Shiny Boys: Boyhood in the 21st Century

"From Mommy's Little Soldiers to Pampered Princesses - the feminisation of Boys" by Jasmine Tomlinson, 15 February 2015.

"At the beginning of the 1970's, the world was a very different place. Men were better educated, better paid and held higher status jobs as compared to women. In the main, the sexes had very narrow and defined roles. Man was the provider and protector, whilst woman was the homemaker and childraiser"

Yet, in less than 40 years, all that has been turned on its head. Girls are now dominant in schools and universities. Women have moved out of the home and into the workplace whilst men are being pushed out of the workplace by changes in the economy which favours female talent, and into the home.

In 2010, 4 househoulds out of ten in the USA had a woman as the main wage earner and only 40% of undergraduates at universities in the USA were male. Young women now outearned men of the same age range by a significant margin, threatening not to end, but to reverse, the gender pay gap. The rest of the western world and even such male-dominated societies as China and Japan, report similar disparities between male and female achievement (or lack of in the case of the males) in the education system and the workplace.

These statistics are hard enough for the fragile male ego to take on board, but what would an adult male of, say, 30 years ago, if he saw what was going on in the homes of the super-rich women and their middle class sisters. The upper and middle classes are now dominated by successful and wealthy women, who want their daughters to enjoy the same wealth and success as they have had had.

Nowadays, a girl is brought up to believe that she is capable of doing anything she wants to do. And she is taught from the cradle that she is better than a mere boy in every way. Girlhood in the 21st Century has been totally transformed into a quasi-masculinity, based on independence, ambition, assertiveness and competition, along with a necessary dash of femininity.

Most 21st Century girls would not be seen dead in a dress or skirt, or doing activities such as ballet or dance. They are more interested in their studies, or sports.

As women are now the dominant gender, their expectations of their daughters have changed. A clever daughter is now being groomed as the heir apparent to her mother's wealth and fortune.

A son, on the other hand, is being groomed for a very different role. One that runs contrary to the notions of traditional boyhood.

In the past, boys were brought up to be the natural leaders, adventurous, reckless, tough and independent. They were called "Little Soldiers" by their mothers. Girls, in petticoats, were willing to follow and were characterised by being sweet and pliant, but now, like much else in the changing balance of power between the sexes, all this had been inversed in the homes of the super rich.

I visited the home of Felicity Scott, a US Senator, a stunning woman who stood over six feet tall and was dressed in a trouser suit. She should have been the centre of attention. Her status and her appearance almost assured it. But alongside her and holding her hand, was a boy attired in a shiny pink frock, white lace petticoats, lacy anklets and a pair of black, shiny mary janes. It was his appearance that caused a real stir.

The boy was clearly embarressed to be seen dressed like this. His fair haired head was bowed down and his face was red. But he looked very sweet and feminine. His mother made him play with his dollies whilst she spoke to me. The boy was on the verge of tears as he stomped off to brush the hair of one of his dolls.

Senator Scott glanced after him before speaking to me "Poor Roscoe has had a hard time adjusting to his new world" the Senator explained "But it's for his own good. His grades at school were poor and he was disruptive in class and obnoxious. Spanking him and grounding him had no impression, so I did some research and found lots of articles on petticoat punishment and decided to try it".

"You can see the results. He hates every minute of having to wear dresses and frilly underthings, but he looks so pretty and although he resents it, he is better behaved and even his grades have improved. I never realised boys could be made to look so pretty! He's gonna hate me for this, but I mean to keep him dressed this way until I can find him a strong woman to marry him and take care of him".

Hearing all this, Roscoe's eyes filled with tears.

I next visited a retail outlet "Pretty Miss" which in the past would have been considered a place to purchase clothing, underwear and shoes for little girls. But these days, the clientele are mothers, outfitting their sons, not their daughters.

"Pretty Miss" is a treasure house of feminine clothing. There are shiny frocks of all colours, shiny black mary-janes that cater for all feet sizes, frilly and lacy anklets, endless shiny or lacy petticoats and exquisitely frilled knickers of all colours. They also do cute little baby bonnets, nappies and baby mitts and booties. And they cater for all shapes and sizes, from a real baby right up to an adult male.

I spoke to the proprietor, Mary Smallwood, an elderly lady who says "When I started this business, 30 years ago, it was all girls. A boy would not even consider entering this place. Then girls coming here became fewer and fewer and I feared my business would have to close. The revenue was going down and down. Then, to my astonishment, about a year ago, women began bringing their boys here and asking me to outfit thing with everything a little girl, or even a baby girl in some cases, would wear! They kept coming in increasing numbers and keep on coming. Business has never been better but I never thought in my wildest dreams that my business would be catering solely for boys. I haven't seen a girl in this shop for almost two years, although they do hang around outside the shop to see what the boys look like once they are dressed up! I'm going to have to change the name of the shop, that's for sure. Pretty Mister. Has a nice ring to it, more appropriate anyhow!"

