An Open Letter to the Young Men of NI…

Much has been made of the phrase toxic masculinity in recent years. Examples abound in the news, the streets, behind closed doors. In Northern Ireland, at the time of writing, two Spotlight episodes in the last few weeks alone have focused on sexual abuse and safeguarding failures in major Protestant denominations in Ireland, and the most recent edition was about Jeffrey Donaldson, a rapist and child sexual offender at the very top of politics.

I participated in a discussion on Sunday Sequence recently on the topic of violence against women and girls and the usefulness of a term like toxic masculinity. I tried my best to outline the actual content the phrase refers to: a belief that men and superior, that competition and hierarchy are natural states, vulnerability is oppositional to maleness, emotions are to be avoided save for anger. I hope my contribution was helpful. However, as a teacher, I came away from the discussion thinking I had not done enough to defend young men and boys from the overreaching applications of the term itself.

You see, I simply refuse to use the term as a descriptor for the students I have the privilege of working with. Instead, in assemblies and classes, we have open discussions about the term, thinking of examples from influencers and celebrities and the news. Boys want to talk about toxic masculinity, not because they want to mimic the traits they see on their phones or homes, but because they want to find a way out of it.

We must remember that boys themselves are victims of patriarchy. This is so rarely discussed. The incredible work being carried out to prevent violence against women and girls is crucial. Especially in somewhere like Northern Ireland were there has been a huge rise in the number of women killed in their own homes by men they knew, typically their partner.

I would love to see boys added to the list of people impacted by violence perpetrated by men. We are in danger of not taking the humanity of boys seriously, and every boy that grows up in an environment with a violent man will be impacted physically, emotionally or conceptually: thinking that masculinity equates to a certain set of behaviours and attitudes. The latter usually results in the sins of the fathers being visited on the sons, which really means the daughters, sisters, mums bear the brunt once again of a certain kind of man.

Maybe I am an optimist of the worst kind, but I sincerely believe that people – and boys most of all – are desperate for an excuse to showcase the best version of themselves. From personal experience and observation, if you make an apparently generous assumption of a boy’s ability, character and potential, he’ll probably reach it. The same also applies in reverse.

Anyway, with all that said, Northern Ireland has proven to be fertile soil for toxic masculinity to flourish. The legacy of decades of conflict have given our men here a headstart on prizing emotionless silence over vulnerability. In terms of curating toxic conditions for young men to grow up, we are world leaders. But like many other teachers and people who work with teenagers, I can’t bear the vacuum of hope we have created for young men and boys. This struck me powerfully on a flight back from New York last week. Among the sleeping sixth formers I had accompanied on a life-highlight, five-night school trip, I wrote the following letter on the tray table. I hope it makes some sense to the young men in your life.

To the young men of NI,

You might not realise this, but you were born into a time and place meant to be much better than it’s turned out. By the time you arrived, peace was to be a guarantee, the economy to be flourishing, and politicians finally able to do their jobs. What you’ve got is something else: paramilitaries (boys who never grew up) running estates, rising house prices, limited opportunities, a homelessness crisis and politicians who have no seeming interest in improving your lives.

For context, I am thirty-four. Ancient to some of you. I was six when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, and, for a while then, there was something like hope in the air. We imagined that people who hadn’t been born yet (you) would live in a future a whole generation would have considered impossible.

Apologies are due.

Apologies are to be demanded.

Now, here’s the thing.

You are never to blame for the context in which you find yourself. You didn’t cause Stormont to collapse, you had nothing to do with the financial crash, or Brexit, or the pandemic, or The Troubles, or with the fact that it is impossible to be a teenager without being addicted to a screen and scrolling.

None of this is your fault.

When you hear people complaining about teenagers, please politely ask them if they want to try it. Being a young person these days is not for the faint of heart.

My advice is this: accept no responsibility for the situation created by those older and more powerful than you. Do not apologise for it. Instead, fight back. The only thing that guarantees that nothing improves is that you accept your context as Just The Way Things Are. But remember, nothing is inevitable. Things were meant to be better than this.

If you are lucky enough to be born in East or West Belfast, the politicians would love for you to believe that the boys on the other side of the city are your opposites, your enemies. Step back and wonder why it might suit them for you to believe this. You see, when you fight with the lads on the ‘other side’ of the city, you aren’t putting any pressure on the politicians to make your life better. This makes their lives very easy. Remember: politicians work for you. Do not do their work for them.

You have far more in common with the young men in other parts of the city than you do with any man in a suit in Stormont. Remember this at all times.

Here’s another thing. You might not know this, but people here have long been told that difference is something to be afraid of. In some sense this is only natural: the Brits, the IRA, the UVF, the RUC. There was always good reason to be suspicious of someone’s real motives or true identity.

But you have nothing to do with that.

That was then.

You should be free from it.

So now, when a man encourages you to think that the brown or black family down the street is the cause of all your problems, don’t believe him. Again, ask why it might suit him for you to believe this. Ask what has happened in his life that he might need to believe this simple lie. Take pity on him, for he has missed so much good in the world.

You see, there has been a myth in NI for a long time. It goes like this: there isn’t enough to go round. You’ve heard that, I’m sure?

When you were a very young child, Theresa May, the British Prime Minister at the time famously said ‘there is no Magic Money Tree.’ That was another lie. There is plenty to go round in a place like this. And if you want to see evidence of how much there is, don’t look around to your neighbours, or the streets near yours. Look up, to the people at the top.

It is always easier to blame the outsider for why things are bad. But easier does not mean true. And never assume that because someone is your elder that they are cleverer than you. In many cases, this is false.

And then there’s toxic masculinity. The phrase that dominates discussion of teenage boys.

But when I hear a phrase like ‘toxic masculinity’, my mind goes to Trump, to Musk, and now, to Jeffrey Donaldson. It does not go to the young men I work with every day in a school.

And why?

It is because the next generation of men here are more curious, more compassionate, more ready to be vulnerable than their predecessors. People who don’t work with teenagers might scoff at this, and that only shows their ignorance. But you know this is true, don’t you?

Within every school and youth centre in the country, young men like you are crying out for more adults to take them seriously, to treat them with dignity, to see in them something worth praising, worth singing about. You deserve people who speak of you in only the highest terms. This gives you room to grow.

You have been dealt a tricky hand here. Answerable for the problems of the past while being asked to make your own life better. But you are not alone. You never have been.

I sincerely hope you have someone in your life to remind you that all your emotions are expressible, that every part of your identity is welcome, that your gift to the world is you, fully alive.

If you don’t have a champion yet, someone who will defend you to the end, who will believe the best about you in all circumstances, there will be one much closer than you think.

You might even live with them already.

They might teach you English.

They might volunteer somewhere near you.

Seek them out and then be someone else’s champion.

Years ago, our best young journalist Lyra McKee said ‘It won’t always be like this. It’s going to get better.’ Lyra was killed in a shooting in 2019 in Derry during a riot. Her words should be in every classroom in the country.

Things were meant to be better for you.

Don’t accept anything less than what you’re worth.

Demand better.

Your gift to the world is you, fully alive.