Night Waves - Free Thinking 2009 - Free Thinking - The Future of Men

Free Thinking 2009 Richard Moss of the BBC's Politics Show hosts debate at Radio 3's Free Thinking ideas festival asking whether the 21st century is a hostile environment for men. What sort of future lies ahead for the male gender? On the panel in front of an audience at the Sage Gateshead are writer and journalist Beatrix Campbell, assistant bishop of Newcastle Paul Richardson, Roger Olley of Fathers Plus and Rabbi the Baroness Julia Neuberger as they argue over the place of men in today's and tomorrow's world. The jobs that defined men are disappearing, the opposite sex trounces them in exams and there is speculation that men will not even need be needed for reproduction in the future. With primary school teaching being an overwhelmingly female vocation and the rise in the number of single parent families, many boys are growing up without significant male role models. And the current debate over paternity leave and paternity rights suggests that society is confused about what it means to be a modern father. Some scientists even speculate that one day we may not need men for reproduction. So have men failed to move with the times - or does modern society undermine them at its peril?