Question: ‘What is it like for a boy today growing up in the UK?’
Objective: to describe, in broad terms, the world into which a boy today in the UK is growing up.
The project heard from seven speakers over four meetings, between April-July 2021.
The Report, published 20th September 2021, looks at issues facing men and boys in four sections: Family, Education, Community and Health.
YouTube videos of the evidence sessions, April to July 2021
Evidence sessions
These seven videos are the evidence given by our seven speakers which contributed to the Boy Today report 2021.
1. Sonia Shaljean: Fatherlessness
Sonia’s team at Lads Need Dads work with fatherless boys, linking them with positive male role models. In her talk she gives the statistics and real-life examples of the impact of fatherlessness on boys and young men and argues that this is central to the problems of men and boys today.
2. Prof. Gijsbert Stoet: British boys fall behind girls in all stages of our educational system.
Prof Stoet takes us, step by step through the educational process which a boy today would follow and shows how, at every stage, boys perform less well than girls.
2. Dr Erik Cownie: Learning barriers in boy’s education.
Dr Cownie draws on his research and experience in working with underachieving boys in N Ireland and offers some pointers from successful interventions.
3. Naomi Murphy: Boys to Men in the Criminal Justice System (UK)
Women in prison are treated as a traumatised population and that maybe prison is not the right solution for women who have offended. With men, we are fed a narrative that crime is inevitable, that they are born with genes to violence, a defective, psychopathic brain and that ‘masculinity’ is so damaged that we have to teach our boys why it is wrong to rape. The mental health of men-in-prison is not so very different to women-in-prison. There are multiple points where society could be strengthened to stop crime being ‘inevitable’ and prevent suicide being an outcome.
3. Martin Seager: GAMMA BIAS – Cognitive Bias in the mainstream gender narrative
Martin’s talk to the APPG illustrates how society is biased against men and boys by minimising their positive achievements and amplifying the faults while doing the opposite for women and girls.g ‘inevitable’ and prevent suicide being an outcome.
4. Martin Tod: The case for a Men’s Health Strategy.
Martin Tod introduces a wide range of health issues where men are suffering more than women. He argues that both a men’s and a women’s health strategies are necessary as there are significant and distinction issues for moth sexes.
4. Natasha Devon: Barriers to men&boys’ mental health.
Natasha provides evidence that boys and young men are at a disadvantage when it come to mental health. She shares three common myths:
1 That there are higher rates of mental health issues in girls than boys.
2 Men and boys are ‘victim blamed’ for their own distress.
3 That young men have the same view of ‘masculinity’ as their forebears.
She shares some practical ideas designed to help young men with their mental health.