Sir, - Catherine Fitzpatrick, president of ASTI (October 10th), makes a clarion call supporting the Department of Education's controversial "Exploring Masculinities" programme. We are not surprised that Ms Fitzpatrick is in favour of this programme as ASTI was involved in its construction. This flawed programme has so far cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds to produce. Now a further £47,000 has been given to the NCCA to review the programme.
The core idea of this programme, i.e. that gender is socially constructed, is a central tenet of the entire feminist belief system. The external evaluation states that "recognition of masculinity as a social construct derives from the insights and increased levels of awareness developed by the feminist movement".
It contends that the observable differences between boys and girls has been the product of generations of differential upbringing. Developmental psychologists have found that, across cultures, boys and girls are significantly different in what interests them and in how they engage with their environment. The emerging discoveries from Brain Science have found that the male and female brains are organically different, proving that there is a physical basis for the cognitive differences between men and women. Men and women do think differently.
It is a human triumph and is rooted in our evolutionary success story. Our education system should be teaching and celebrating that difference instead of engaging in social engineering, which further alienates boys by seeking to re-construct their natural maleness.
In common with most defenders of this programme Ms Fitzpatrick deliberately avoids dealing with its content. Instead she concentrates on the alleged aims of the programme, which bear no relationship to the content. The consistent theme running through this controversial programme is that men are the flawed, evil, violent and powerful half of the human race, while women are faultless victims of an oppressive patriarchy.
It is a truly pernicious experiment which is an attempt to indoctrinate a generation of young Irishmen with feminist propaganda and to inflict a collective guilt trip on them.
Next week Amen is meeting with the NCCA as part of the review process. However, we have serious misgivings as to the objectivity of the NCCA given its role in the conception and design of the programme. - Yours, etc.,
Mary T. Cleary, National Co-ordinator, Amen, Brew's Hill, Navan, Co Meath.