As a history undergraduate, I took a decision that surprised my predominantly male friendship group. Instead of picking modules that focused on the Kings and Queens, and political leaders who led their nations to great triumph or disaster, my choices consistently swayed towards gender history and the study of the past through the lens of socially constructed gender roles.
Notions of masculinity in modern Britain are in flux
Today, as a politician working on the government’s Men and Boys strategy, this appears to have been a wise decision. We are, once again, witnessing an acutely gendered transformation of our politics and society.
Across the western world, the patterns and themes are consistent and clear – boys and girls, men and women, are perceiving and experiencing underlying economic and social changes in vastly different manners.
The left has a problem with boys and men. Too many are drawn to far-right parties. Men’s influencers espouse a form of get-rich-quick isolationism that is anathema to the communitarian values of the Labour Party and the trade union movement that built it.
