Oh dear, here we go again.

Lets look at the so-called rights of passage, from being a child to being a man. Many primitive cultures around the world have this process, for example when the young boy moves from the women’s house into the men’s house. These cultures have very defined roles for men and women, with laws and rules about behaviour and what each gender is expected and allowed to do. These laws and rules evolved over many centuries and were designed so that that community could function and survive.

Yet for each different culture, the beliefs, rituals and the laws are different to suit the particular needs of that community. For perhaps, almost all these cultures and without getting into “analysis paralysis” the gender roles were strictly defined for the greater good of the community.

In our liberal western culture much has been lost in raising boys. Boundaries that once existed, nolonger exist and for this we pay the price.

In the last forty years masculinity has been under severe assault. If we cannot treat boys and men with respect, things will only get worse.

A very decent article. One aspect of growing up many people can associate with is the peer pressure that compels those who cave in to undertake activities which are not in line with their values but instead the values imposed by a confused and scared majority. Many of us can relate to this pressure and are relieved to remember it as part of growing up. But does peer pressure abate once we ‘grow-up’? It seems the values merely change. The pressure to drink is still present. There are still expectations about how one should dress and look. Expressing feelings (love, fear happiness) is still not considered socially acceptable. And pursuing individual dreams which don’t fit with mainstream attitudes still requires courage and determination.

I knew a boy in primary school who used to boast to us about the possessions he owned and gathered friends by appealing to our desire to be in his shoes. As I grew up, this desire waned as I questioned why I admired him and realised there was nothing of substance to admire. Without this self reflection I may still be admiring and attempting to emulate those who flaunt their wealth, their physical presence or their material possessions in the hope they will remain a member of the ‘cool group’.

The majority of boys and men (and women for that matter) will always attempt to seek the acceptance of others before accepting themselves.

Meh. I think most of this is fuelled by perception.

Yes, kids are getting drunk and acting stupid. But stupidity is not confined to this generation. I can recall chatting to a few lads who reminisced about their days back in the 50's. They'd get hammered in big tin sheds then drive around, quite solidly drunk, and the night wasn't considered complete until one had been in a fight, made a female conquest, or both.

It doesn't seem all that different to today. Perhaps there are just more teenagers and due to TV and media, we're seeing more of what's going on. What's more, with more kids and more communication, we have a critical mass of sorts. It isn't necessarily some pervasive drop in values - those values have always been there, now we're just seeing them.

To paint the youth of today as reckless, leaderless yobbos is to do them a disservice. They're smarter, savvier, and more aware than any generation before them. And perhaps a lot of this concern is because they don't want to toe the line.

The flower children of the vietnam era were supposed to herald a new age of peace. They caved in to consumerism.
Perhaps this generation has been jaded by the failures of the past few.

How Glorious it would be...if we challenged the idea of it being 'manly' to get blotto, and many other spurious ideas that young men seem to gravitate to in their quest to be 'men'.

We should look for specific substitutes and encourage them through family and education.

Cultures with more clearly defined male and female roles are 'balanced'. We are just a slow motion train wreck in the process of seeing passengers and materials strewn across the countryside as it all falls apart.

Young men would love something to aspire to I'm sure. When I was a cub, I longed for the approval I would receive when I EARNED my such and such a badge.
At each step, the self esteem grows.

What a tragic society when 'manhood' is defined in terms of drunknenness, sexual conquest, doughnuts with the wheels, and the such like.

The blurring of the roles between males and females has contributed to a deterioration of our sense of identity and self worth.

There "is" an alternative......

For decades we have taught boys that at best they could aspire to becoming defective girls. At worst they would growp up to be violent rapists and responsible for all that is wrong in the world.

But then the girls have been taught career, status and Zampatti clothes first and family and nurturing children a distant (underachieving) second.

Our society lauds materialism and individuality (as opposed to concern about community). Have a look at the personal values being modelled by our leaders - all spin, get away with what you can and make a wad of dough. No long term vision at all.

So what transitions are we talking about here? There seem to be no higher values to achieve to for either sex (whoops, gender).

Cornflower, you make my day.

What a woman!

Too bad I'm already married - just joking you understand.

If I ever get the time i'd like to address this article in depth, but for now, you've done the lion's share of speaking up for our boys. You and JamesH of course. A sad indictment of our men and women folk.

I read somewhere you hail from Queensland. You wouldn't have a "price tag" to your name would you?

If you don't know what that means, please don't take offence. I just wonder if you are somebody I know of and if so, then you'd get that cryptic clue.