I witnessed boys being brought into the shop in a T-shirt and jeans and leaving in a frock and petticoats. To add to their humiliation, they are accompanied by their sisters, or girl cousins, who are dressed in shirts and jeans and witness his petticoating and the loss of his masculinity. There were scenes, as some of the boys tried to resist their enforced feminisation, but the women always got their way.

Other than punishment for misconduct, which all boys (and girls) are guilty of, I wondered if there was a deeper reason for this sudden craze to put boys into petticoats. I spoke to psychologist Lindsey Markham. "Punishment is one reason for what is being done to boys" she confirmed "But it's more to do with the role reversal that is going on right now between the sexes. Females are now the dominant sex and have left traditional femininity behind them. Girls are being pushed hard to be successful at school and in the workplace and are discouraged from being feminine. They are to be the new leaders and earners, not their brothers any more. In the meantime, boys are being made to fill the feminine roles left behind by their sisters. Boys are now required to look pretty and to become feminine in dress and behaviour in place of the girls. Also, a feminised boy can't hope to compete with his sister. Boys are being feminised to be less of a threat and less competition to females. Men did it to women and now women are in control, they are doing it to men, starting with the boys but I bet it'll start happening to the men before long. It's payback time".

Weirdly, it's not the women who are doing the bulk of the feminising. All super rich and middle class women work full time in demanding, but well paid, jobs. They simply don't have the time to feminise their sons full time. But their househusbands do. I met up with Tony Collins, househusband to his wife, Melanie, who is a high-flying attorney earning a seven figure salary a year. "I used to work in construction" Tony said "But my wages were like spare change compared to what Mel earned. When the boys came along, it made sense for me to stay at home and mind them full-time".

Tony introduces me to his boys, Aaron, aged 11, and Josh, aged 7. Aaron is dressed in the usual shiny pink frock, petticoats etc, and like little Roscoe I met earlier, he was red-faced and scowling at the indignity of being dressed in this way. Little Josh was dressed in the classic ballerina's costume of pink tutu, leotard, tights and silk ballet slippers. He wore a bow in his fine long brown hair. Unlike his brother, he was entirely comfortable with the way he was dressed. He was a cheerful, happy child, practising ballet moves and even pirouettes.

"I can't get him out of that darned ballerina's outfit" Tony confesses "He wants to be a ballerina when he grows up. I sometimes can't believe that he started out as a boy! He doesn't miss his boy's clothes and toys at all".

He looks at his eldest son, a vision of glowering pink and frills and speaks to me in a low voice "Aaron has taken having to wear a dress really hard. He used to be the quarterback on the soccer team. Now he's a cheerleader and has to cheer for the squad he used to play for! He absolutely hates his life".

Then why do you make him live a life he hates, I ask him. Tony looks around, as if to check his high-flying attorney wife is not around to overhear. "Mel told me I was to dress the boys this way and bring them up to be all feminine. She calls the shots in this house as she brings in the money and...she threatened that if I did not do as she said...she would put me in a dress! And she can do it too!".

I was astonished that firstly, this man was so afraid of his wife that he would willingly feminise his sons rather than cross her, and that, second, the boys were being feminised by their father, who is supposed to be their male role model and from whom they learn masculinity.

Aaron and Josh, Tony tells me, will be going to an exclusive academy for young gentlemen, to broaden their experience of femininity, for Mel treats her sons almost as a status symbol. "Mel" says Tony with a hint of sadness, or even possibly resentment "brings her woman friends round here and gets Josh to dance for them in his ballerina's costume and Aaron to cheer for them in his cheerleading costume. The women absolutely love it". Feminising your sons, it seems, wins status and approval amongst the female elite.

Putting boys into petticoats would seem extreme enough, one might think, but some mothers are going further still. "Girl-less Beauty Pageants" are a new craze amongst the new female elite. Their sons, rather than their daughters, are now the constestants as their mothers and sisters look on from the audience stands. Boys as young as two years old are taking to the runway in designer gowns and even two piece bikinis. These budding beauties are taken to beauty salons, now largely abandoned by females and now catering for an increasingly male clientele, and are plucked, tanned, depilated, coiffed and fully made up before being put into their gowns and kitten heels. Many of the contestants, even the youngest ones, have even had their tiny ears pierced and their lobes fitted with shining studs or earrings. "Girl-less Beauty Pageants" are considered to be the way forward to feminise young males and participation earns their mother status.

Naturally, the ambitious career woman will want her sons to participate in these contests and will force them into frocks, if necessary, to win the approval of her peers.

So far, this feminisation is taking place at the upper levels of society, where the woman is the breadwinner and has decided to make her sons pretty and her daughters to be ambitious and driven, just like herself. The working class is largely untouched by the phenomenon. It is a strange sight to see upper class boys in their frocks and petticoats attending their exclusive academies passing boys from the lower classes who are still clad in jeans and playing baseball.

But, it seems, it is only a matter of time before traditional notions of boyhood, conjuring up images of rough and tumble, sports and wargames, is redefined forever for all boys in the future to be shiny. Shiny dresses, shiny petticoats, shiny black shoes, shiny jewellery, shiny fingernails, shiny faces and shiny lips.