Edited by William Justin Thirsk-Gaskill, Wednesday, 25 Nov 2009, 13:00
I read in today's Times and on the BBC website that the PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic) curriculum is to be expanded to include lessons intended to reduce the amount of domestic violence committed against girls and women.
I further read that Margaret Morrissey of a pressure group called "Parents Outloud" said: "The Government should focus on teaching children to read, write and all those things they need to get a career. This political correctness is turning our children into confused mini-adults."
I disagree. I suggest that a teenage boy who (a) thinks it is permissible to hit his girlfriend, and possibly other female persons as well and (b) goes on to commit such acts of violence is already a "confused mini-adult" and needs tuition and therapy to enable him to develop into a healthy teenager.
One of the greatest changes that our society has undergone in the last 100 years is to do with the economic role of women. The increase in participation of women in the paid labour market is absolutely irreversible for a number of complex reasons. For the first time in history, women in the UK are now the majority of the (paid) labour force.
This is a change that a considerable number of males are unable to cope with. (One body of such males has banded together to form an organisation called 'The British National Party', or BNP.) One of the ways that such inadequate individuals use to sublimate their feelings of confusion and frustration is violence. This is unhealthy, aberrant, and preventable.
The Government is entirely right to intervene in this situation. Apart from the humanitarian cost of domestic violence (dealing with which on its own is enough to justify spending public money) there are economic benefits which will arise from girls and women having a more confident belief in their own worth, and more equitable and better-articulated relations between male and female adolescents.
A Message to "Parents Outloud"
I read in today's Times and on the BBC website that the PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic) curriculum is to be expanded to include lessons intended to reduce the amount of domestic violence committed against girls and women.
I further read that Margaret Morrissey of a pressure group called "Parents Outloud" said: "The Government should focus on teaching children to read, write and all those things they need to get a career. This political correctness is turning our children into confused mini-adults."
I disagree. I suggest that a teenage boy who (a) thinks it is permissible to hit his girlfriend, and possibly other female persons as well and (b) goes on to commit such acts of violence is already a "confused mini-adult" and needs tuition and therapy to enable him to develop into a healthy teenager.
One of the greatest changes that our society has undergone in the last 100 years is to do with the economic role of women. The increase in participation of women in the paid labour market is absolutely irreversible for a number of complex reasons. For the first time in history, women in the UK are now the majority of the (paid) labour force.
This is a change that a considerable number of males are unable to cope with. (One body of such males has banded together to form an organisation called 'The British National Party', or BNP.) One of the ways that such inadequate individuals use to sublimate their feelings of confusion and frustration is violence. This is unhealthy, aberrant, and preventable.
The Government is entirely right to intervene in this situation. Apart from the humanitarian cost of domestic violence (dealing with which on its own is enough to justify spending public money) there are economic benefits which will arise from girls and women having a more confident belief in their own worth, and more equitable and better-articulated relations between male and female adolescents.