Boys and men

while I usually ignore zombie threads i do have to challenge this nonsense. I'm a woman and am football mad, as are most of the women in my family. I also understand that some women (like some men!) don't like football.

And the women's game is finally getting the recognition it deserves.

I find it odd that an adult doesn't understand that people like different things.

Seems odd just how much womens football is being pushed last few years. Why? Most girls or women don't like football. All the men in my family are football mad, all the women hate it. That's not atypical.

How is it not vindictive?

Trolling. Far right or far left / false flag ....its getting harder to tell.

Op doesn't want to ruin anyone's career.

"Sometimes equality IS giving certain groups that have traditionally been marginalised more opportunities

I'm not sure I agree with this.."

The whole well women have been oppressed in the past so I'm glad these boys aren't allowed opportunities comes across as rather vindictive.

Now it might be the lads have over exaggerated the situ. Or maybe they lost the asteo turf for bad behaviour etc. There might be a logical reason for it all. But given that op is talking about the boys not being allowed to have sports teams for years (why is she raising this now in the last term of yr6?) then it does seem like it's aimed to deliberately take away something from boys to punish boys en masse for what men before them have done. That doesn't sit right with me.

If the kids can't play together, then split it across days or have better supervision. If the teacher has only capacity to run 1 after school football club, they need to look at getting someone in externally.

Are we meant to be raising our kids to think that they're equally valued or should we be telling boys oh now it's time to punish you for what you didn't do but your Dad might have. We won't punish your sister for what he and your GF and your GGF and your GGGGGGGGGF did, it's passed down with the penis.

I would be concentrating more on their attitude and believing in what Andrew Tate says than what sport they can play. I would be talking to school about that (although I am sure they are already aware). School need to be letting parents know what their Y6 boys are watching and hope that parents do some parenting

But these 11 year old boys aren't the oppressors of women. Punishing boys for when men before them have done serves no one. It's just reinforcing the division.

This vindictive attitude towards primary aged children is nasty and counter-productive.

In what way is that vindictive?

I'm assuming if a group of boys admire Andrew Tate, that might be the reason they are being limited playing sport as their attitude on the pitch might not be very admirable.

The whole thread is off. Its just a thinly disguised warning off of women who are attempting to support girls.
The message couldn't be clearer: You just try giving girls opportunities to equalise their access to areas dominated by boys, and we'll all flock to a misogynist and become an even greater threat to women, and it'll be your own faults. MRA all over it.
We've even had one of them jumping on to advise the OP to ruin the teachers career.

This.

This vindictive attitude towards primary aged children is nasty and counter-productive.

J think you need to go into school op and ask, not hint. I suspect that you are not being told the whole story. Not saying that you're lying but children are notoriously unreliable witnesses, especially when they think they are being hard done by. I suspect that there is a more nuanced reason as to why this is/your son has got the wrong end of the stick. Children tend not to have access to all of the information available and, like adults, have filled in the gaps.

My son has as like this about the football field. He thought he never got to go/it was always the girls/older kids etc when I asked the school what the rules were surrounding this I got a very different story. Originally the kids were allowed to play football but the boys dominated the playground and refused to let the girls play/hit the girls with the ball/disrupted the girls game. So the new rule was they could only play on the astro turf and the playground was for everyone else, but again the older boys dominated it/wouldn't let the girls play/wouldn't let the younger kids play/disrupted the girls games etc. So now the rule is they can only play of the astro turf one day a week, the other years get a day. They have two breaks a day so the boys can play in either the first break or second and then they have to make room for the girls the next break. So essentially the boys have gone from having the privilege of playing football everywhere, everyday regardless of anyone else, to having the same right to a time slot as everyone else and playing then. The boys are not happy but I pointed out he isn't getting less than the girls, he just isn't getting more.

As for the sports issue, could it be that the boys don't have the teachers trained enough in those sports? I know when I was at school we girls weren't able to play football till I was 13 because we simply didn't have a teacher to do it. We also couldn't do competition as there wasn't enough school teams to do it.

@Middlelanehogger In what ways are men being pushed out of society?

Is the astro turf the only place they can play football or is there a playground as well. There could be so so many reasons why this is currently the case:

The boys were misbehaving, so it's not the the girls are allowed it, it's that the boys aren't because of their behaviour

Was it first come first served but the boys kept taking over and so now the girls have been allowed it for awhile to redress the balance

Is it that they can play football anywhere but the girls have had to have the astro turf reserved for them because whereever they were playing the boys would come in and take over

was it the boys last term and the girls this term?

As for the sporting competitions, is it that the girls team are better than the boys team and the boys team aren't even getting into the competition

Is it that the competitions rely on parental support and the girls parents have been more active in supporting

Is it that there aren't as many competitions for boys teams? Often for example boys play in a football team outside of school so they might not have the time for school competitions as well and so there isn't the appetite for sports competitions for them within school

Is it that the girls are turning up to the extra practices and the boys didn't

is it that there is so much additional provision for boys sports outside of the school and not for girls sports so the school are trying to redress the balance

Is it that the boys are not doing as well academically as the girls and so the school needs them to focus on their school work whilst the girls have more availability for team sports

There are so many variables here and it feels like you are just jumping to the conclusion it's not fair without knowing all of the answers. On the surface yes it feels unfair, but it wouldn't suprise me if the girls needing a space reserved because otherwise the boys take over is part of the issue.

Nope, we don't need 'equality' we need equity. And that's what this is.

You do need to find out more about the rationale for these choices, given this is a primary school and so these are still young children.

Whilst I get the arguments about showing men the other side of life and that achieving equality may need positive action, let's remember that we are talking about young children here and we need to be careful that we are not condoning punishing them for the sins of their forefathers. The Head of PE maybe a great feminist, but lets not discount the fact that she is exerting influence over a group of males because she has the power to do so, regardless of what is in their best interests and how they may have been involved in the oppression of women.

My view is that if you want to create meaningful change, all stick and no carrot is not an effective approach. If you are just creating a situation where young boys feel excluded from opportunities you are just making it easier for them to be influenced by misogynists like Andrew Tate who are telling them that their approach is a way out of feeling powerless and marginalised. The fact that these young children are being influenced by him is deeply concerning and should be prompting a response from the school.

We, as women, might want to just make men feel our pain and reverse the situations, that won't get us to a genuinely more equal society, it is more complex than that.

I mean your son is just using his eyes. He's not wrong and telling him he needs to step aside to give marginalised groups a chance due to their historical lack of privilege or whatever is the reason he's opening up to Andrew Tate in the first place

Pushing boys and men out of society isn't going to magically fix the patriarchy, they're just going to go recreate the old power structures somewhere else without any kind of female influence and then where will we be. Can't believe PP think it's acceptable to deny boys the ability to play on the field at breaktimes

I think you just need to raide it with the school. Make an appointment with the head teacher as there may be more to it than you realise. For example, the boys may be temporarily banned from the astro turf because they messed about/fought too much and therefore the girls get everyday on it now. Or something similar, that your ds isn't aware of. In terms of the sports competitiions, again, could be a reason that not enough wanted to join or even a lack of other schools putting forward teams so not enough for competition. But in any case its worth mentioning to the school how this looks. Also, about the basketball, perhaps they switch mid term and girls then do netball and boys basketball which I think happens in alot of schools.
And raise the andrew tate thing. would be good for them to know about this and hopefully do a bit of awareness around it for the year 6 children.

Something definitely ‘off’ here.