Otherwise, you certainly are right on the money in your posts and doing a great job for humanity and common decency. Salute.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could think of ourselves as people first and men and women second? Why this struggle to be male? Why all this talk of crisis? If I had a son, I would advise him to be himself and the devil take what anyone else thought -precisely the same advice I give my daughters. The best men I know (including my husband and my eldest daughter's 22 year old boyfriend - a quite remarkable person, someone fully at ease in his own skin and at such an early age) are not interested in proving anything, particularly not their "masculinity". They is what they is, and are happy to allow others to be whatever they are. They do not make rules about how men and women "should" behave to be "proper" representatives of their gender. They are not threatened, you see, they do not feel that if they do not act in a certain narrow way they somehow are no longer a worthwhile man.
Just relax and be yourself, life will get better, not just for you, but for everyone around you.

ena asks 'Why all this struggle to be male' and coos that 'everything will be alright, just be yourself'.

Is this is same ena who adopts radical feminist positions in other threads? By way of example, here is a recent enaism:
'Women must fight for their rights against their husbands, their brothers, their fathers and, worst of all, their sons.'

Do you really believe that twaddle? Let me assure you that isn’t the experience of mothers of boys and nor is it the experience of sisters and wives.

One of the many deficiencies of the radical feminism promoted by Greer is that it sounds OK to immature students and women with personality problems, but it has no basis in reality. The causality asserted by Greer is ridiculous.

ena, it is a double standard to be opposed to FGM (although thankfully you are because some feminists are not, eg Ms Greer), yet not state the obvious and say that routine circumcision of boys is also a hideous religious ritual.

Women are very short-sighted if they do not see that men and boys are poorly served by the present arrangements and need their own form of liberation. They are socialised into a particular form of masculinity that prevents them achieving closeness with one another, even between father and son, brother and brother and yes, son and mother.

I suppose Western feminists need to be so dog in the manger about excluding men to maintain Greer's foolish notion that all men hate women and are always out to subjugate them. What complete nonsense!

It is so convenient for ena et al to reserve their right to be women first or people first, depending on the situation. It is a little more than suspicious, to the rest of us.

It is claimed by some archaeologists and linguists that most languages share a common background -- Indo-European. The Indo-Europeans originated on the steppes of Eurasia, were warlike, warrior-worshipping, nomadic horse riders. From the IE, came the Greeks, Trojans, Romans, Turks, Iranians, Celts, Normans....

From the IE also came an ideal of manhood in which virtue was defined as the ability to be a warrior i.e. to kill, to plunder, to appropriate females.

If true, then much of Western culture is based on this ideal.

While good for offense and defense, as in defending a nation, or attacking other nations, the ideal of masculinity we may have inherited may not be useful in all circumstances.

Over the eons since the first Kurgans raided, plundered and murdered, we have a legacy of the individual warrior standing alone, strong, decisive, willing to kill, willing to die -- to give to the young men of society. In terms of being part of a violent gang, this definition of masculinity has its limits. In terms of defense of the home, or a nation, still useful. In terms of domestic abuse and rape, no longer useful.

End, Part I

Part II:

Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe -- Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Change 950-l350:

Chap.4 The Image of the Conqueror

As the military aristocracy of Western Europe extended its lordship outwards in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, its members created not only conquest states and colonial societies, but also representations of themselves and their enterprises. These images of conqueror and conquest are enshrined in the histories and charters that their clerical brothers and cousins drew up and in the songs and stories that the aristocracy composed and enjoyed. Written memorials of this kind record the words and gestures of famous conquerors. They elaborate a terminology and rhetoric of expansionary violence. Mythic motifs recur: the first coming of the conquerors; the figure of the heroic military pioneer, perhaps a poor knight or noble, who took the gamble of foreign conquest; the superhuman exploits of the new men. What emerges from such records is the self-image of the conqueror.

The conqueror was a man with a special set of drives, certain patterns of emotion. Those classic image-makers, the early chroniclers of the Norman conquest in southern Italy (Geoffrey Malaterra, William of Apulia, Amatus of Monte Cassino), do not ascribe Norman success to numbers or to technical advantages, but to a series of psychological characteristics. The Normals formed a small island of notherners in a sea of Lombards, Greeks and Muslims, but they had mental qualities that gave them an edge. First was their energy...This is a theme particularly prominent in the pages of Malaterra, who writes of the energy of the Hauteville clan, the leaders of the Norman enterprise, of Norman chiefs who are "energetic in arms"; of men who "obtained the favour of all through their energy"; of a pre-battle harangue in which the Normans are urged "be mindful of the much praised energy of our ancestors and our race....Robert Guiscard's invasion of the Byzantine mainland in l081 showed his "great daring and knightly energy."

As well as being vigorous, the Normans are courageous, the "toughest of soldiers"...who always "fight bravely...."