Don’t we forget the boys? ‘My son is afraid of the girls in his class’

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All well and good, that one women empowerment, but aren’t the boys a little bit under pressure? Hester Zitvast investigated whether our sons had none pussies are making.

“I’m going to find out if we don’t have any pussies of today’s boys are making”, I told my friend, even before I had written down the first letter of this text. He reacted as if stung by a wasp: “Good! You can no longer be a heterosexual man these days. The word testosterone is dirty, if we continue with that soft stuff we won’t have real men in twenty years.”

masculine

It might be worth mentioning that my boyfriend works five days a week in a distinctly masculine work environment. He works on the editorial board of Studio Sports where, if you ask me, there isn’t much room for hypersensitivity. He only applauds the fact that in recent years, with #metoo as a catalyst, hard work has been done on more equality. You just have to let men be men, he thinks – we are just different. “It shouldn’t go all the way.” And let it go too far is exactly what we are currently excelling in as a society.

“You shouldn’t immediately push the head down”

In his spare time, my friend is a regular square guard at our eight-year-old daughter’s school. He sees to it that the children do not blow each other’s eyes in an unguarded moment. But where teachers tend to intervene quickly, he prefers to wait: “You first have to find out whether boys are playing around or really fighting. They need that frolic. Let’s see who is the strongest. Show muscles; you don’t have to push something like that right away. For a teacher, it must remain ‘cozy’, the teacher wants to talk out an argument, discuss the cause. I only intervene when I see that one of the two really doesn’t like it anymore. And that really doesn’t always require a very extensive conversation about emotions.”

To raise

With an overabundance of teachers in education (81 percent female versus 19 percent male), most boys are raised by women. This is no different in childcare; there, only 5.5 percent of the pedagogical staff are male.

Dad is therefore the only male role model in most cases and even that plays a limited role in many families due to full-time work or a divorce. The role he plays has been under a magnifying glass for a few years now. Modern dads are expected to do more than just cut the meat. They should be empathetic and non-judgmental: take their daughters to football and take their sons to ballet, if the kids want to. Fathers must raise their sons to gentlemen; there is no more clumsy, loud roaring conquering, the hands always stay at home (unless explicit permission is given) and the girls are treated with all due respect. They in turn see to it that this actually happens.

The modern mother then sees to it that her daughter cuts off the hand of the first boy who dares to slap her on the buttocks and you better give your girl a handbook girl empowerment for her eighth birthday. It can only be clear as soon as possible.

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Hypermasculine

Michelle (45) is mother of Nathan (9) and Anna (7). She sees no problem whatsoever in the correction of the hyper-masculine. “What do we want as a society, we have to ask ourselves that? Let’s be honest, in countries where patriarchy and machismo reign supreme, you will mainly find misery, just look at Russia again. Men cause war. In countries led by women, such as some Scandinavian countries, there is much less hassle. The Netherlands is lagging behind. The fact that we still haven’t had a female Prime Minister here is too bizarre for words.”

Michelle is convinced that if we properly instill this equality between men and women in children from the start, it will make an important contribution to what she calls the civilizing offensive. She herself makes no distinction whatsoever between her son and daughter. “Men are physically stronger, I notice that in Nathan too. But he doesn’t have to behave like that. It cannot be the case that a man usurps more rights on the basis of biological characteristics. In addition to your strength, you can also be empathetic, just to name a few.”

“We need the exaggeration of today, more balance will come naturally”

She is not afraid of a new generation of wimps. “Oh no, nonsense. By striving for more equality, you don’t make women men and men no women. What we’re seeing now is a strong reaction to that whole period when men ruled everything. There will naturally be more balance again. We need the exaggeration of today, after all gentle healers make stinking wounds. I understand the fierceness of young women. As a society, we must assign a non-negotiable value to equality. I am convinced that in the long run this will lead to a happier society.”

