Dutch national tv campaign: "Boys and Girls are equal but not the same. Do you let your boy be enough boy?"

In the Netherlands, a new campaign organized by an initiative from the communications and media industry that has been involved in developing awareness campaigns for 40 years and is called SIRE, focuses on the fact that although boys and girls are equal, they are not the same. SIRE is not a governmental organization (as I thought before), but is recognized as the national organization focused on societal issues and has a lot of impact as it broadcast on the national tv channels. The title of the campaign is: "Do you let your boy be enough boy?" 

Researches on the website show that the performance of boys is declining, they published on their website the following results:

1. Boys receive 3 times more negative feedback than girls
2. Girls are more often advised to proceed to higher education than boys
3. In the schools with special education for children with behavior problems, there are 3 times more boys than girls
4. 44% of the parents (mothers and fathers) recognize the fact that the performance of their boys is declining
5. 45% of the parents of boys share the opinion that "boys' behavior' like being busy, physical and being cool) is suppressed by the current society
6. Compared with girls, boys have 4 times more diagnoses for AHDH and receive medications 5 times more than girls
7. Girls are approached more positively in education because of their better social skills
8. 56% of the parents acknowledge that their boys do not get enough movement and are therefore limited in their development
9. 76% of the parents of boys believe that this deserves more attention
10. Experts say that if we limit the boys and if they are isolating themselves, their self-confidence decreases, their attitude will change in "it does not matter what I do", will loose their concentration, decreases their motivation and their performances will decline.

Because of the results of this research, SIRE launched this national video campaign with the following text (in the video in Dutch): "Boys and girls are equal but not the same. Boys learn by trying and discovering, by taking risks and by doing. We seem that we have appreciates this less the last few years. We are afraid that they will fall down, hurt themselves, that they will come home with broken pants. They have to behave themselves, they have to be quiet and they have to listen. But to limit him too much will also limit his developments. They will loose their motivation and their performances will decrease quickly. That is why SIRE present the indestructible pants made of fabric which is 15 times stronger than steel. You can win this on our website. That is why we challenge all educators with the question "Do you let your boy enough be a boy"?

In an interview on a Dutch news tv channel, the representative of SIRE explained that this campaign was made because of the fact that it will be more and more difficult for boys to be really themselves. That she believes that boys and girls are equal, but not the same and that this is based on scientific evidence. Also she mentioned that one of the reasons of these problems was that both parents work and they are too tired to use their time with their boys, but give them a laptop to them to keep them quiet, no movement etc. Also she called for male rolemodels for boys. The core message is that boys have more impulsive energy which they need to use and they are too much limited in their movement space. 

On their website they also mention as a slogan: "If boys are restrained, they loose faster their concentration, it decreases its motivation and decline there performances and decreases its self-confidence". More statistics and details you will find  here

It is very interesting which goes against the propaganda of the gender equality ideology that try to characterize the scientific differences between boys and girls as "stereotyping". Therefore this campaign got much attention in the media, but fortunately also quite much support.