International what?
To ‘fess up, last year (2020) was the first time I’d heard of International Boys’ Day, for which I wrote this piece.
A bit of history. The campaign for recognition of a designated International Day of the Boy Child was initiated by Dr Jerome Teelucksingh, a history professor from Trinidad and Tabago, in 2018.
Teelucksingh was also instrumental, in 1999, in reviving interest in International Men’s Day following its earlier beginnings in 1991/2 in the USA by Thomas Oastler. It was Teelucksingh who designated 19th November as International Men’s Day after his father’s birthday, so this date for IMD has been in place since 1999. The same day, 19th November, was named international toilet day by the World Toilet Organisation in 2001, and later recognised on that same date by the UN in 2013.
The history of international “women’s days”, in various incarnations, goes back over a century and was very early associated with 8th March. It was officially recognised by the UN in 1977. The UN also recognises officially an International Day of the Girl Child, on 11th October, this being inaugurated in 2012.
The UN does not recognise International Men’s Day. Nor does the UN recognise the International Day of the Boy Child, 16th May. This is called ‘equality’ as we must now understand that term.
From the feminist perspective this is justified because males are (apparently irrespective of age) powerful and privileged. Here’s a quick demonstration of how lucky boys are. I don’t pretend it’s science.
If a boy, a girl, a cat and a dog were abandoned in a park who would be rescued first?
Easy, I thought. In the UK it would go (i) dog, (ii) girl, (iii) cat, (iv) boy.
I was close. In one social experiment in a New York City park it went like this,
- Girl – rescue after 3 minutes
- Dog – rescue after 4 minutes
- Cat – rescue after 10 minutes
- Boy – cameras stopped rolling after 45 minutes when the crew gave up.
The girl and boy were both six years old and both white.
Male disposability, eh? It’s just MRA conspiracy theory bullshit.
Whilst you can find ideas of what you might do to celebrate International Boys’ Day with the boy(s) in your life, I could find nothing organised in the UK. As far as I could see from their web site, the UK-based Men and Boys Coalition is not doing anything explicitly to recognise International Boys’ Day this year either.