Latest news with #Adolescence
BreakingNews.ie
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BreakingNews.ie
Sophie Ellis-Bextor says she discusses toxic masculinity with her five sons
Pop singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor has said she has 'a lot of faith' in her five sons and has chatted to them about toxic masculinity. The Murder On The Dancefloor singer, 46, is mother to Mickey, Jesse, Ray, Kit and Sonny, whom she shares with her husband, musician Richard Jones. Advertisement Ellis-Bextor said while she will 'keep an eye on' their mobile phones, she does not demonise things that could 'shut down communication'. Sophie Ellis-Bextor appears in Good Housekeeping UK's August issue (Chris Craymer/Good Housekeeping UK) In recent months the success of hit Netflix show Adolescence has sparked conversations around misogyny among young boys online and the radicalisation of young men, with the creators discussing the topic in Parliament in April. Ellis-Bextor told Good Housekeeping UK: 'I've always had a lot of faith in my boys. We've openly chatted about toxic masculinity for a long time. 'My eldest is very articulate about these things, so none of it was new to my house. Sometimes people have an idea of what boys are like, as if they're a different species. Advertisement 'As I far as I'm concerned, I'm raising five people who happen to be boys. I keep an eye on (mobile phone screen time), because that's parenting, but if you start demonising things, you shut down communication. 'Then you're like those parents in the 1950s who made kids burn their rock 'n' roll albums.' Speaking about her husband, Ellis-Bextor added: 'When we got married, we'd already had our first baby. 'My mum said: 'Make sure you always choose each other over anything else, even the kids.' She was right. Even though the kids might roll their eyes if they see us hugging or whatever, they're happy that we're happy. Advertisement 'We have fun as a family, too. Last year, they came with us for a lot of the tour.' Sophie Ellis-Bextor discusses life with five sons in Good Housekeeping UK (Chris Craymer/Good Housekeeping UK) The singer also discussed her forthcoming album, Perimenopop, a play on the words perimenopause and pop. 'There's still this idea that only young people make pop music,' she said. 'As soon as I had the new album title, I felt like, 'Now I can literally be myself.' Advertisement 'This album is about poking fun at this gloomy chapter and the narrative around it that women should be quietening down and becoming invisible… I don't feel like that at all.' The full interview can be read now in the August issue of Good Housekeeping UK.
South Wales Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- South Wales Guardian
Sophie Ellis-Bextor says she discusses toxic masculinity with her five sons
The Murder On The Dancefloor singer, 46, is mother to Mickey, Jesse, Ray, Kit and Sonny, whom she shares with her husband, musician Richard Jones. Ellis-Bextor said while she will 'keep an eye on' their mobile phones, she does not demonise things that could 'shut down communication'. In recent months the success of hit Netflix show Adolescence has sparked conversations around misogyny among young boys online and the radicalisation of young men, with the creators discussing the topic in Parliament in April. Ellis-Bextor told Good Housekeeping UK: 'I've always had a lot of faith in my boys. We've openly chatted about toxic masculinity for a long time. 'My eldest is very articulate about these things, so none of it was new to my house. Sometimes people have an idea of what boys are like, as if they're a different species. 'As I far as I'm concerned, I'm raising five people who happen to be boys. I keep an eye on (mobile phone screen time), because that's parenting, but if you start demonising things, you shut down communication. 'Then you're like those parents in the 1950s who made kids burn their rock 'n' roll albums.' Speaking about her husband, Ellis-Bextor added: 'When we got married, we'd already had our first baby. 'My mum said: 'Make sure you always choose each other over anything else, even the kids.' She was right. Even though the kids might roll their eyes if they see us hugging or whatever, they're happy that we're happy. 'We have fun as a family, too. Last year, they came with us for a lot of the tour.' The singer also discussed her forthcoming album, Perimenopop, a play on the words perimenopause and pop. 'There's still this idea that only young people make pop music,' she said. 'As soon as I had the new album title, I felt like, 'Now I can literally be myself.' 'This album is about poking fun at this gloomy chapter and the narrative around it that women should be quietening down and becoming invisible… I don't feel like that at all.' The full interview can be read now in the August issue of Good Housekeeping UK.
Leader Live
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Leader Live
Sophie Ellis-Bextor says she discusses toxic masculinity with her five sons
The Murder On The Dancefloor singer, 46, is mother to Mickey, Jesse, Ray, Kit and Sonny, whom she shares with her husband, musician Richard Jones. Ellis-Bextor said while she will 'keep an eye on' their mobile phones, she does not demonise things that could 'shut down communication'. In recent months the success of hit Netflix show Adolescence has sparked conversations around misogyny among young boys online and the radicalisation of young men, with the creators discussing the topic in Parliament in April. Ellis-Bextor told Good Housekeeping UK: 'I've always had a lot of faith in my boys. We've openly chatted about toxic masculinity for a long time. 'My eldest is very articulate about these things, so none of it was new to my house. Sometimes people have an idea of what boys are like, as if they're a different species. 'As I far as I'm concerned, I'm raising five people who happen to be boys. I keep an eye on (mobile phone screen time), because that's parenting, but if you start demonising things, you shut down communication. 'Then you're like those parents in the 1950s who made kids burn their rock 'n' roll albums.' Speaking about her husband, Ellis-Bextor added: 'When we got married, we'd already had our first baby. 'My mum said: 'Make sure you always choose each other over anything else, even the kids.' She was right. Even though the kids might roll their eyes if they see us hugging or whatever, they're happy that we're happy. 'We have fun as a family, too. Last year, they came with us for a lot of the tour.' The singer also discussed her forthcoming album, Perimenopop, a play on the words perimenopause and pop. 'There's still this idea that only young people make pop music,' she said. 'As soon as I had the new album title, I felt like, 'Now I can literally be myself.' 'This album is about poking fun at this gloomy chapter and the narrative around it that women should be quietening down and becoming invisible… I don't feel like that at all.' The full interview can be read now in the August issue of Good Housekeeping UK.
