Boys becoming men!

According to The Observer today male graduates are not doing as well as the female graduates in terms of employment. There is an article by Will Hutton on the same theme and also a leading article. In the last week Frank Field the new benefits Tsar has been aiming is fire at male unemployment and the role of men in the family. So is there is something in the water that has caused this rush of thought to the head! Hutton bemoans the fact that men have lost any ambition or motivation to succeed. Some years ago while at the London School of Economics I started a men's group with a friend (it was one of the first in this country) it ran for a number of years. The pre-occupations then were-how do you define the role of men is society? Who is to define it? Other themes were the relationship with our fathers, our relationship with women in general and our mothers in particular. Similar ideas would be present today! So what is different? The biggest change has been the role of women in society. For middle class women the emancipation from domestic chores, sexual freedom, the chance to chose a profession, financial independence. All this has had an impact on men and their role in society. However the main issue in my view is the general failure of fathers to have-a good strong positive emotional relationship with their sons. There is currently a series of programmes on the BBC about fathers that is well worth watching. Unless we address this fundamental issue of the father son relationship more rigorously there will continue to be serious problems for boys becoming men!