Youth Speaks 2016

The 2015/16 Youth Speaks Competition sponsored by the Rotary Club of Kirkcudbright took place recently within Kirkcudbright Academy.  Twelve pupils from the school participated with those from the S1 to S3 year group competing for a decorative Quaich whereas the winner of the six pupils drawn from the Senior School was presented with the Jim Scott Memorial Trophy.   On the evening the audience were both entertained and informed by the wide range of topics chosen by the participants which included talks on swimming, on immigration to the UK, and on Lad Culture.    The panel of judges, drawn from the Academy (Mrs Graham), the Community (Mrs Elaine McConnell), and the Rotary Club (Dr Michael Moore) skilfully discharged their difficult duty with their chair person announcing the winners from the Junior School as 1^st – Sam Gurling; 2^nd – Hamish Denerley; and, 3^rd – Emily Hinchliff, with those from the Senior School being 1^st – Magnus Riley; 2^nd – Rory Grieve; and, 3^rd – Esther Weir.   Hannah Wilson was recognised by the judges as the most promising runner-up among the speakers.     The prizes were awarded by the Rotary Vice-President, Chris Ingram, who commended all of the participants for their efforts.   In his closing remarks MC for the event, Gavin Scott, observed that the Competition had been a great success and thanked the English Department of the Academy for supporting and encouraging all of the pupils who had been involved. 

By courtesy of Magnus Riley;-

Youthspeaks Talk

Right lads. We need to have an honest discussion about lad culture. We are breeding yet another generation of idiotic, automaton like drooling males whose mantra is “birds, beer, banter.” There is an entire clothing range dedicated to that bilious motto. This culture has an adverse effect on young males today and it is partially responsible for suicide being the largest killer of young males.

My first point starts with the internet, not the most reliable source in the world but it is home to a large populous of ‘lads’. One of the internet’s most popular ‘memes’ (defined as ‘an image or piece of text, typically humorous in nature, spread rapidly by internet users’) is known as “get back in the kitchen”. Whenever an interesting or inspirational story about a woman surfaces on such repugnant facebook pages as “The Lad Bible” this meme is commented and receives hundreds, if not thousands, of likes. This shows, somewhat amazingly, that large amounts of people still believe, or sympathise with the belief, that the gender roles of around 1905 should apply to this day. Constant studies have, extremely shockingly, proved that women’s purpose is not to wait hand and foot on men?!? Now, obviously such scientific research is incredibly dubious but you would expect that the male species might have moved on from such medieval attitudes but, apparently we are undoing evolution’s years of good work. Half of women spend 13 hours a week on housework. We men are, frankly, hopelessly incompetent. For all the absolute top lads out there you won’t be able to have good ‘banter’ with a good ‘bird’ over some quality ‘beer’ unless you have living quarters above the level of a pigsty. Unfortunately your partner’s role is not to make you food, but to act as a companion, a soulmate, a confidant. NOT A BLEEDING CHEF. So, while women all over the world are doing amazing things like going into space, running multinational businesses and all the other things outwith the kitchen that make them happy, you’re living the high life in a manky apartment, posting and liking idiotic memes on the internet.

In my 16 years on the earth I have met many a ‘jack the lad’ although, unfortunately, never one called jack. Anyway one such delightful fellow regularly expresses disgust if a fellow male touches him at all – saying things like “we look so (insert expletive of choice here) gay.” Here we hit upon problem 2 of lad culture, discrimination against everyone who isn’t a fellow lad. Smart people, women- as I touched on and will touch on again-, foreign people, poor people, the list is practically endless. Lad culture fosters an environment in which everybody who does not chant “boobs, beer, banter” periodically is somebody to be completely alienated. I once witnessed a young girl being told by a classic top lad that her moustache was bigger than the lad in question. Now this behaviour would obviously result in this boy being vilified for brutally abusing a young girl for something outwith her control, right? Wrong. Ladies flock to the lad in question like lads do to banter. This is one of the major issues. Nobody has the guts to stand up to these people due to their popularity. It is one of the most vicious circles.

Every 2 minutes in the United States of America, a woman is raped. This is one of the great failings of humanity. The constant objectification of women as sexual objects by a lad culture in which 57% of rock music videos portray women as sexual objects has resulted in sexual violence increasing by 37% in England and Wales in the last year. Incidents of groping are on the rise in pubs and bars and men’s obsession with one of the ‘3 Bs’ is resulting in an alarming growth rate of the sex offenders register. When women are belittled in any way, but particularly sexually, their trust in males decreases and they often, quite understandably, never recover. These women have their lives absolutely ruined because some jack the lad cannot function like a normal human being. I cannot communicate just how angry it makes me that some ‘people’ (if they can be called that at all) can destroy somebody’s world and how the lad culture trivialises these vile assaults.

Whilst ruining lives in that way lad culture also beats males down and can be blamed to a large degree for the fact that 80% of suicides in this country occur amongst males. In lad culture talking about your feelings is a taboo. A yougov survey revealed that one of the reason men do not talk about their feelings is due to feeling ‘ashamed’. If you become bogged down in your own thoughts and let negative feelings fester you are more likely to commit suicide. There is a reason this is a more of a problem amongst men. Women took the mad step years ago of actually opening up to each other. I speak here firmly off of my moral high horse. Telling my friends about personal issues is one of the hardest things I can do, and responding when I am told is incredibly difficult also. We need to lose the stigma caused by a culture which forbids discussion of important issues in each other’s lives. If we do not we are condemning thousands of males to misery for years to come.

So, lads, we need to sort it out. Now. We are allowing a culture to fester in which the only conversation ever had violates somebody. These conversations breed actions which are some of the most repugnant a human being, lad or not, can commit. Allowing this culture to exist is self-destructive as it helps lead to the suicide of 20 in every 100,000 men in 2013. How about we drink beer in relative moderation, go birdwatching and as for banter? Let’s BAN ter, whatever ter might be.