What's wrong with men?

Moral Maze

BBC

Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 609 Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Netflix drama ‘Adolescence’ has prompted a national conversation about a ‘crisis of masculinity’. In a society where gender roles are changing, progressive attitudes are in tension with traditional ideas about male behaviour.

Studies suggest Gen Z men and women are more divided than those of any other generation on questions about feminism, gender roles and women’s rights. Meanwhile, teachers highlight the alarming prevalence of misogyny in schools, influencers can be influential than parents, and social media algorithms amplify misogynistic content to teens. This is happening at the same time as rising rates of depression, anxiety, and a higher likelihood of suicide among young men.

Traditional ideas about ‘manliness’ - strength, dominance, independence, and emotional stoicism - are seen in many contexts as inappropriate and harmful – both to men and women. While the feminist movement and women’s advances in education and the workplace, for example, are a mark of social progress, some believe they have also challenged men’s sense of purpose in a way that has perhaps been overlooked. Others think this analysis is dangerous because it doesn’t apply to all men, it sets up men's mental health and wellbeing in opposition to the opportunities of women, and denies some men the agency to make the right choices. At the same time, it can be uncomfortable to discuss how men and women are different – physically and psychologically – and how they might have different and complementary roles.

Do we need to re-define or reclaim masculinity? What’s wrong with men?

Chair: Michael Buerk Producer: Dan Tierney Assistant Producer: Peter Everett Editor: Tim Pemberton

Panel: Ash Sarkar Tim Stanley Matthew Taylor Anne McElvoy

Witnesses: Clare Ford Brendan O'Neill James Bloodworth John Amaechi

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:05.0	Good evening. The Lost Boys were characters in Peter Pan, who'd fallen out of their prams and been sent to Neverland.
0:12.1	An apt metaphor for both the title of a report just out on how young men and boys are falling behind their female peers,
0:19.0	and what seems, a crisis in masculinity generally.
0:23.1	The report from the Centre for Social Justice paints a bleak picture of how boys increasingly underachieve in education and employment.
0:31.4	Their role models tend to come from malign influences online rather than a father at home.
0:37.6	Boys are now more likely to have a smartphone than a dad who lives with them, is the report's
0:42.5	most chilling line.
0:44.4	All this has been put into sharp focus by the Netflix series Adolescence.
0:49.1	This is about a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a girl, but more generally, it shows
0:54.1	a society where traditional
0:55.4	male virtues, strength, reticence, self-reliance, are regarded as almost dysfunctional. In their place,
1:03.3	a warped internet version of masculinity pumps out misogyny to teenage boys. The world is
1:09.7	stacked against them, they're told, and it's women's
1:12.2	fault. Undereducated, under-employed, overtaken, angry and upset. What's wrong with the modern
1:19.8	male? That's our moral maze tonight. The panel, Anne McHelvoy, executive editor of the News
1:24.9	and Commentary Site Politico, the historian Tim Stanley,
1:28.5	Ash Sarka from the Navar Media Group, and Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation.
1:35.5	Ash, you are a feminist, are you or not? What do you think of this, any?
1:41.0	No, I am a feminist, and I thought that adolescence was an incredible drama, but I do always worry when politicians and
1:48.1	journals watch something on the telly and then they emerge from that experience to crying a new social ill in one voice.
1:54.2	I think we're at risk of losing size for the bigger picture. Yes, there are problems with misogyny,
	...

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