Why it is time to support a Minister for Men - Alastair GJ Stewart

Adolescence (photo: courtesy of Netflix) | (photo: courtesy of Netflix)

In 2023, a public debate on whether the UK should have a Minister for Men gained modest traction and plenty of responses.

Nick Fletcher, now a former Member of Parliament, was interviewed on Radio 4 Women's Hour. The BBC programme ran a long segment on the idea of a minister for men, featuring Fletcher, followed by an extended listener call-in show. The MP also appeared on Good Morning Britain.

Fletcher doubled down that there should be a dedicated minister for men's issues; there was modest press interest that delved a little deeper beyond the predictable backlash that it was some fantastical, misogynistic exercise in reactionary masculism.

Ultimately, the discussion evaporated, precisely as the conversation around Netflix's TV show Adolescence is dying a death. Many puffed-up promises were made to address the epidemic of toxic masculinity. The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, even backed a campaign for the programme to be played in schools.

Gender differences in suicide and fundamental questions about masculinity, the rise of antifeminism, misogyny, far-right extremism and the lazy conflation with questions of men's rights are a serious conversation to be had.

Why waste time on performative box-ticking, like showing a Netflix about kids to kids in schools? Why waste time and resources showing children what they already know? Adolescence is a screaming demand for help from kids: They already know the vernacular, the culture, the signs, the word plays, and methods for making each other's lives hellish in the social media-addled age.

The solution that cements the issue across a parliamentary term's life cycle, beyond a flash-in-the-pan interest in a Netflix show, is to appoint a minister for men in the Scottish and UK Governments.

The chronic woes of male educational attainment, mental health, suicide rates, and crime rates, to say nothing of established health issues, mandate such an appointment.

Many issues affecting women and girls also require specific attention. This is why the minister for women's role was created in 1997 and expanded to minister for women and equalities by David Cameron, who added responsibility for the Government Equalities Office to the portfolio.

In Scotland, the Minister for Public Health and Women's Health is a junior ministerial post, is not a member of the Scottish Cabinet, and reports to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care.

A dedicated minister feels long overdue, particularly given the cross-section of policy issues affecting men. We already have a Minister for Children, Young People, and the Promise, but given the unregulated flood of radicalising material that is exposing young men to sexualised, misogynistic and damaging content online, a specific minister for men's issues feels apropos.

The role would span multiple portfolios, including education, equities, digital security, and law enforcement. Socioeconomic inequalities are the primary driver of health inequalities for men and should be viewed as a single-stream public health issue. There are not enough column inches for the raft of health concerns affecting men, not least of all suicide, which the National Records of Scotland confirm is over three times as high for men as the rate for females.

The genius of Adolescence is that it shows how the Internet, social media, and video game chats work on another level, squirrelled away from parents. It highlights how online algorithms make encountering Incel culture, sexualised content and misogyny an inevitability. There is a sea of barely controlled content disguised as fair commentary, which has a corrosive, cumulative, and catastrophic impact on young men.

The fresh hell of what AI and chatbots can now accomplish, bound only by the limits of a teenage mind, is staggering if there is no appropriate policy and legal infrastructure in place that is adaptive.

That needs government representation, just as sure as ministers for women and equalities can examine specific issues affecting women to deliver policy and attitudinal change through legislation and protection.

In 2015, when the UK parliament held its first debate to mark International Men's Day on 19 November, the media mocked it widely. Labour MP Jess Phillips likened a day for men to a "white history month," in other words, a reactionary, unnecessary pastiche and a territory-marking waste of time.

In the decade since, the manosphere has exploded and twisted issues about male equality, male health and antifeminism into one confused melting pot. There is too much noise around faux masculinist intellectuals who deserve neither airtime nor attention but remain a significant draw for men.

But men's health and the protection of boys must be the cornerstone of government. It would allow us to focus and effect real change around issues men are appallingly responsible for. Everyone gains from this. Rights go with responsibilities, and a new portfolio would allow a renewed focus on tackling the sources of domestic and sexual violence, harassment and bullying.

As Women's Aid notes, "Whilst both men and women may experience incidents of inter-personal violence and abuse, there are important differences between male violence against women and female violence against men, namely the amount, severity and impact."

At the very least, Scotland needs a minister for young men, but preferably a minister for men who will consider the whole life cycle and its impact on outcomes and health equality, as well as the impact unregulated male behaviour has on society.

First Minister John Swinney has moved the announcement of his Programme for Government to 6 May to "enable a full year to delivery" before the Holyrood elections in spring 2026. This should form part of that strategy.

Anything else, ultimately, is simply lip service to the severe, epidemic-like risks and crisis to health, well-being and life facing our young men.