“Sensibly” you say? The problem I have with it is that for all the possible “sensitivities” those schools seem to be worried about the only gender specific occasion they saw fit to do away with was Father’s Day, mind I wouldn’t want to see this happen to Mother’s Day as either. And also note that the schools that took part in the ban passed the ban with no public announcement meaning the story did not break until after Father’s Day.

And it kinda bothers me that you think misandry in the media is not a problem despite its prevalence and acceptability. No one should be treated this way.

unomi you almost sound like you have a problem with pointing out that boys need help as if there are “better things” to talk about.

Check it out if you like.

Eivind

Many idealists and change-workers are just talking heads, projecting their inner hurt onto an outside world that they love to label as wrong. Makes us feel superior! And it is so weak and arrogant.

Love your passion!

Eivind

Hey Unomi, thanks for your comment

I think it is a possible reading of my blog that the problem described is more pronounced in progressive societies than in traditional societies. I don’t mean that. I was careful to mention that of the two routes unfathered boy vitality can travel, in the so-called progressive societies it generally takes the implosive route.

Unfathered boys in traditional socities will more often explode, and unfathered boys in progressive societies will more often implode. I think that is a generalization that holds water. In tomorrow’s society, the Man will have subjugated the inner demons that take him down either route, and he will stand powerfully, lovingly, and FREELY in the wellspring of Masculine archetypes.

My intention here wasn’t to play a comparative game. I’m merely trying to call attention to the fact that the life force inherent in the psycho-emotional makeup of the boy is so powerful that if you don’t take it seriously - if you don’t treat it as a gift, but as something to get rid of - you get large-scale societal problems. Implosive boys get depressed, apathetic, weak and confused. Explosive boys go a little - or a lot - crazy.

Hook my argument up to David Deida’s three stages of development and you may understand that I refer to explosiveness as a first stage reaction and implosiveness as a second stage reaction (the shadow sides of these stages, mind).

Today, in our society, men don’t move past Deida’s second stage because they are not initiated into the powerful realms of Manhood through the gateway of existential challenge. And those who are still caught at the explosive stage of relating with the world move ahead far too slowly because the structures of growth available to them are established by mentioned implosive boys; boys who are wholly incapable of providing healthy avenues of growth for other boys they feel threatened by.

My biggest point of mourning and contention is the unfortunate fact that we don’t have many elders left to hold sacred space for these boys. These elders are virtually gone, and many think - consciously or subconsciously - it is a good thing.

Clearly it is not.

Holland, Belgium, the Scandinavian countries and Iceland are Europe’s most progressive countries when it comes to female participation in the workforce and state funded day care, as far as I know. The UK most certainly isn’t one of them.

I very much doubt that changing gender roles had anything to do with what happened in Germany in the 1930s, and whatever problems West Germany had with terrorism would have been dwarfed by the Northern Ireland conflict. Having said that, Germany is a fairly socially conservative country by European standards, especially the south.

@Danny

And while they haven’t collapsed yet given the way fathers are treated it may be collapsing.

Non specific generalisations about the need for “more positive male role models” have been around for decades, if not centuries. This article does little to explain what the problem is and what needs to be done. Talking about the “rocket blasters of masculine penetration” sounds more like something you should be doing on an adult website.

In the Muslim world, giving a divorced woman custody of her children is unheard of and female “role models” are few and far between. Girls there are still doing better than boys in school, and I think that part of the world may have spawned one or two terrorists as well.

Personally I think Scottish schools acted sensibly when they did what they did. It’s interesting to see how much coverage that story got in the Telegraph, a paper that couldn’t care less about Scottish children when it comes to things like poverty rates. Great example of misandry in the media not being the problem that some people here have suggested!

When we in good faith collapse all growth structures for boys who wish to be men, we fail to understand that every man with a masculine essence has a great force of energy in him that needs to be cared for and channeled in appropriate ways through ritual initiation by an elder. When we don’t provide for such sacred transformation of the boy’s psycho-emotional makeup, this energy has one of two choices: It can go crazy or it can implode. When it goes crazy, we get criminals, sociopaths, hooligans, neo-nazis, terrorists, or – if lucky – just a plain old jerk, a simple-minded cowboy, or an aggressive guy struggling with addictions.
I believe he is talking about a lack of guidance for boys in order to keep them on the positive path to manhood and if that is so then reality does reflect this. When boys are not guided positively they stand a greater chance of becoming criminals and delinquents of varying degrees. He may become just a simple jerk or he might become the next major serial killer.

What are some of those growth structures and how have they been collapsed?
Of the top of the head honest hard working fathers themselves are a growth for boys that want to become the same. And while they haven’t collapsed yet given the way fathers are treated it may be collapsing.

Speaking of collapsing structures check this out.

Still I understand what you are saying. I think a lot of the anger that turns into membership in White Supremacist groups or anti-government groups in the US comes from more traditionalist and lower-income parts of society - less educated and less advanced. The anger comes from resitance to adjusting to changes in society. In the US this reaches back to the beginnings of fundamentalism in the 1840’s and 50’s, in response to Abolitionism. From there it has spread and morphed and found new targets - no one in the US cared about some Jewish plot to run the world and there was no Zionism to run a “Zionist Occupation Government”, there was no whisper of civil rights for blacks and no gay movement to foam about - and it has never really gone away.

It’s a little crude though to characterize whole countrues as having unitary cultures, unitary enough that one can speak of “Countries with more progressive gender roles.” I know that fits the European definiton of a nation per nationalism, but it has never been anything but a nasty fantasy.

Which countries would those be? Do you consider Germany a country with progressive gender roles? They certainly try, and they certainly have had more than their share of terrorists (Rote Armee Fraktion) and NeoNazi skinheads, and more than their share (for a developed country) of race-based domestic terrorism.

Would you consider the UK to be a country with progressive gender roles? How has that hindered the growth of groups like the BNP? How soon before they start “direct action”?