How Guilty Rich Women are making the world worse for boys

Elite society continues to see boys as a problem and to focus on male traits (strength, courage, competitiveness and single-mindedness) as iniquities rather than virtues.

“Society likes to blame young men, saying it's their problem, when in fact it is society that is not providing the structure, guidance, means or places for young men to develop themselves and thrive”

At its last general election, Australia’s politics was visited by a new caste of ‘community independents’. These independents, nearly all women, were elected in well-healed suburban constituencies and chose as their colour one no self-respecting bloke would have recognised - teal. Wikipedia describes the platform of this collection of independents as follows:

“The teal independents have been described as varying from centre-left to centre-right in political orientation, with Kate Chaney and Allegra Spender both descending from former Liberal ministers, and Monique Ryan being a former member of the centre-left Labor Party. Others, such as Zoe Daniel and Helen Haines, have been described as centrist. Generally, teal independents have been described as having progressive social policies, with a focus on climate change, anti-corruption policies and gender equality, while still retaining conservative economics similar to those of the Liberals. Some, such as David Pocock, focus on environmentalism, however others, such as Spender, emphasise economic policy.”

British political observers will, of course, have instantly recognised these women, perhaps even muttering ‘liberal democrats’ quietly to themselves. These are the sort of people who think Hillary Clinton is wonderful and, even though they know little about her ideas or outlook, will get all gooey-eyed at the mention of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. The places they represent are filled with the rich and successful, something that means doctors, headteachers, civil servants and charity chief executives as much as it means entrepreneurs or finance wizz-kids. Such people support progressive even feminist policies in schools and are filled with a sort of starry-eyed view of gender issues while raising kids terrified (in as far as it is cool and trendy to be terrified) by the climate crisis.

I call these people the “Guilty Rich” and Australia’s ‘Teals’ are the acme of their politics. Not just the focus on climate change and green issues but the manner in which such ‘Guilty Rich’ representatives, when the chips are down, support the financial interests of their constituents over the wider interests of society.

However, the most defining feature of the “Guilty Rich” is that they, and the people they elect, are mostly female.

For much of the post-war period, old-fashioned liberals had far more influence on policy than their numbers and political support merited. The media, elite institutions and the civil service was filled with such people - urbane, educated, sophisticated folk whose view of the world was shaped by private schools, holidays in rural France or Tuscany, and a disdain for the petit bourgeoisie of tradesmen, shopkeepers and small business owners. A disdain only topped by their distaste for anything reeking of the urban lower middle classes. The Tory Party, even after two leaders whose parents were shopkeepers, was filled with such men, not toffs but rather the ideal of a middle class portrayed in broadsheet newspapers, one with nannies, prep schools, fancy restaurants and a family villa outside Siena.

Increasingly the Labour Party became filled with the same sort of men and, increasingly, women. Of course, Labour leaning women had to do the Jess Phillips thing by putting on a bad accent and pretending to be working class but they still arrived via posh suburbia, good schools and top universities before taking well-paid jobs in the NHS, academia or an appropriately trendy ‘third sector’ organisation, ideally one that spends most of the charity’s money and time lobbying MPs rather than delivering any sort of social service. The lack of business knowledge or appreciation of economics never represented much of a barrier to political advancement but today it is almost a requirement for such advancement. The Guilty Rich don’t want to own up to where the money really comes from, they simply want to keep their mitts on as much of it as they can while appearing trendy, empathetic and feminine.

The centre-right are caught in a trap. Institutions and professions are increasingly female. In Britain three-quarters of teachers, 90% of nurses, 82% of social workers and nearly 60% of GPs are women. Women are starting to dominate professions like human resources management (71%), public relations (67%) and marketing (58%). And over 60% of the UK’s solicitors are women. A boy being raised by a single mum in a working class community is unlikely to encounter, other than a police officer, any authority figure who is male. The men they do see are digging the roads, sweeping the streets or beating the bejesus out of each other in a cage fight on You-Tube. Even the cop is increasingly likely to be a woman - 35% of the UK’s officers are.

