The dynamics of gender relations have shifted rapidly over the past few decades. The days of traditional, fixed social roles for men and women have long gone. But while girls are making extraordinary gains, boys seem to be left behind.  Statistics show that boys lag behind girls when it comes to starting school with basic literacy skills. This disparity follows them through to the end of compulsory education, where girls are far more likely than boys to leave school with five good GCSEs. Boys are also reading less than girls and, when they do, they are far more likely to read material well below the expected level for their age. The gap extends to university, too. The number of girls applying to university is a third larger than the number of boys, with the chief executive of UCAS describing boys as ‘a disadvantaged group’.

Some commentators worry that boys’ relative lack of success in education is feeding into rising levels of violence, sexual assault and mental-health problems among young men. Concerns persist over gang violence and over young men carrying knives. In the US, the Sandy Hook Massacre and Isla Vista killings spurred more discussion over the phenomenon of the angry young man setting out on murderous rampages.

This is against a backdrop of concerns about the media that boys are consuming: are violent TV shows and video games a bad influence, creating an aggressive ‘hypermasculinity’ for boys to aspire to? Concerns over media, and specifically the internet, abound in the realm of sexuality. Parents worry that their children are able to access pornography so easily and in such extreme variety that it warps their sons’ perceptions of sex. We fear that boys have unrealistic expectations of sex, which they project on to their partners; in extreme instances, rape cases involving young boys allude to the influence of pornography. Educationalists point to the need for guidance and advice to help boys negotiate their relationships to help ward off the bad influence of pornography.

There are reasons to be concerned about the state of boys’ mental health, too. Suicide remains the leading cause of death among men under 35, and some fear that the traditional masculine image of ‘bottling up’ one’s emotions helps contribute to boys’ mental-health issues. Do boys have any healthy models of manhood left to help guide them?

From this, the picture looks grim for boys. Is it too gloomy? Are boys in as much trouble as we think they are? Are they in need of more positive male role-models to show them the way? Has feminism gone too far, generating a crisis of masculinity among young men, or not far enough in stamping out the negative side of traditional male behaviours? On the other hand, is it even correct to look at these issues along gender lines? Are such problems better explained in other ways?

Listen to the debate: