Hopefully it will be a kick-start to a larger debate about how our boys can succeed

GAUTE BØRSTAD SKJERVØ, deputy chairman of AUF

The right side is doing well among young men; it shows the power that lies in owning the descriptions of the problems people in Norway experience.

When the Men’s Committee now puts forward its proposals on how to solve boys’ problems, the left must listen and show action.

The alternative is a generation of young men who do not get a community that exists for them.

The time for pitting boys’ and girls’ challenges against each other is long gone.

The vast majority of girls in Norway believe it is a societal challenge that two out of three who choose to take their own lives are men.

The vast majority of boys in Norway believe that it is a societal challenge that one in five women is raped.

They are separate problems that require separate solutions. The left must offer those solutions as part of its fight for equality.

It is true that men are overrepresented in the suicide statistics, are more often heavy drug addicts, more often drop out of high school, more often work in occupations prone to injury and more often sit in prison.

There are real problems that require a comprehensive review of our equality policy, but without that meaning throwing the fight for women’s rights overboard.

With the necessary self-awareness as a basis, the left cannot avoid acknowledging that we have not reached out well enough.

There is no doubt that some men in Norway have problems that must be taken seriously and solved politically.

I believe that both the left and the right have contributed to creating a stronger gender divide through primary school and upper secondary education where theoretical skills are rewarded.

Most of us have sat in a classroom where some are made to solve maths equations in the classroom, while others see the numbers floating by when they have to fix their eyes on the problems in the book.

Many of these are no worse for numbers; but it can be easier to learn when the examples are practical tasks in the workshop instead of theoretical equations in the textbook.

That truth has been downgraded because it is cheaper to have a sedentary school where everyone learns in the same way, than an active and practical approach to learning.

After Unge Høyre won the school election in the autumn of 2023, they and the Fpu have received a lot of praise for the message about boys’ challenges.

On TikTok, in the newspaper columns and in debates, their leaders have and succeeded in describing the problems of young men in a way that resonates with many.

They should be proud of that, and here the left has something to learn.

When it comes to the political answers, I have less faith in what they put forward.

In an interview in Dagbladet on 26 January this year, the two right-wing profiles give a clear answer to what their solution is to young men experiencing a school that does not see them.

Under the heading “Say out of school or be bullied at school”, there is little doubt about who they believe is responsible when young men struggle.

On Saturday 20 April, the Fpu leader together with Frp leader Sylvi Listhaug advocated that students who make a lot of noise, disturbance and commit violence in the classroom should be placed in their own classes and in their own schools.

When the reality is that ⅔ of the violence in schools is committed by the very youngest children, this is the wrong medicine.

Recently, the right has been good at describing the problems our boys are experiencing. But they fall short when the political solutions are to be presented.

Privatization does not solve school violence. Academisation and sitting still do not help those who learn best while being active.

Elite thinking for children is to go to war against the common school of which the vast majority of Norwegians are products.

The right-wing’s role models, both in Norway and internationally, are at best good lifestyle influencers who will replace community with walking alone.

Their promise is that if you get up in the morning, roll up your sleeves, and make sure that women’s fight for equality does not go too far – then the problems you experience as a man will disappear.

However, I think it is possible to create a school that allows troubled boys to succeed, without giving them a stamp as troublemakers from the age of six.

But it requires political priorities and money so that the class can learn in the classroom, in the forest or in the workshop and not just behind the desks.

There are many real problems that hit the boys extra hard. The school is not well adapted to those who learn maths better in the workshop than in the classroom.

Working life can be rough and unfair for those who learn faster with their hands than with their heads.

There are demonstrably many boys who have no one to talk to when adolescence gets too tough or the loneliness becomes claustrophobic.

Our boys need politicians who see them, talk to them and take them seriously.

But they also need political solutions to political problems. Those solutions are that community, and not individualism.

Hear more about the Mannsutvalget report in the podcast Givers and the gang: