Boys Will Be Boys
It’s a familiar phrase: Boys will be boys. But a horrible phrase, when you stop to think about it. An excuse for acting like an imbecile. An assumption of privilege. An invitation to break the rules. A suggestion that some particular boys are ‘proper’ boys, not girly boys, not soft, gentle, peaceful, still boys, or, God forbid, boys attracted to other boys!
So when little boys hear their parents saying this phrase with an indulgent smile – boys will be boys – they know it’s okay to be a bully, a thug, a vandal, a cheat. That, after all, is what their parents are endorsing. And what better recommendation to bad behaviour can you get! Forget gentleness, sensitivity, caring, art, fashion, reading, writing – mother and father have already given the signal that such nonsense is beneath them, that these things are only of interest to girls. And girls are inferior beings.
Well, you may say, things are changing – at least in a few countries of the world. Boys who like boys, girly boys, Tomboys, boys who change into girls and girls who change into boys – these are all accepted now. Or so we’re told. I hope very much that this is true. But I must caution that I see the same old prejudice around me. I see it in the eyes of teenage boys and young men almost every day. I even see it in the eyes of primary school kids. It’s no good to step out of line, those eyes are saying. You’re a freak. You’re not a proper man. How dare you be gentle, sensitive, quiet, dressed in your flowery shirts, your bright-coloured trousers, your patterned waistcoats and fancy shoes! This is not what it is to be a man. Boys will be boys! You’re letting the side down! We despise you! In fact, we’re actually afraid that your sort are taking over!
All this and I’m not even gay! Perhaps though, paranoid? But I really do fear that if times become tougher – through economic meltdown, climate chaos or war – then the thin veneer of ‘tolerance’ (and isn’t that such a compromised word!) will be shown to be just so much hot air. We will be back to the old macho nonsense that we can only protect ourselves through violence and the threat of violence.
So let me take a moment to try to put some of the truth into the twisted brains of the ‘boys will be boys’ sort of boy. That boy is really a different gender – a failed gender! The gender that has gone seriously astray. The gender that has raped, tortured and murdered millions of women over the last 10,000 years. The gender that has polluted, defiled and destroyed nature. The gender that stockpiles nuclear weapons. The gender that could spell the end of humanity.
Boys will be boys. And I guess the destruction of the planet is such a boy thing to do. Your mum and dad would be proud. Thank goodness you’re not one of those girly ‘save the planet’, ‘ban the bomb’ freaks that we’re so sick of!
All I can say, as an alternative to all this, is thank you to all those men who are not like this. And thank you to all those women who appreciate the alternative – the real male gender. We must stick together. We must remember it is the ‘boys will be boys’ who currently run the world. We must try to undermine their power. We have a chance now, after 10,000 years of macho, misogynistic idiocy. Because ultimately those boys are the true freaks, an accident of nature, a horrible diversion in the ascent of humanity. 10,000 years wasted because of those knuckle-dragging losers.
So I take up all those things that those ‘boys will be boys’ hate so much and celebrate them with all my might. I will take up those things that are ‘girly’ and ‘effeminate’ and celebrate those. And one day parents will be glad if their baby boy turns out not to be like other boys! One day parents will rejoice to have a sensitive son – a true man, a man as men were meant to be.