The result of this is that, because too many women simply don’t understand, masculine virtues become toxified. The idea that being tough and resilient is a good thing is replaced with an idea that we should be vulnerable and empathetic. Courage becomes brashness, bravery, foolhardiness, and strength, a thing to fear. Collecting things, writing lists, learning intricate details of a chosen interest - single-mindedness - stop being valued male traits but are instead symptoms of “The Spectrum”. Geekiness and being a nerd get medicalised as ‘neurodiversity’ and the lack of attention when being asked to recite twee poems or sing bad songs gets called ADHD. Boys are criticised for not being more like girls, for being loud, for giggling at rude jokes, for being (as boys often are) a big gross. They’re told that the computer games they like to play (essentially 21st century versions of cops and robbers or cowboys and indians) represent toxic masculinity. Worse, the games designers, under pressure from the feminised institutions of society, put strong female, transgender and gay characters up front in the games. The boys don’t care, they just want to shoot things and win the game but society’s message to them is that there is nothing good, strong, positive or valuable about being male.

That son of a working class single mum grows up seeing that his natural male traits and values are not the way to progress. It isn’t just that the boy has no accessible male role models but that the things making him effective - strength, competitiveness, courage, single-mindedness - are less valued than things that aren’t so easy for him: nurturing, empathy, safety. So when he leaves school and heads to find a job, that boy discovers the career-oriented, well-paid jobs are jobs that reward female virtues. Even in areas where his skills apply - construction, engineering, the military - the employer now, for reasons of equality, gives preference to female applicants, especially if the employer is public sector or institutionally close to the public sector.

The result of devaluing male virtues, indeed calling them toxic, is that education fails boys:

“…in formal learning females outperform males at every level and every age group, from the early years through to Sats, GCSEs, A-levels, university admissions and degree classifications. It happens not only in the UK but in every developed country, with few exceptions.”

Researchers tell us that boys want more adventure, risk and competition from their school. Yet when the OECD looks at the problem of boys underachievement they end up talking about boys’ hostility to school or the impact of computer games and solitary rather than social use of the internet. At no point in the OECD’s report is the structure of school curriculums or the style of pedagogy considered as a factor in boys underachievement. The failure of boys is down to the boys (and things outside school) not in any way down to the schools themselves.

Yet there is evidence that schools are, at least in part, to blame for the rising gap in performance between boys and girls. This isn’t just that boys, because they tend to be less engaged with school, are more affected by bad schools but that boys are typically seen as a problem by an increasingly female education workforce with the result that expectations of boys - especially working class boys - are far lower than expectations of girls.

“This study presented 238 pupils aged four to 10 with a series of statements such as “this child is really clever” and “this child always finishes their work” and asked them to link the words to pictures of boys or girls. The study found that girls think that girls are cleverer than boys. This will come as no surprise, I expect. Girls at all ages said girls were cleverer.

But boys aged between four and seven were evenly divided as to which gender was cleverer.

And by the time boys reached seven or eight, they agreed with their female peers that girls were more likely to be cleverer and more successful.”

Those children did arrive with this view by themselves, they did so because parents, teachers and other (largely female) authority figures told them girls were better than boys.

But it isn’t just expectations it is also rewards. If performance in formal tests is seen as the reward for education (while appreciating that this is a narrow definition) then it appears that the nature of the formal testing matters (and may bias towards girls):

“In the science PISA males significantly outperformed females. The difference in the science scores of females and males was largely attributable to differential performance on the “explaining phenomena scientifically” competency scale. This indicates that males did better than females in such skills as applying their scientific knowledge, identifying or describing scientific phenomena and predicting changes. In contrast with these PISA results, girls get more top grades (A*, A and B) in GCSE science than boys”

Despite all this and occasional articles in broadsheet newspapers, there is little imperative to try and improve boys' performance at school. In a recent report on gender gaps in education, the underperformance of boys was plain yet the author's chosen recommendation was that more should be done to encourage girls to enter engineering, the one area where men continue to dominate. Elite society continues to see boys as a problem and to focus on male traits (strength, courage, competitiveness and single-mindedness) as iniquities rather than virtues.

Until this changes boys, especially less academically bright boys, will continue to fall behind while the push to feminise every institution in the name of equality creates a society less and less appealing to or accessible for boys and young men. The sort of selfish but outwardly well intentioned woman who sees Australia’s teals as appealling - Guilty Rich Women - presents an obstacle to a fairer and more equitable world for young men. And the simpering men who tell us these guilty rich women are strong and brave facilitate the continued underperformance of working class boys.