Steve Biddulph

Raising men who don't harm women

We know how to raise men who don’t harm women, so why are there still problems? We asked author Steve Biddulph

Steve Biddulph is the author of Raising Boys, The New Manhood, and the upcoming Fully Human – a new way of using your mind.

Shortly after the publication of the last issue of Tabler, a police officer was formally charged with the murder of Sarah Everard. The subsequent and rightful outcry and public discussion about violence against women is a subject we felt was imperative to cover – particularly in a publication with an entirely male audience. After significant debate regarding the best way forward, we decided to approach bestselling author, Steve Biddulph for his thoughts, advice and opinion on the subject.

The world of manhood is a very divided place right now. There are two whole different kinds of man in co-existence. Most contemporary men, and most teenage boys thankfully, are caring and ethical. They like and value the women and girls in their lives, and treat them with empathy and respect. But coexisting with this, and present all around us, is a dark shadow masculinity. Dangerous and predatory men still abound in our culture, in sufficient numbers to make it grimly unsafe to be a girl or a woman. Recently the UK and Australia have been galvanised by some horrible crimes against women, and perhaps even worse, accounts from hundreds of schoolgirls and young women about how aggressive and predatory young people’s experience of love has become.

Young women are coming into doctors with actual and sometimes lasting injuries, tearful and feeling betrayed by boys they thought they knew and could trust. Pornography has been blamed, probably rightly, for miseducating our kids about how lovemaking works, and the simple fact that tenderness and boundaries really matter for relationships to go well. But even the fact that some boys and men actually want to rape women is horrible for any parent to contemplate.

We can’t solve this by exhortation, or finger wagging. We have to ask what practical and evidence-based methods – in our families, in schools – can change this terrible state of affairs. We must picture a small new-born boy lying in his cot asleep, and ask ourself, what is going to decide whether they will grow up to be a predator or a loving and respectful man.

The answer is a sequence of developmental stages which are fraught but entirely manageable if we apply what we know. Firstly, a baby boy has to be treated with tenderness. Boys’ neurological development has been shown by scientists such as UCLA’s Allan Schore to be hampered by their slower development, making them prone to separation anxiety and damaged attachment, and in many ways not suited to the modern world where we hurry and stress ourselves. Empathy is a quality that has to be experienced in order to become a part of us. We learn little by little to be tender and keep our hearts open, so that we can feel for others and never want to harm them. Damaged men come disproportionately from both ends of the socio-economic scale: the poor and stressed victims of an unfair society, and the overprivileged but time-poor who tend to not spend a lot of time with their children.

Fathering plays a key role. Most of how we acquire our social roles comes from example. If we have a dad who is respectful, loving and tender towards our mother. Who teaches us patiently and with good humour to be kind and co-operative with each other? Who never hits us or shames us, who helps us to not freeze our hearts when they are inevitably wounded, then even by primary school age you will see boys who are safe and kind to be around.

Eventually, by about the mid-teens, it’s important for dads and mums to talk about how to be protective around girls’ safety and wellbeing.

In one of my books I suggest raising a scenario for discussion – they are at a party, one of the girls has had too much to drink and is almost comatose on a couch in a side room. Some boys – perhaps their friends – are starting to pull at her clothing and joke and mess around with her, and she is too drunk to really be aware or protect herself. What could they do to get her to safety? To intervene in a non-argumentative way to make sure she does not get harmed of action (and your clearly conveyed expectation that they are a good person and would want to do this) they are prepared in case this ever happens. Since it almost certainly will.

So, these are the steps… a gentle and attached infancy, an unstressed and tender small boyhood. Engaged and challenged movement into healthy masculinity with adults who spend years around them. And a specific series of conversations around never harming or sexually mistreating girls, and being actually protective and aware of their safety. These are the keys to making better men. No girl or woman of any age is safe in the world today, and that has to give us pause. Let’s not pretend we don’t have the answers – it’s the application we have to bring to bear in our homes and schools, and the larger world.

Empathy is a quality that has to be experienced in order to become a part of us.