Victim role

My oldest son and daughter are polar opposites. Wouter (21) hates ‘feminist bullshit’, as he calls his sister Floortje (18)’s arguments about equality. He denounces her sometimes negative undertone towards men. That time someone dared to put a hand on her ass at a party, she gave him a ‘bitch slap’. The dramatic account of this at the table followed – about the misconduct of just about all men – went down the wrong way with my son. “You shouldn’t get into the victim role like that,” he snapped at his sister.

“’You shouldn’t play the victim role like that’, my son snapped at his sister”

A few months later I learned that my son had sat next to a girl his own age on an almost empty bus after boarding because she was being harassed by an older man. “The guy just kept going. I told him to fuck off or I’d beat him up. I got off with that girl a stop early to walk her home.”

I don’t have to explain to anyone that I was about to explode with pride at that moment. Machismo is also good for something.

no is no

We also try to tell daughter Belle (8) very clearly what is and is not possible. I don’t think boys in her class sometimes force a kiss and certainly can’t be written under the heading of ‘childish innocence’. No is no, they should already know that at that age, so I calmly e-mail the school asking if this can be discussed in class.

But when she comes in screaming because the boys next door are behaving like wild projectiles again, I tell her to stay inside for a while. I’m not going to interrupt their war game and ask if there’s room for my daughter’s hobbyhorse. Let those guys go wild and unleash their testosterone on each other.

rant

Kaj (9), the son of Susan (42), goes to Ajax with his father every weekend. “I can let him go completely there, just like during his own football matches: just scream your lungs out. Boys have to be obedient in school all week, and they also need space to give free rein to their masculinity.

When I had to come to the teacher for the summer because she found Kaj so incredibly busy in the schoolyard, I pointed out to her that he needs to release his energy somewhere. It could all be a little less, she said. She admitted that it was difficult, such a whole clique of busy boys under her care. Then you just didn’t get it; boys are just different.”

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Education system

A report by the Education Inspectorate shows that an average of 15 percent of boys in the third year of secondary education move on to a lower level of education, compared to 9 percent of girls. And boys move on to a higher level less often (11 percent, compared to 17 percent of girls). According to Susan, the fact that boys perform worse than girls at school has nothing to do with the current call for more equality.

“If we start to create a little more balance, it will be better for everyone”

“It is timeless. In my day, boys performed worse. The education system as we know it just doesn’t do them any good. Despite this, they still end up in the highest positions and women are still under-represented in managerial positions. That’s where that innate swagger comes up again. Women are – in general – too modest and men too confident. If we start to balance that out a little more, it will be better for everyone.”

Emancipation wave

Julia (45) is not entirely confident that that balance will be reached soon. “I fear that the wave of emancipation is still in its infancy. It’s getting crazier I think. My son Bas (12) is starting to get interested in girls, but is terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing. In his class there is a group of girls with hair on their teeth; he is just afraid of them. They’ve already canceled a boy from his class because he tried to kiss one of them.

The incident was brought out as half an assault, while according to Bas it really had nothing to do with it. ‘She could have just made it clear right away that she didn’t like him? And he didn’t force her in any way, only when he made an attempt did she push him away – fine, right?’

I don’t know any better than that that’s the way you start experimenting a bit as an adolescent. That the girl clearly said ‘no’ is more than good. But to cancel a boy like that afterwards, I think is really going too far. What does a girl like that belong at home, I wonder.”

Balance

It is therefore a matter of waiting for the balance, for a new balance between the boys and the girls. And where the scales tipped to the male side for centuries, now women put more weight in the scale. And whether boys are forgotten in it? Or we pussies make of them? I personally don’t think so. They won’t let that happen.

“Boys will be boyseventually they will really claim their place again”

Boys will be boys, in the end they really claim their place with a lot of noise and conspicuous beating on the chest (partly) again, witness the fact that the student council at my daughter’s school consists of eight children, including EIGHT boys, I just read in the newsletter. Maybe I’ll send a peppery email about that with the subject: ‘Hey, aren’t we forgetting the girls?’”

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