(incorporating the International Ex-Fetus Association)
Good Men from Good Boys (Open Letter to the NZ Sunday Star-Times)
by Peter Zohrab (2003) (incorporating suggestions by A.N. Onymous)
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Recently, we had a female newspaper editor running two articles by a female (Deidre Mussen, Sunday Star-Times November 9th 2003) about how a woman (Celia Lashlie) has the gall to think she can solve a supposed problem in the education of boys by telling them what they should aspire to ! But you are not so mad as the principals of the secondary schools who put a woman in charge of this project!
The most significant problems boys face today are the lack of male-specific advocacy, lack of respect for their beliefs and attitudes, the consequent lack of self esteem, and the lack of same-sex role models in schools. I am afraid that Lashlie is only worsening boys' difficulties by failing to tackle directly problems of boy self-esteem and by further attempting to force square pegs into round holes.
How can boys possibly develop meaningful goals and self-esteem if their school principals are so loony as to put a *woman* in charge of telling them what their goals should be ? Would they also put a man in charge of girl-advocacy for the public school system? Would they allow a man to advise girls to think more like boys? Be more "boy-like" in their interests and career choices? Disparage normal girl aspirations? If they chose to do so, would this be the best way to fill a perceived void in positive female role models and female self-esteem?
This is just a symptom of the basic problem in New Zealand. Schools are dominated by female teachers, the majority of whom promote their personal beliefs ahead of the interests of their male pupils, and who constantly judge men according to how their thinking and behavior suits the interests of others like them (read: "women"). That is the problem, and pretending that the boys themselves are inherently problematic is the usual Feminist fantasy which has been destroying boys' self-confidence for decades.
Your predecessor (or was it you yourself ?) wrote an editorial ( September 7th 2003) in which she said men should apologize for having penises, and that it was usually blokes who did the wife-beating ! This combination of stupidity and sexist penis-envy is obviously what it takes to get promoted in the Feminist-dominated education and media-sectors !
Although it decries Political Correctness, the Good Man project is obviously corrupted by feminist Political Correctness from start to finish. Nelson College headmaster Salvi Gargiulo says:
- "It's about getting boys talking about emotions,"
It is absolutely ludicrous to say that boys should talk about their emotions. That is what girls do -- and it leads to the betrayal of secrets and malicious gossip. Men deal with their problems, generally speaking, by going off and doing something totally different. There has never been any evidence (that I have heard of) provided by the female-dominated Psychology/Psychiatry industry that talking about emotions works for males -- or, indeed, for anyone.
Freud started this off by chatting to middle-class Viennese women, and since then the mental health of the Western World has gone rapidly downhill ! From the very start of the feminist movement, the psychoanalytic techniques of Freud were criticized as being altogether too patriarchal and pathologizing towards normal female psychology. We now live in an era where it is normal masculine behaviors that are routinely pathologized.
It would perhaps be better to ask the fundamental question as follows: are the educational and therapy services provided to young men provided by the best advocate for that particular person? Are the best techniques being used to boost the self-esteem and engagement of the specific child in question? Does the educator have an ulterior motive that may run contrary to the best interest and aspirations of the specific child in question?
Meanwhile, Celia Lashlie says that:
- alcohol use and homophobia are rife and need addressing.
Homophobia and alcohol use may well need to be addressed, from a moral and health point of view, but they are part of a completely different (even hostile) agenda to an agenda that aims to restore most boys' self-worth as boys.
Boys are not in need of a bullying "Good Man Project". What they need is special place to be and celebrate being boys, and a Good Woman Project to teach their professors how to be better advocates for boys' personal interests. I will volunteer to run it ! We can compile a set of compulsory courses for all female teachers, lecturers, journalists and union officials, in order to sensitize them to the more delicate issues regarding male education today.
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