This week’s buzz topic has been masculinity.
Adolescence, the extraordinary four-part drama on Netflix, is a frighteningly believable story of a teenage boy driven to extreme violence.
Meanwhile, Sir Gareth Southgate focused on the worrying lack of positive male role models for boys in this year’s Richard Dimbleby Lecture.
If you want to be a man, Sir Gareth said, get into the gym instead of listening to toxic influencers.
It’s never been easy to define what it means to be a man or a woman – and in this age of obsessive gender identity politics, it’s more confusing than ever.
Not only are binary gender classifications constantly being questioned but, after decades of hauling women up the ladder and bashing through the glass ceiling in the quest for equality, now it’s the boys who are suffering.
Girls are steaming ahead in education and, increasingly, in employment. It’s fantastic that more women are being given big leadership jobs – for example, Kirsty Coventry beat Sebastian Coe to become the first woman to lead the International Olympics Committee.
But it’s not so fantastic that positive discrimination means many roles are now handed to women over men when there are two equally qualified candidates.
This week’s buzz topic has been masculinity. Adolescence, the extraordinary four-part drama on Netflix, is a frighteningly believable story of a teenage boy driven to extreme violence, writes Alexandra Shulman. Pictured: Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller and Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller in Adolescence
Meanwhile, Sir Gareth Southgate focused on the worrying lack of positive male role models for boys in this year’s Richard Dimbleby Lecture. If you want to be a man, Sir Gareth said, get into the gym instead of listening to toxic influencers
And despite this, there’s still moaning about the patriarchy from women who don’t seem to have noticed that the patriarchy is sighing its last gasp.
What’s sad is in so many ways it’s still a battle between the sexes. In the vitally important mission to promote women – and instill in young girls the belief that they have just as much right to rule as their male counterparts – the world has become crueller and more confusing for men.
Adolescence is a harrowing watch and makes every parent question what they can do to safeguard their children and give them confidence, whatever their sex. But I fear it’s going to take more than a few trips to the gym for a generation of boys and young men to rediscover positive masculinity.
Did BBC reject the hit of the year?
Quite why Adolescence was shown on Netflix and not the BBC is beyond comprehension.
It reached 24 million views in its first week and is exactly the type of gritty programme the Beeb should be producing.
With an entirely British team of writers, directors and cast, not to mention low-cost production demands, you would imagine it the dream ticket. Yet it was made by Brad Pitt’s independent American company, Plan B, and broadcast by an American streaming giant.
Quite why Adolescence was shown on Netflix and not the BBC is beyond comprehension, says Alexandra Shulman. Pictured: Stephen Graham as Eddie Miller in Adolescence
Was Adolescence ever pitched to the BBC? If it was, I wonder how the commissioning editor who turned it down will be feeling?
Powerful men can still be vulnerable
On the subject of masculinity, an Edvard Munch exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery features wonderful paintings of the patriarchy of the time, including German physicist Felix Auerbach and industrialist Walther Rathenau.
The huge portraits of these men in their pomp glower down at us, deliberately depicted in a manner that exudes authority and control.
No wrestling for them with what it means to be a man. Although, ultimately, their lives were tragic.
Rathenau, who was Jewish, was assassinated by the far-Right in 1922. Eleven years later, Auerbach, also Jewish, committed suicide just after Hitler came to power.
An Edvard Munch exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery features wonderful paintings of the patriarchy of the time, including German physicist Felix Auerbach and industrialist Walther Rathenau. Pictured: The exhibition
This season’s must-have… a super dupe
It’s a dupe world. Not fakes or knock-offs, but scarcely distinguishable duplicates of fashion and beauty items that are desirable in their own right.
It’s hard to differentiate between a dupe and a fake – the only difference seems to be that dupes don’t use the original design’s logos or branding.
Buying a fake used to be considered low-rent, but there are now a zillion dupe websites – Vogue Business even describes those such as Quince as premium dupe brands, giving them their own patina of exclusivity.
While researching this column I was tempted to buy a dupe pair of Hermes Oran sandals that looked identical to real ones I used to own.
The originals were £610, the dupes are £129 – so not exactly knock-off prices.
And here’s the thing. Because the best dupes are not bargain basement, they’re somehow more acceptable than the tat on a Senegalese trader’s pavement blanket.
Plus, the term ‘dupe’ is just a lot cuter than ‘fake’.
Keep working – the garden can wait
A quarter of new female hires are women over the age of 65.
Surely this is a good thing – the longer we can work the better.
Given average life expectancy for women is 82, what are we expected to do for a couple of decades if we aren’t working?
But instead of being seen as a cause of celebration, the trend for working later in life is apparently robbing us of our longed-for retirement, when we are expected to be happy looking after grandchildren and tending the garden.
I appreciate that there are some people in mind-numbingly dull occupations who can’t wait to retire.
The trend for working later in life is apparently robbing us of our longed-for retirement when we are expected to be happy looking after grandchildren and tending the garden, Alexandra Shulman writes
But working not only pays the bills but keeps us active and feeling part of life, rather than hanging around in the transit lounge to the next world.
To borrow a phrase from Kris Kristofferson, retirement strikes me as just another word for nothing left to lose.
I’m hungry for a five-star review
Many top restaurants ‘rate’ their customers so they can better allocate tables. How much do you spend? How do you treat the staff? Do you bring any celebrity guests?
It makes some sense – all diners are not equal. But I’m now worried my typical bill might not be considered five-star status.
Is ordering two starters rather than three full courses – and dining with my teetotal boyfriend – jeopardising my desirability as a customer?
