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Bettina Arndt's avatar

"Boys will keep on looking for satisfying icons of non-feminist masculinity, and perhaps the teachers should ask some probing questions about why boys aren’t buying the prissy pap they’re pushing." Brilliant comment, Janice. Such an important article.

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Humdinger's Cat's avatar

I went to an all boys school in the 1980s and it seems a world away from what's being descibed here. There was around 450 pupils, so it wasn't a huge school. The number of fights between 2 boys per year you could count on one hand. I didn't enjoy school, but the things I can remember most is the anarchic, irreverent, creative humour. Some of it was genius. A lot of it was completely pointless and it was just done for the sake of fun.

One example I can still remember after all these years. We studied Seamus Heaney in English. The cover of the text book was a black and white photo of the poet standing on a deserted beach wearing a parka anorak. The previous owner of my copy from the year before had, using just a bottle of indian ink, bleach and a paintbrush, painstakingly removed Heaney's head, painted in the hood of the parka and the clouds leaving a headless figure on the beach. It was done with photorealistic pefection. He had also reworked the title - adding upstrokes to 'a's, matching the typeface - again perfectly - so the poet was renamed Sedmus Hedney. It must have taken an entire weekend. But why? Just because he could and it resulted in a small work of brilliance. That's only one example. When superglue was invented - boy, it was mayhem. Some jokes were cruel, but the majority were harmless. Some were hilarious. And I think that the teachers admired all of this in the boys and respected their brains.

There was an all girls school nearby and, from their conversations, none of this carry-on happened. They shared friendships and jokes, but nowhere near at the same level.

I do believe there is a unique form of genius that happens for a few years in the lives of school boys. And it saddens me that it's being kicked to the curb. We are told if boys have a tendency to positive behaviours that we see less of in girls its because society sabotages girls to not behave like this. No positive behaviours are the product of masculinity. Only the negative ones.

What an an abusive, cruel thing to do to children.

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