Why have Andrew
Tate and Jordan Peterson gained traction lately?
Instead of looking at those as individuals
and what they're doing and what they're saying
we need as a society to take a long, hard
look at ourselves
because we have failed our young men and boys
if people like that have got traction.
A lot of my work focuses on
how we're going to solve these issues,
because after all, we're all in this together.
My name is Dr.
Sophie King-Hill
and I'm a social scientist
at the University of Birmingham.
And I've been looking at this issue
for quite a long time.
So firstly,
we need to fully explore
and recognise as a society
why there is been this gap that is being created.
The role of the woman over
the last 50 years has changed.
We have bodily autonomy now.
We have access to safe abortion.
We have access to contraception.
We're a huge part of the labour market.
And with that, that means our role
as women has changed.
We don't need a man.
and that masculinity
in the traditional sense
as a result of this evolving womanhood
masculinity
in its traditional sense is largely redundant.
But instead of giving our focus
on young men and boys
to help negotiate how masculinity has evolved,
they've been left to it
and they're pretty much freewheeling.
And then somebody like Tate
and somebody like Jordan Peterson comes along
and they fill that gap.
They speak to them.
There's been a lot of focus of late
on the role of boys and young men
and their position within society.
There's been a lot of blame
directed at them without unpicking
the underlying issues that concern them.
This makes them feel worthless.
And then people like Peterson and Tate come along
and they fill that gap and
they tell them that they're worth something,
but also dangerously,
they tell them that
this traditional perspective of masculinity
should stay.
Instead of saying that it should evolve
in line with femininity
and the role of the woman.
This impacts on young men and boys massively.
There's a huge intersectionality
with male mental health at the moment.
There's high suicide rates in young men.
There's issues with depression in young men.
And this is because they're cocooned within this
traditional sense of masculinity,
which is reinforced by Peterson and Tate.
Also, there's a rise
consistently across society of misogyny,
which is extreme hatred of women.
And when we have this within a society,
nobody wins.
So, for instance,
some examples of this can be seen
within the recent Met Police
and the reports about misogyny
there or the London Fire Service.
You know, this isn't just affecting
those young boys and men.
This is this is seeping out within wider society.
And we need to do something about it together.
What can we do about it?
Well, first of all, we've got to take a long, hard
look at ourselves.
How do we perceive gender?
How do we look at young men and boys?
Do we look at them
and just blame them for everything
and think that they should just man up
and just take care of themselves?
Or do we look at the position
they're in within society at the moment
and think that we have to support them
in negotiating masculinity as it should look
in this day and age?
The first step
is to talk to them, to open the dialog.
But I think what we've got to realise,
we might not like what we're going to hear,
but this is the first step
in solving this problem
and stopping people like Peterson
and Tate gaining traction
because they prey on the vulnerabilities
of young men and boys.
But as a society, we need to fix this.
What could this look like?
Well,
we could incorporate this into
relationships and sex education at schools,
although I'm not saying
schools should shoulder the burden of this,
but that might be one step.
Creating a safe space
for young men and boys to explore
these issues that concern them
and to really look
at how masculinity has evolved.
We need to look at really positive
role models that have negotiated masculinity
in a really positive light.
So a really good example of
that is Marcus Rashford.
You know, he's at the top of his game.
He's young. He's conventionally attractive.
He's in a male-dominated sport.
He's assertive,
but he's used his dominance for good
and to help the vulnerable with compassion.
We need to talk to young
men and boys more about male mental health
and how they can gain support.
We can do this on an individual basis
with young men and boys that we know,
or we can do this in a more formal setting,
such as education and through research.
Masculinity is becoming a dirty word,
and it's not. As a society
we need to put the brakes on
and really do something to stop this.