This middle-class moral panic about ‘toxic masculinity' is growing unhinged

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05-04-2025

What on earth has got into our ruling class these past two weeks? We've had the Prime Minister ordering every secondary school in the land to show its pupils Adolescence. We've had Newsnight asking teenage boys when they last cried. And we've had anti-terror police telling the nation's parents to report their sons to Prevent if they catch them watching 'misogynist videos online'. Listening to these people's ever more hysterical raving, you'd think that the single greatest threat facing our country was 'toxic masculinity'.
It isn't, of course. But then, that's the very reason why middle-class liberals are so eagerly stoking this moral panic. They want us to talk about fashionable Netflix dramas, 'incels' and Andrew Tate in order to stop us talking about certain problems that are far worse.
For all their ostensible anxiety about 'toxic masculinity', middle-class liberals are rarely happier than when they're lecturing us about it – because it's slap-bang in the middle of their comfort zone. Here is an issue where the villains almost invariably seem to be white and male, their crime is old-fashioned sexism, and the proposed solution is a crackdown on social media. All perennial favourite themes of middle-class liberals.
If they were really worried about misogyny, you'd think they'd have had quite a lot more to say about grooming gangs – both when the scandal first emerged, and in January this year, when it briefly returned to the spotlight. Surely nothing could be more misogynistic than the mass rape of underage girls. Curiously, though, middle-class liberals appear to have forgotten about that particular subject. And so swiftly, too.
If Sir Keir Starmer wished, he could order every secondary school to show Three Girls, a TV drama from 2017 about grooming gangs in Rochdale. Or, to highlight another form of misogyny, he could order them to show Adult Human Female, a documentary about how transgender ideology threatens women's rights.
Mind you, that would be tricky. Almost every time a women's group has tried to screen Adult Human Female at a university, the event has had to be cancelled, after furious protests from trans activists.
Still, good of them to help prove the producers' point.
This week in Parliament, a Labour MP named Tom Hayes told a story that deeply impressed me. While he was visiting a school in his Bournemouth East constituency, he said, numerous pupils told him that they were 'concerned about foreign donations into our country's political system'. And one girl asked what he described as an 'absolutely pitch-perfect' question about the pernicious influence of Elon Musk.
According to Mr Hayes, her question was: 'Why is a South African-born person, who lives in the United States, has funded a presidential election there, and is now part of the US government, threatening to get involved in UK politics?'
On the face of it, this question may not seem especially scintillating. The reason I'm so impressed is that the school that this Labour MP visited was Queen's Park Infant Academy – which describes itself, on its website, as 'a caring and happy school for children aged four to seven years'.
The youth of today come in for a lot of criticism. But if children aged between four and seven are capable of asking their MP such preternaturally articulate and well-informed questions about global politics, this country's future is clearly very bright indeed.
Then again, can we be sure that other members of this little girl's generation are as astonishingly eloquent and knowledgeable as she is? To find out, I paid a visit to my local crèche.
'I must say, I for one find Mr Hayes's account to be highly improbable,' said a boy aged two, glancing up from his Play-Doh. 'Not only because the unnamed infant sounds so unfeasibly precocious, but also because her alleged views on Elon Musk so conveniently reflect this Labour MP's own.'
'I hate to sound cynical, but I must confess that I share your scepticism,' chimed in a girl aged nine months, between mouthfuls of rusk. 'Sadly, the standard of parliamentary discourse has declined markedly in my lifetime.'
'I'm just relieved that other MPs didn't accuse the honourable gentleman of having made the whole thing up,' added an unborn child inside the womb of a pregnant nursery assistant. 'As we all know, accusing a fellow MP of lying is profoundly unparliamentary.'
I was fascinated to read our story this week about defendants bringing 'emotional support animals' into court, to help them cope with the stresses of the trial. The animals tend to be dogs, although, in 2017, a pensioner accused of stalking brought in his cat.
I've no doubt the companionship of these beloved pets brings the defendants great comfort. Frankly, though, I feel they're missing a trick.
If I ever find myself in the dock, I intend to bring in an emotional support lion, trained to growl at the jury whenever the evidence against me sounds particularly incriminating. With the support of this dear, fiercely loyal creature, I have every faith that I will walk free.
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