My friend Michael Merrick is a proud teacher in a comprehensive school, and a stalwart of the enormously expanded Labour Party in Carlisle. Sounding for all the world like one of the Corbyn Boys who look to me as a style icon (yes, really), he writes:
If you are a working-class boy, there is every chance that most of the professionals you will come across in your formative years are women.
If you are a working-class boy, there is every chance that most of the authority figures you come across in your formative years will be women.
If you are a working-class boy, there is every chance that your experience of women/girls during your formative years is that they are generally the high achieving and successful ones.
Unlike you. And your mates.
If you are a working class boy, there is also every chance that a good chunk of the males you encounter are proving less than successful in life.
If you are a working class boy, there is every chance that a good chunk of the males you encounter are underemployed and undereducated.
If you are a working-class boy, there is every chance that the places you are most likely to come across successful males – secondary school, celebrity culture and the professional services – seem so remote, sometimes even antagonistic, to your own everyday experiences as to be almost alien.
We paint in broad brush strokes, of course, but there is justification, if only to tease out the central point.
The idea that women are systematically disadvantaged in society might well be true.
For this reason, we might well deem it morally justified to address this, through our politics, through our legal system, through our education system, through our cultural norms and practices.
But by the frames of reference available to working class boys, this can so often seem only to contradict lived reality.
And if we then sit them down and tell them that they are part of the privileged, the winners in society, such that their interests must at times be circumvented to help girls and women be more successful, to achieve, to succeed in life – what do we expect the reaction to be?
To feel engaged in eradicating injustice, or to feel even more alienated? To feel empowered, or further disenfranchised? To feel magnanimous, or further slighted?
Working class boys have it pretty tough, though there is little political capital in making the improvement of their condition a priority.
And if one has already accepted that gender must trump class, then there is little moral reason to do so either.
In the meantime, we have a generation and more of working-class boys becoming a sink subsection of society, developing into the kind of men that only confirms the worst suspicions of those who would so readily write them off.
We must not deny moral agency here: oftentimes this is of their own making, engaged in a downward spiral, formed within a cultural landscape marked by precisely that transience and insecurity that shapes a view of life and living that schooling and learning is failing to counter.
And which only further feeds into that feeling of alienation, that perpetually unsuccessful attempt at the art of living well.
The result? Disengaged, angry young men. Lots of them. It is no surprise that this is beginning to shape our politics.
The condition of working-class girls is an essential part of this story, though it is legitimate to question how effectively feminism has captured this reality.
I am from a northern working-class family in which the women are hard, authoritative, confident – though their concerns seem a world away from the attentions of academics and professionals, that which characterises the principal cultural and political expressions of feminism.
My point is not that we must therefore choose between the two, but allow as valid a space where other narratives might appear.
And one of those narratives might be the impact social changes – economic and cultural – have had on working-class boys and men.
We might think these changes worthwhile, worthy, fully justified, but we must also take account of the experiences of those on the sharp-end of such progress.
Maybe a working-class feminism would better capture an understanding of the needs of working-class boys too.
Maybe it wouldn’t. I really don’t know.
But what is clear is that working-class boys are struggling. Economically, socially, culturally, they are fast becoming a dalit class.
We cannot claim to be a society that seeks justice if we stand blindly by and allow it to happen.
And if feminism is really the best vehicle we have for providing an account of the way gender interacts and impacts on one’s place in society, then maybe there are grounds for hope.
Because this seems to be precisely what working-class boys need right now. Maybe, then, working-class boys need feminists too.
I suppose the question is: would feminists be willing to address that need?
If you are a working-class boy, there is every chance that most of the authority figures you come across in your formative years will be women.
If you are a working-class boy, there is every chance that your experience of women/girls during your formative years is that they are generally the high achieving and successful ones.
Unlike you. And your mates.
If you are a working class boy, there is also every chance that a good chunk of the males you encounter are proving less than successful in life.
If you are a working class boy, there is every chance that a good chunk of the males you encounter are underemployed and undereducated.
If you are a working-class boy, there is every chance that the places you are most likely to come across successful males – secondary school, celebrity culture and the professional services – seem so remote, sometimes even antagonistic, to your own everyday experiences as to be almost alien.
We paint in broad brush strokes, of course, but there is justification, if only to tease out the central point.
The idea that women are systematically disadvantaged in society might well be true.
For this reason, we might well deem it morally justified to address this, through our politics, through our legal system, through our education system, through our cultural norms and practices.
But by the frames of reference available to working class boys, this can so often seem only to contradict lived reality.
And if we then sit them down and tell them that they are part of the privileged, the winners in society, such that their interests must at times be circumvented to help girls and women be more successful, to achieve, to succeed in life – what do we expect the reaction to be?
To feel engaged in eradicating injustice, or to feel even more alienated? To feel empowered, or further disenfranchised? To feel magnanimous, or further slighted?
Working class boys have it pretty tough, though there is little political capital in making the improvement of their condition a priority.
And if one has already accepted that gender must trump class, then there is little moral reason to do so either.
In the meantime, we have a generation and more of working-class boys becoming a sink subsection of society, developing into the kind of men that only confirms the worst suspicions of those who would so readily write them off.
We must not deny moral agency here: oftentimes this is of their own making, engaged in a downward spiral, formed within a cultural landscape marked by precisely that transience and insecurity that shapes a view of life and living that schooling and learning is failing to counter.
And which only further feeds into that feeling of alienation, that perpetually unsuccessful attempt at the art of living well.
The result? Disengaged, angry young men. Lots of them. It is no surprise that this is beginning to shape our politics.
The condition of working-class girls is an essential part of this story, though it is legitimate to question how effectively feminism has captured this reality.
I am from a northern working-class family in which the women are hard, authoritative, confident – though their concerns seem a world away from the attentions of academics and professionals, that which characterises the principal cultural and political expressions of feminism.
My point is not that we must therefore choose between the two, but allow as valid a space where other narratives might appear.
And one of those narratives might be the impact social changes – economic and cultural – have had on working-class boys and men.
We might think these changes worthwhile, worthy, fully justified, but we must also take account of the experiences of those on the sharp-end of such progress.
Maybe a working-class feminism would better capture an understanding of the needs of working-class boys too.
Maybe it wouldn’t. I really don’t know.
But what is clear is that working-class boys are struggling. Economically, socially, culturally, they are fast becoming a dalit class.
We cannot claim to be a society that seeks justice if we stand blindly by and allow it to happen.
And if feminism is really the best vehicle we have for providing an account of the way gender interacts and impacts on one’s place in society, then maybe there are grounds for hope.
Because this seems to be precisely what working-class boys need right now. Maybe, then, working-class boys need feminists too.
I suppose the question is: would feminists be willing to address that need?
No comments:
Post a Comment