Forget 'toxic masculinity': we need to give young men hope

I guess my own parents felt the same after my brother and I grew up. They must have wondered what life would have been like with a daughter.

However, the deeper we get into the 21st century, the more I, unhappily, realise I was maybe lucky. Raising boys seems a hard road to walk.

I say "unhappily" because, as a man, the state of masculinity has always troubled me, and what’s happening to young men today is in many ways heartbreaking.

Young men are in a state of crisis. They seem lost. Misogyny is epidemic in schools. Violent, degrading online pornography saturates young men’s lives. Loneliness stalks millions of us.

Dangerous voices - who just a few years ago would have been seen as pathetic cranks - are now "influencers" for young men. The likes of Andrew Tate are a plague on masculinity.

Teachers are now calling for inquiries into harmful content and online misogyny. This all seems a far cry from the late 1980s and early 1990s, when my generation came of age.

That was the era of the so-called "New Man". We wanted to break with the past: to be good partners, to respect women, to work hard as parents and forge deep bonds with our children. We turned our backs on old notions of masculinity. Though, evidently, trying and succeeding are not the same thing; but we did try.

Now, for so many young men, those ideas seem killed by the brute called social media. Today, my friends with sons tell stories that chill me; stories which confirm how lucky I was to have girls.

And I feel ashamed saying "lucky". It’s cruel to my own sex. And, clearly, not all young men are in crisis.

But I’ve friends deeply scared by the changes that came over their sons in their mid-teens. The gateway drug seems to always be extreme pornography. Within a few steps they’re mainlining the hateful misogyny of the Tates of this world.

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Now, I’m no anti-pornography morality campaigner. Consenting adults can do whatever they please. But pornography has changed. I made a documentary years ago about the effects of extreme online pornography on men and it horrified me.

Women were "things" to use. Many young men found sex impossible after prolonged exposure to extreme pornography; reality and fantasy were so at odds they were effectively impotent with "real" women.

Not long after I made that documentary, I started developing another film, this time about "toxic masculinity". I worked the idea up, but something didn’t feel quite right. As a journalist, I go on my gut and some crucial element I couldn’t identify was missing from the film. Eventually, I let the idea drop.

Today, I realise what was wrong with the idea. It was the very term "toxic masculinity". If we want boys and young men to be better human beings we won’t achieve anything if we tell them they’re trash.

Look, don’t get me wrong. "Toxic masculinity" exists. It saturates society. But we won’t change anything by shaming and effectively pointing and laughing.

I no longer sneer at Brexit voters - or Trump voters, for that matter when I’m in America. I did for a long time and it was wrong. I’ve changed my approach; not because I agree with them - quite the opposite - but because I’d like to get through to them. Nobody listens to you, if you insult them.

Young men and boys will do the same if we keep telling them they’re trash, because that’s what the word "toxic" implies. It says "you’re disgusting".

I was a rebellious boy - not a bully or a misogynist, but recklessly anti-authority. If adults told me to behave because I was a disgrace or making a fool of myself, it just intensified my behaviour.

It was only when a few smart teachers spoke to me not as a trouble-maker, but as someone who was perhaps a little troubled as a teen and needed a friendly hand to help them onto a better path, that I started to listen.

These teachers knew I wanted to be a writer. They switched me on to great novelists and said "why not emulate them rather than snarl at the world all the time?".

They didn’t humiliate me, they encouraged me. We need to shift away from the humiliating language of "toxic masculinity", and instead present a vision of positive masculinity.

Men can be kind, wise and courageous; we can represent self-sacrifice; the nurturing qualities of fatherhood; we can be inspirational leaders and mentors; champions of the arts and sport; voices of guidance, of empathy.

The Labour Party is considering a men’s health strategy to address the crisis in masculinity if it takes power. The Scottish Government has started talking about a “positive vision” of masculinity. These are wise steps.

The likes of Andrew Tate are a plague on masculinity (Image: PA)

However, I’d caution the Scottish Government. Humza Yousaf now rightly speaks of “a vision for masculinity that is uplifting and positive so the negative male role models we are all aware of can be challenged”. I applaud this. However, the Government press machine still talks of “toxic masculinity”.

That mixed messaging is self-defeating. You can present all the positive role models available, but keep telling boys they’re toxic, and they’ll switch off.

None of this means the pain of being a girl or young woman today is any less. Indeed, women’s suffering is often much more damaging. Women are, evidently, the victims of the worst of men.

Surely, all that matters is changing men for the better, so that young boys and, crucially, young girls live happier, safer lives. I think the only way to achieve that simple, yet seemingly insurmountable, task is to learn that encouragement not shame is the only path to betterment.