Having recently won a School Library Association Award for his book, Lads: A Guide to Consent and Respect, author and playwright Alan Bissett discusses his recent work in schools across Scotland the rest of the UK.

Alan Bissett is no stranger to a classroom. A former teacher, he has also been “touring schools basically for the last 25 years” as a writer and performer. His debut novel, Boy Racers, became a favourite of those trying to encourage boys to read, and he spent a lot of time talking to pupils about literature or giving advice on creative writing.

But the nature of his visits has changed, because since the publication of Lads: A Guide to Consent and Respect, he has been increasingly in demand to address “masculinity, boundaries, and consent.”

Has that shift in focus required a different way of thinking on his part?

“Definitely, aye, and more reading the room and responding to the vibe that they are giving you as well, because not every boy is up for that conversation.

“Yes, it's to promote the book, but it's mainly to have a really important conversation with them about manhood. They're about to become men, but what kind of men are they going to become? That's the sort of conversation that we're wanting to start.”

Bissett is certainly not the only person calling for these sorts of conversations to take place, with concerns about increasing levels of misogyny and sexism, especially amongst young men and boys, becoming increasingly commonplace, and his recent experiences suggest that this is far from an imagined or overblown problem.

“I feel like I've been all over Scotland in schools over the last two and a half decades, but it's only since Lads came out in the last year that I've ever been invited into a school in England, and I've had dozens of them. So that has been a change, but every school up and down the UK, whether it's a posh school, or a rough school, all of them are reporting the same thing, which is: ‘We're having a bit of a problem with our boys.’

“I think something has happened in maybe the last five years or so that has initiated some kind of shift in the behaviour and their attitudes, and the schools are reporting that the way they treat the female staff, and the way they're treating the girls, has changed.”

“It’s not every boy – probably not even the majority of boys – but enough of them.”

But as with other behavioural issues in schools, you don’t need to have every pupil acting out to cause much bigger problems: a persistent minority can be every bit as disruptive.

So what does he think is driving this serious, and seriously concerning, shift in attitudes?

“I think there are various different reasons. I think it is potentially, to maybe a lesser extent, to do with lock down. Young people missed a crucial part of the socialisation process when they were going to high school, and obviously I understand the reasons why that had to happen, but we’re maybe now seeing a bit of the long term impact of that.

“But also I think it's the combination of pornography and online influencers that are giving them messages that aren't necessarily healthy.”

He also mentions, with some reluctance, “the rise of ‘woke’”, referencing the ongoing, and perhaps inevitable, pushback against progress on issues like equality and minority rights.

“There's also poverty. Material conditions have worsened for families out there, and there's a lot boys who are living in very desperate circumstances and just don't give a fuck, basically.”

Another factor is the ever-increasing impact of social media, which Bissett says “changes things as well.”

There is much discussion about these difference influences, and debate over the way in which they interact, but whatever the particular balance of factors might be, the reality is that a change has happened and that women and girls are suffering the consequences.

“During one of the first talks I ever did on Lads in a school, I was given the boys and I was talking to them about the themes in the book. The girls were taken away with a female teacher and they were shown a video that I had done for BBC authors live when I was talking about Lads and the themes.

“And then afterwards the teacher asked what they thought about it and she told me that the place erupted and it turned into essentially a struggle session with all these girls listing all these things that the boys do, the stuff they have to put up with, saying they don't understand why boys are like that. They were asking the teacher if it has always been like this and the teacher was saying well, yes and no.”

So change is absolutely necessary, and unacceptable behaviour has to be tackled, but how? It seems unlikely that lectures are going to have much impact?

Bissett agrees, telling me that he has to “walk a line, because one of the things that would be absolutely counter-productive is for me to go in and say: ‘Alright boys shape up, come on, you're a problem.’”

Even worse, he suggests, is any sort of message telling young men experiencing deprivation, isolation and alienation that they “have a surplus of privilege”.

It’s not that he doesn’t understand that sort of analysis, but his concern is how it is received by the very people whose attitudes he might hope to change, especially when the message often seems to come from people who are, themselves, in demonstrably privileged and financially advantageous situations.

“So what happens is the Right are coming along, and toxic influencers are coming along, and basically just scooping them up because they're saying to them: ‘There's nothing wrong with you. Be proud to be a man. You're not an oppressor - they're the oppressors. They're oppressing you.’ And that's a very seductive story tell people who feel that they don't have any hope and that they're basically having a finger pointed at them the whole time and being told that they're a problem.”

But, he adds, he also has to “tell it like it is” – that’s the whole point.

“So I have to show them stats about sexual assault and rape and those sorts of things in order to kind of sober them up at first and say that there are things that women fear that we never have to fear. When we go on a night out, if you keep an eye on your drink it's so somebody doesn't neck it; it's not because you think you're going to be drugged and sexually assaulted. You can walk home late at night and never feel fear.”

He points out that while men are, of course, victims of violence, they don’t experience that in the same way as women.

“That's what I'm trying to explain to them: that girls experience the world in a way that's different from the way that boys experience it.

“And it's the responsibility of men to regulate each other and keep an eye out for these guys, and also think about the culture that we create among ourselves that allows dangerous attitudes and behaviours to flourish.

“So you know something as simple as one of your mates makes a sexist joke that's quite misogynistic and even a wee bit dark. You’ve maybe not made that joke but if you laugh that's encouraging a culture.”

Bissett accepts he is “never going to reach” everyone, especially when he is only visiting a school for an hour or so, but he does believe that the best approach is to try to “change the culture around them” in the hope that more and more boys and young men become willing to speak up.

It all sounds good, but I’m not the type of person he’s hoping to convince. What has the reaction been like during those school visits?

“What I'd say is probably about 75 percent of the boys are on board, because really when you think about it, the ‘toxic masculinity’ that they see affects them as well.

“So they're open to that conversation, I think especially because I try to also point out how difficult it can be for men in this world: the male suicide rate is higher than the female suicide rate, men have greater mental health problems than women do, women have greater support groups than men do.

“I ask what they think some of the reasons for that might be, and talk about the fact that women and men experience the same range of emotions - love, fear, jealousy, rage, hope – but men are maybe only allowed to convey quite a narrow bandwidth of emotion unless it's within the context of sport.”

Ultimately, Bissett feels that the focus has to be on how to make progress rather than a relentless retelling of a narrative in which the very people we are trying to reach are told that they, very specifically, are the problem:

“I try and suggest some things that they can do that might make them become positive role models. So rather than saying there's something wrong with men and they need to fix it, ask what can we do that means that we become positive role models to younger boys.

“So it's about giving them responsibility empowering them to feel that they can actually play a part, rather than trying to, you know, take them down and destroy them.”

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