New Laddism blamed for big boys behaving badly

No, things do not look good for young men. They are three times more likely to kill themselves than young females; they commit up to 95 per cent of all crime; they trail behind girls in academic achievement.

It's not just an Irish phenomenon. In Britain, boys underachieve at school, slipping behind girls at every level, beginning as early as seven. These problems have been well signalled and explored.

Derek Nally described young men during his presidential campaign as a "timebomb". But one young Irishman this week attributed the problem "directly to a loss of identity by men in a changing world" and looked for a commission on the status of men.

"Men are facing problems in society which they have never had to tackle before," said Fine Gael housing spokesman, Brian Hayes TD. "There is a prevailing feeling of loss of identity and purpose. This can lead to disillusionment and disconnection. A commission on the status of men could investigate this disaffection which can, in many tragic cases, lead to crime or, ultimately, suicide."

It seems fair enough. We have had two Commissions on the Status of Women, so why not one for men? While veterans of the former cheered the call for a little male reflection, they were a little bemused by talk of a commission so early in the process.

"A commission has to arise out of an articulated need over a period and a real desire for change," says Frances Fitzgerald, Fine Gael defence spokeswoman. "There are a number of male identity issues that need examination but I don't think men have actually discussed these issues in detail."

The Women's Commissions, Caroline McCamley of the National Woman's Council remarked, were "an end point rather than a starting point". By the time they were mooted, a real groundswell was in progress, the work of consciousness-raising was well in hand, support groups established, key issues and common ground had been identified.

"How many men really discuss the issue of violence, for example?" asks Frances Fitzgerald. "Think of all the women's groups and what they've done for marginalised women and then ask yourself - how many initiatives have come from men to help marginalised young men?"

No one denies that there are heroic individual men pushing for change, but where is the concerted groundswell that would fuel a commission? What is this disaffection? From where does it spring? How many men are thinking about it, still less talking about it and putting a recognisable shape on it?

Should all men come under the scrutiny of the commission and if not, why not? And given that many of these "male" problems are rooted in men's unwillingness or inability to admit to vulnerability (and therefore to talk about their problems or seek help), how is the proposed Commission supposed to function? Will it begin by attaching blame?

"Feminism has gone too far" has become a mantra of many men and some women. Fay Weldon supported that view in an article some weeks ago, "left to speak for men, it seems, while they get their act together". So she wrote about the "hopeless double bind" that young men of the Nineties claim themselves to be in and neatly summed up the view from the trenches.

"They care desperately for the good opinion of women. They want nothing more than to live a domestic life. If they show sensitivity, strive to be New Men, they are despised as wimps. If they keep a stiff upper lip, they are derided for their insensitivity.

"Women, young men complain, want them for only one thing. They find themselves treated as sex objects . . . Fathers can find themselves driven from the home with no warning, the locks changed, a new lover in the bed they once occupied, minimum visitation rights to the children and the merciless CSA after them. (Yes, yes, I know that for every male horror story, there are probably 10 female ones, but 10 wrongs don't make a right)."

That British view is common in Ireland too. Young Nineties man, it appears, is in a terminal state of confusion. What a commission might do is begin by setting all this in context.

For example, it's less than 25 years since Irishwomen in State and some other jobs got the right to earn a living after marriage, less than 22 since they were allowed to serve on juries, less than eight since they won the right not to be raped by their husbands.

And in any event, as Observer journalist Dave Hill pointed out in an article on the future of men, the momentum for change has come from every direction, not just from the great crusades of the women's and gay liberation movements, but from shifting patterns in the world of work, from the possibilities posed by youth culture and the new lifestyle options offered by consumerism.

The old strait-jackets of breadwinner and housekeeper-mother no longer apply, "creating the potential for men, women and children to become more fruitfully acquainted, especially on the common ground of domesticity. . . [But] while many men face the prospect of perpetual redundancy, others are habitually working late at the office at similarly high cost to their loved ones and themselves . . . No wonder so many families fall apart. And the mad, bad tomorrow of super-competition and ultra employment `flexibility' holds no obvious prospect for improvement."

In this context, lest we run away with the notion of a fast-changing society, it should be noted that 60 per cent of Irishwomen still work full-time in the home and that fewer than 1 per cent of Irish males aged 25 to 49 describe themselves as househusbands. So should the Commission begin by examining work practices - something women have been crying out for decades? Or would it focus on the shortlist supplied by Brian Hayes?

Take suicide for example. Though not the biggest killer of young men in Ireland as Brian Hayes claims (road traffic accidents are), the statistics are nonetheless grim. Twice as many young men die from suicide as from cancer. And yet, despite painstaking studies, says Dr Michael Kelleher of the National Suicide Research Foundation (NSRF), there is "no universal explanation" for the phenomenon. "But I have scientific evidence that men are not seeking support from the available services," he says.

Why is this? A recent study by the NSRF showed that suicide is a rural phenomenon - the rate for Dublin city and county, for example, has barely moved in 25 years; Leinster, the most urbanised province, has the lowest male suicide rate of all. It may be that the necessary psychiatric and other support services are less accessible in less populated areas.

So the need for more and targeted support services seems obvious. The more intractable problem, however, is why young males - as opposed to females - generally feel unable to confess to vulnerability and look for help. What toxic element in male conditioning still forces men to take on the "John Wayne" stereotype? - i.e. "strong, silent and isolated", in the words of men's development worker, Alan O'Neill. "One of the accepted totems of the age is that women need support," says one man, "but there is no notion at all out there that men need support."

The problem, he says, is that "intrinsic in seeking support is an admission of frailty". Whoever finds the key to this will find the key to many of the issues around men. The problem Brian Hayes must conjure with is that until men begin to reflect on and honestly talk about their "inner lives", as sociologist Dr Harry Ferguson put it, no commission on earth is going to solve their problems (which, unfortunately, are also very much the problems of women and children).

On the positive side, there are stirrings of this kind of activity. According to Alan O'Neill, (who is possibly the only Government-funded men's development worker anywhere), there are upwards of 100 men's support groups around the State. With about eight to 15 members each, they haven't exactly reached critical mass but they give a flavour of the thinking among ordinary men.

O'Neill's South-East Men's Network works particularly with disadvantaged, marginalised and unemployed men, who find that at last they can discuss what their lives are really like in this protected circle. But before they cross the threshold, they have to confront the prejudices of other men who assume that anyone who joins such a club must be gay.

"Yes, even in 1998, homo phobia is rife among men", says Harry Ferguson. "That fear of being judged gay is why it's so difficult to get men into groups like these. Why is it that men don't open up more to other men? I think it's because of this fear. . ." So perhaps, this is this where the commission should begin.

In England they "used to think that unemployment among men was the key to boys' underachievement", said the general secretary of the National Union of Teachers. Then they realised that it was happening right across the country. Now they believe it's the fault of the New Lad "boys will be boys" culture - "a laddish anti-learning culture" that tolerates boys behaving badly.

This culture has found its voice in sport, on television and in magazines like Loaded and lately Esquire and GQ, once at the more intelligent end of the market.

This week, GQ features pornographic shots of very young models - one looking as though she's been punched. These magazines sell hundreds of thousands every month. Fay Weldon says we should see this fashion for "male loutishness . . . as a desperate cry for help - hopefully female help - from a drowning gender".

So, where can I find this commission?