balance. She went to nursery, she came back and they painted her nails pink. I complained about that. And then two years later, it looks like Walt Disney has thrown up all over.

She talks about being pretty all the time. All she asks me is, do I think she's pretty? I tried so hard and still society won out so whatever you're doing like you know do call your boy out and do talk to him all the time and when you think you're talking to him too much just talk to him a little bit more because masculinity sadly or the rather more toxic elements of it they're powerful all right all right? It's a patriarchy, isn't it? And it's going to creep in at some point. So you need to be, yeah, working hard on having these conversations with him and challenging him.

And as for the issue of, well, I don't want him to be singled out or feel like he's the party pooper when all the other boys are having a good old sexist joke and he's like actually i don't agree with that sod that man like he's gonna have to be the party pooper because we want party poopers we want all you know the more boys that are being raised to call these things out hopefully one day it will be the boys telling the sexist jokes that are excluded and left out and looked at as weird not the ones calling it out so i'd say to everybody listening if you've got a son tell him to call everything out and that's really important you're writing a book aren't you called

boys do cry which is a follow-up to boys don't try and do you want to talk about that because i know it basically talks about a lot of the sort of mental health issues that the patriarchy and toxic masculinity has on boys yeah it's been a fascinating fascinating project really it was weird because the first book was about boys but this second book although it's called boys do cry and it looks at boys i've all I'm writing it always with a view to how we can, not just the boys, but the men that they will one day become. So for example, there's a chapter in there on self-harm and suicide. Now, actually, child and adolescent suicide statistics, thankfully, comparatively, few boys and girls kill themselves in childhood and adolescence. However, when these

boys become on to be men, suicide is going to be their biggest killer above heart disease and cancer. So right in this book, I'm always thinking about what preventative steps do we need to take now? It's like I did a chapter in there on talking. One of the narratives about male mental health is men don't talk, men don't talk, men don't talk, men need to talk more. I think that's kind of tantamount to a kind of victim blaming. So, oh, he killed himself, he should have spoken up. Or he, you know, he's self-harming, he should have spoken about it. I mean, is anybody listening to men? I don't think necessarily they are. I think

boys voice their concerns and men voice their concerns, particularly about mental health. But often people don't pay attention. There's some interesting research actually about boys and girls and how they listen to each other. I think we need to teach boys to listen because boys listen very differently to girls. In what way? So if a boy tells another boy that he's got a problem, what boys will always do is one or all of these things. Minimize the problem. Oh, come on, it's not that big a deal.

Laugh or make a joke out of it. And the other one is blame. So, you know, so I know so i go look mate i'm i'm a bit worried i haven't done my homework and i've got loads of stuff going on and but the boy listening will just say well well you're fucked you know you're buggered whereas actually girls do girls do quite different things girls do these five things girls firstly girls will explicitly show that they're listening through their body language or their or their vocal sound so they'll nod or they'll say yeah yeah uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh boys don't do that

girls will literally make sounds that say i'm listening to you another thing that girls do that boys don't is girls ask about the problem. They'll say, oh, could you tell me more about that? Or, oh, how did that make you feel? Or another thing girls do is that, and again, boys don't ever do this, is they'll relate. All right. So they'll give some of their own experience to the problem. So, oh yeah, I remember when Julie didn't reply to my text and that made me feel quite upset actually girls will so prompt they'll ask they'll relate they'll give information as well they'll give extra information about the problem and boys don't do any of these things so again we need to be it's all well and good telling boys how to talk but before we even do that we need to tell them how to listen because they don't

know they don't know they don't know and i've been going around schools actually a few schools have got me in recently talking about this and i've got i've got 300 boys in front of me they're they're completely entranced i've got a meeting out of the palm of my hand and all i'm doing is telling them oh this is what girls do you need to be doing this And it's like a revelation for them. Like, oh, what? We nod and make eye contact when a friend comes to us with a problem. And I'm like, yeah, fellas.

They're like, oh, Jesus. Didn't know that. We don't have to teach boys to talk. If boys feel that people are listening, they'll talk. Trust me. Can people book you? Who's in charge of getting you into the school because i imagine people will be like well i i'd love for you to come to my school or to my my kids school how does it work people just get in touch with me on twitter they can email me

so on twitter i'm mr pink but my my handle is at positive teacher yes Yes, it's P-O-S-I-T-I-V and then teacher with an A, T-E-R-E-C-H-A. I just think it's so interesting because to me it feels totally like a minefield and I get worried when I hear things. Obviously, who knows where we'll be in another 10, 12 years when it's time for Alf to go to secondary school, but hearing things about like the impact on porn and the rise in incel culture and and even that ofsted report that i referenced earlier essentially just saying like yeah sexual harassment's normal like where do you even go from

there and sometimes it's exhausting you know like even how i feel exasperated at the moment with politics because it's like yeah they broke the rules but they just get away with it and sometimes you feel like you're shouting into the abyss and you're screaming toxic masculinity and you're screaming patriarchy but then you have almost that bigger louder voice saying let boys be boys and yeah i feel like things we don't like change as humans do we no well especially men yeah that porn thing is interesting. I did a chapter for this new book on pornography and the influence of pornography on boys' relationships and their attitudes. To any mother or parent listening to this now,