Rhyl Journal
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Rhyl Journal
Sophie Ellis-Bextor says she discusses toxic masculinity with her five sons
The Murder On The Dancefloor singer, 46, is mother to Mickey, Jesse, Ray, Kit and Sonny, whom she shares with her husband, musician Richard Jones. Ellis-Bextor said while she will 'keep an eye on' their mobile phones, she does not demonise things that could 'shut down communication'. In recent months the success of hit Netflix show Adolescence has sparked conversations around misogyny among young boys online and the radicalisation of young men, with the creators discussing the topic in Parliament in April. Ellis-Bextor told Good Housekeeping UK: 'I've always had a lot of faith in my boys. We've openly chatted about toxic masculinity for a long time. 'My eldest is very articulate about these things, so none of it was new to my house. Sometimes people have an idea of what boys are like, as if they're a different species. 'As I far as I'm concerned, I'm raising five people who happen to be boys. I keep an eye on (mobile phone screen time), because that's parenting, but if you start demonising things, you shut down communication. 'Then you're like those parents in the 1950s who made kids burn their rock 'n' roll albums.' Speaking about her husband, Ellis-Bextor added: 'When we got married, we'd already had our first baby. 'My mum said: 'Make sure you always choose each other over anything else, even the kids.' She was right. Even though the kids might roll their eyes if they see us hugging or whatever, they're happy that we're happy. 'We have fun as a family, too. Last year, they came with us for a lot of the tour.' The singer also discussed her forthcoming album, Perimenopop, a play on the words perimenopause and pop. 'There's still this idea that only young people make pop music,' she said. 'As soon as I had the new album title, I felt like, 'Now I can literally be myself.' 'This album is about poking fun at this gloomy chapter and the narrative around it that women should be quietening down and becoming invisible… I don't feel like that at all.' The full interview can be read now in the August issue of Good Housekeeping UK.
Spectator
2 days ago
- General
- Spectator
The secret to ‘womankeeping'
God, men are pathetic. At least, that's the view of Angelica Puzio Ferrara, a researcher at Stanford, who has come up with a new term to explain the emotional labour women are having to do to help men cope with their psychological problems: 'mankeeping'. According to Ferrara, 'patriarchal masculinity' stops men from developing 'emotionally intimate bonds' with each other, so they inevitably unburden themselves to their wives and girlfriends, expecting them to listen attentively as they drone on about their 'issues'. They can't open up to their male buddies about this stuff because they don't want to appear vulnerable and unmanly. So they unload on their female partners instead. Yet women are becoming so fed up with being therapists with benefits that they're leaving the dating pool, thereby exacerbating the fertility crisis. Soon, thanks to men's emotional constipation, the human race will die out. OK, I'm exaggerating slightly. We'll have to wait for Ferrara's forthcoming book – Men Without Men – to find out what she thinks in more detail. But it's clear from a talk she gave at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research that she has a pretty low opinion of us. 'In the US, about one in five men claim they have no close friends,' she told an audience of nodding gender studies students. As so often with these lectures about 'toxic masculinity', Ferrara's was accompanied by hand-wringing about the welfare of men and boys, as if we're as important to her as women and girls. So we've become more miserable, Ferrara says, as our social isolation has increased. Instead of getting emotional support from close male friends, we're either demanding it from women or – if they refuse to take on this 'gendered labour' – turning to the online hellscape known as the 'manosphere'. Some readers may recall that this was singled out in the TV series Adolescence as the principal cause of male assaults on young women. I'm not sure what the solution is, having not yet read Ferrara's book, but I expect it has something to do with getting in touch with our feminine side, possibly by undergoing voluntary castration, followed by massive doses of oestrogen. There's an obvious flaw in this hypothesis, which is that Ferrara is taking it for granted that the male gender is socially constructed, with various lamentable developments associated with late capitalism, such as the emergence of social media and the widespread availability of pornography, having created a 'crisis' of masculinity. But haven't men always been quite emotionally reticent? My late father died in 2002, four years before Twitter was invented, and as far as I'm aware he wasn't a porn addict. Yet he never told me he loved me, was allergic to hugging and only played football with me on my birthday. I don't imagine the relationship between fathers and sons was much different in Stone Age times. I suppose you could blame 'the patriarchy', but average psychological differences between men and women generally persist across time and space. Which suggests they're genetically hard-wired, and browbeating men to behave more like women is unlikely to 'solve' the problem. My suspicion is the reason men are unloading on their female partners is because they mistakenly think women want them to behave like this. For several decades now, we've been told that we're repressed and need to talk more about our feelings, often backed up with phoney 'evidence' that bottling up our emotions is bad for our mental health. Some women may have even convinced themselves that they'd be happier with these girly men, only to discover (and I think Ferrara is right about this) that having to listen sympathetically while your partner spews out his problems is incredibly tedious. Where Ferrara has gone wrong is in thinking the answer is for men to talk to each other about this crap. In fact, we should keep a stiff upper lip at all times. One final point: haven't men been 'womankeeping' since the beginning of time? As a young man, I learnt that if you want to be in a successful relationship with a woman you have to listen to her talk about her problems. She's not looking for you to come up with solutions – a rookie mistake. She just wants to vent. So your job is to sit there with a furrowed brow, occasionally going 'ooh' and 'aah', and under no circumstances say: 'That's enough about you. Let's talk about me.' This isn't true of Caroline, thank God, who quickly saw through my attempts to fake interest. But it is true of most wives and girlfriends. We have put up with it for two millennia and you don't hear us complaining.
