{"id":3698,"date":"2021-05-10T09:18:34","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T08:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/?p=3698"},"modified":"2021-05-11T15:53:26","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T14:53:26","slug":"international-boys-day-16-may-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/?p=3698","title":{"rendered":"International Boys\u2019 Day, 16 May 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

International what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To \u2018fess up, last year (2020) was the first time I\u2019d heard of International Boys\u2019 Day, for which I wrote this piece<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bit of history. The campaign<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teelucksingh was also instrumental, in 1999, in reviving interest in International Men\u2019s Day following its earlier beginnings in 1991\/2 in the USA by Thomas Oastler<\/a>. It was Teelucksingh who designated 19th<\/sup> November as International Men\u2019s Day after his father\u2019s birthday, so this date for IMD has been in place since 1999. The same day, 19th<\/sup> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The history of international \u201cwomen\u2019s days\u201d<\/a>, in various incarnations, goes back over a century and was very early associated with 8th<\/sup> March. It was officially recognised by the UN in 1977. The UN also recognises officially an International Day of the Girl Child, on 11th<\/sup> October, this being inaugurated in 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The UN does not recognise International Men\u2019s Day. Nor does the UN recognise the International Day of the Boy Child, 16th<\/sup> May. This is called \u2018equality\u2019 as we must now understand that term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the feminist perspective this is justified because males are (apparently irrespective of age) powerful and privileged. Here\u2019s a quick demonstration of how lucky boys are. I don\u2019t pretend it\u2019s science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If a boy, a girl, a cat and a dog were abandoned in a park who would be rescued first?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Easy, I thought. In the UK it would go (i) dog, (ii) girl, (iii) cat, (iv) boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was close. In one social experiment in a New York City park<\/a> it went like this,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Girl \u2013 rescue after 3 minutes<\/li>
  2. Dog \u2013 rescue after 4 minutes<\/li>
  3. Cat \u2013 rescue after 10 minutes<\/li>
  4. Boy \u2013 cameras stopped rolling after 45 minutes when the crew gave up.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    The girl and boy were both six years old and both white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Male disposability, eh? It\u2019s just MRA conspiracy theory bullshit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Whilst you can find ideas of what you might do<\/a> to celebrate International Boys\u2019 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<\/a> is not doing anything explicitly to recognise International Boys\u2019 Day this year either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    International what? To \u2018fess up, last year (2020) was the first time I\u2019d heard of International Boys\u2019 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-children"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3698"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3702,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3698\/revisions\/3702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empathygap.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}