For the freedom of boys to be themselves

The fact that women wear pants has long been a matter of course - at least in equal societies. There has also been a major change in role models for women and girls. But what does it look like for men and boys? The journalist and author Nils Pickert reports on this in his book "Prinzessinnenjungs: Wie wir unsere Jungs aus der Geschlechterfalle befreien".

He came to Hof for an event at the invitation of the Mütterclub e.V. family center and Dr. Katharina Bunzmann, the equal opportunities officer for the city of Hof. The reading turned into a two-hour intensive discussion about how society reacts to boys who fall outside the norm because they want to wear a skirt, for example. Nils Pickert uses his own family experience to describe the negative reactions and his own offensive approach to dealing with them. He criticizes the standardization of masculinity, as can be found in toys, among other things, and pleads for the freedom of gender roles for boys: Every boy should be allowed to be himself. The audience contributed numerous personal experiences with restrictive masculinity roles, which confirmed the experiences in Pickert's book.

The event was supported by the Partnership for Democracy in the City of Hof as part of the federal program "Live Democracy!".