I think you need to do two things. Firstly, accept that your son might watch pornography. Some boys watch it every day. Some boys rarely watch it, if ever. But actually being interested and curious about sex is quite a natural thing. And we must remember that pornography viewing is not an exclusively male thing. Plenty of young girls or teenagers, females, are watching pornography too. girls or teenagers, females are watching pornography too. But I do think the problem comes when we vilify boys for watching pornography. So there's a narrative of

pornography is dirty. If you watch pornography, you're a pervert. And the moment boys feel that that's the case, that watching pornography is something to be ashamed of, it automatically prevents any sort of meaningful, frank conversation. How can you talk to your son about the problems with the violence that is prevalent in pornography if right from the off, he doesn't want to talk because he's embarrassed because he feels that you are judging him because he watches it. So I think we need to stop vilifying boys that watch pornography. But sometimes it does feel like, you know, even at the moment, they're trying to, I mean, I think since the 70s or 80s,

they've been trying to, you know, teach about, for example, like homosexuality in schools. And it's always, there's always like a big outcry of like, we can't sexualize the children or we can't, whatever. I mean, I can't even think what people say, but how do we get around that? Because I feel like, you know, even if you as a teacher and like, it's really interesting to me that you're so passionate about like patriarchy and toxic masculinity, even as a heterosexual male, because I think often the men who speak up or maybe the men who are like gay and you know who have been like felt like they couldn't be themselves or it took them years to come out or they were bullied or it's amazing to

me what you're doing because I imagine your voice especially as someone who is quite like a alpha male as much as I hate to say it and that you're straight and you're accent and like you said you grew up on these sort of like lock stock films. If even you're saying we need to do this, how can we move forward when people still don't want to listen? Sorry, that's such a depressing way to end as well. No, it's not. It's not. It's not. I feel like all I've said, like my solution to everything is talking.

But I do see hope. You know, I do see hope for the future. The boys I teach now are not the same type of boys that I taught 10 years ago. And the boys I taught 10 years ago are not the same type of boys that were at school when I was a lad. We are moving forward. And I know it can be quite depressing and hard to realize it. But I promise you, as somebody that deals with kids all the time, progress is being made. Actually, just looking at some research this morning, I'm doing a chapter on friendships. And there's some fascinating research out there about bromance. I used to be against

that term bromance. I used to feel like it kind of fetishized affectionate male relationships, like it's okay for a man to love another man and it'd be platonic. We don't have to give it this strange name. But what the research is showing about this idea of bromance is that boys crave, they absolutely crave emotional intimacy with other males. And some of that might be physical affection as well. Now, at 11, 12, 13, 14, boys love having friends that they can speak to. Unfortunately, around 15, 16, what's happened historically is they don't want to be seen as gay.

They don't want to be seen as gay they don't want to be seen as girly and and for some reason at 15 16 years old those emotionally intimate relationships male-on-male relationships become something to be ashamed of and so boys reject them and boys at 15 16 they stop talking about the need for somebody they can talk to. They stop. They even reject the idea of having a best friend. They like to have lots of friends. And even then, these friendships, they're friendships where they wouldn't talk about their feelings. It's just banter, banter, banter. But what's happened with this bromance is we're starting to see now boys at 15 16 17 18 this word bromance has kind of enabled them it's legitimized male-on-male intimately emotional relationships

again and i think that's that's a good thing the idea that that you know your boy hopefully will grow up in a society where he can be proud at 15, 16 years old to have a mate he really loves and he can talk to about his problems and listen rather than just make a joke about it. Positive things are coming. Masculinity can be beautiful. Obviously, it's so nice. And like I said earlier, I just think it's amazing that you're

doing it because people will listen to you but also as your experience as a teacher and hopefully for everyone listening it's given you a bit of hope and maybe a bit of direction in what to do to raise good sons and i know for sure if and when i was at school i'll be i'll be hitting you up being like will you come to do a talk at this school? But for anyone that hasn't read Boys Don't Try, I really recommend it. I guess you kind of target teachers and education, but I found it really insightful anyway. Yeah, lots of parents have said they found it really useful. If nothing else, it provides a little bit insight into, because it can be hard as a parent to support boys if you don't really know how the school system works. So if nothing else, it will shine some insight on masculinity and what your boy is going through at school,

but also the school system and the way teachers think and work as well. And I like the idea of challenging perceptions, both of our own ideas of masculinity, but also challenging the schools as well. So I'm sure teachers up or down the country will hate you now that there's going to be a whole host of, like, can you not do this?

Can you not do that? But yeah, when you, when you bring out Boys Do Cry and you have a release date, I know how important pre-orders are then. Please let me know

so I can share it. I can't wait to read it. And yeah, it's just been amazing to chat to you. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. And to all of you guys, thanks so much for amazing to chat to you. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you. I really enjoyed that.

Thank you. And to all of you guys, thanks so much for listening to Mums the Word, the parenting podcast. I hope you found that useful. Sorry, it was so much to get through, but I'd love to hear from you. Tell me your thoughts.

You can get in touch on WhatsApp. You can leave a free voice message. I love getting voice messages. So send a voice message 075-999-27537 or you can email like Catherine did at askmumsthewordpod at gmail.com leave a review on apple podcast I see those as well and I'll be back same time same place with another episode next week thanks so much