--protect your daughter--, educate your son"

Consent really is in essence for children what I'mnobody says so well above. Respect for others.

If for example it was strongly embedded in society, parliament and policy, enforced in schools and all public places with police committed to it, that

• equal respect, consideration and treatment must be extended to all in all situations (as opposed to some people deserve more and some people deserve less and that's ok because Reasons)

• a strong social requirement that everyone treat others to the same standards and level they feel entitled to themselves - and address the idea of entitlement, removing allowances and acceptance of double standards (Lundy Bancroft incidentally notes this different standards of entitlement as the hallmark of power imbalance that creates domestically abusive situations in relationships)

• social recognition and respect for people's boundaries and acceptance of 'no'

And women would have a much better experience of society and life in general.

Many, many men are involved in 'lad' culture whether they be actively involved or passively involved. Normalising 'lad banter' and things like sexual innuendos designed to clearly make a woman feel uncomfortable need to be called out.

This. I know a guy who is fabulously supportive of his wife, who loves him to bits and he is great with his adopted daughters. But I've also heard him joining in with the lads in the pub and the shitty sexist banter. DH says it's like being at school, join in or be ostracised, and whilst the banter isn't an issue with his mates, the alcohol is, and the abuse they give anyone who turns down a drink. It's a bizarre type of peer pressure with men. I do wonder how many men are actually uncomfortable with lad culture, but say nothing?

@Kendodd you do you, but I will be talking consent, not just in the context of sex but it will almost certainly include sex.

I think we need to address aspirations and character as concepts. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. In my experience that's exactly what good men do - nothing. Turning a blind eye, not speaking out, collusion, NAMLT, are all doing nothing and a feature of a coward not a decent man.

All children need to be taught about the real heroes and heroines, the ones who spoke up, who risked their lives to protest injustice. Not in a SJW way of denunciations and silencing, which is just another way of bullying, but a solid doing what's right way.

Teach self respect and respect for others, teach the purpose of strength is to support not oppress others. Value integrity and empathy. Give children and young people aspirations beyond a good job, lots of sex and money. Help boys to recognise their capacity for courage and character (in the MLK sense).

With regard to consent - my sons are all in primary school, and the one in reception recently referred to a female classmate as ‘his girlfriend’. We had a conversation with him about the fact that he can’t call her his girlfriend if she hasn’t consented to that term. She’s also in fact a friend who’s a girl. She might be a girl he particularly likes but at primary school children don’t (or shouldn’t) refer to girlfriends and boyfriends as it’s quite grown up.
We told the boys that they probably wouldn’t like it if a girl was running around telling everyone that they were that person‘s boyfriend if they weren’t. It implies ownership and it’s saying untrue things.
It sounds like it was a heavy conversation but it wasn’t when we actually had it and they engaged with what we were saying.

I think that we need to be sure that nurseries and schools aren't encouraging sexism and entitlement. I say this as someone who taught for 20 years and saw all kinds of entitled male behaviour going on in the staffroom as well as the classroom.

When I left teaching I took a job in a building next door to a nursery. In the summer with windows open and the children playing in the yard I heard all sorts of eye-watering sexist stuff going on. Girls told to get off the blue trike because that was for the boys, boys issued with drinks in blue cups, girls given pink cups, boys told not to use face paint as lipstick because lipstick was for girls, boys told to take off dressing-up items because they'd chosen a 'girly' thing. I regularly heard and saw girls who were being assertive and saying no told off for not being nice and boys who were wrestling with each other, or hitting each other, laughed over in a 'boys will be boys, you gotta love 'em' way. This nursery was widely considered to be the best in the area. I made a complaint to the inspectors and the response was to question me about my motivation for spying on a nursery.

That was a decade ago. I would have hoped things have changed but now that even very young children are being told they may have been born in the wrong body and that boys can be girls and vice versa, my guess is that everything is even more gender policed than before.

One thing that winds me up is talk of 'consent'. I am never going to mention the word when talking about sex.
Consent is passive. You consent to a medical procedure you shouldn't be consenting to sex you should be enthusiastically running in with a massive great grin on both your faces. Nothing less than enthusiastic participation is good enough.

Op have you read 'the invisible woman'?

As the main carer it would be good for your DH to read it too.

I don't think the issue is bad men V good men.
The world is literally designed for men.

Recognise and learn the little every day things that reinforce sexism are happening.

Man- up, gendering of toys, the women's sport never being on prime time etc.

A minority of men will physically assault or harm women.

Many, many men are involved in 'lad' culture whether they be actively involved or passively involved. Normalising 'lad banter' and things like sexual innuendos designed to clearly make a woman feel uncomfortable need to be called out.

How the hell does it get this bad?

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/report-boys-to-the-police-for-sexual-abuse-top-schools-told-cjlzd2pmp

I do agree Northernsoullover, the culture of misogyny and sexism is overwhelming. It's just everywhere.

Even down to the small, seemingly insignificant things; Ds has always had close friends who are girls and used to like to watch Lego friends and barbie on tv.

Toddler wanted to watch one of them recently and ds pulled a face, as did dh. Which I felt compelled to challenge; what's wrong with girls? (the barbie one is actually well written and very stem, as is polly pocket. It's the pink thing they are put off by, which is a big issue I feel)

Bang on Michelle.

Thank you for this thread and the interesting and perceptive comments. I have felt the responsibility of being the mother of a son quite heavily this week; he's only 18 months but I think that the PP is right that it's not enough to teach them not to be sexist but we (by which I mean parents, not just women) have to teach them to be anti-sexist.

Am I the only one pissed off by this?

I'm not pissed off by it because I don't interpret it as just being aimed at the mum, I know I will be called out for that, women do the the lions share etc, but in our house DH does a lot of the "moral education" so when I first read that meme I did not see it aimed at me solely. It will be a continuous cycle if the previous generation don't act for the future generations and we all have a part to play in that.

I can see why as a single parent it would be viewed differently and completely agree with everything you've said, it does feel like an upwards struggle.

I think this 15 min video explains it clearly
Men currently achieve status by denigrating women (and others).
To be a passive bystander is to enable inappropriate behaviour. Same as for people who observe racist behaviours. To be non-racist/sexist isn't good enough as it allows societal inequalities to continue. One must be anti-racist, anti-sexist.

Am I the only one pissed off by this? Its again putting the onus on women to get men to do the right thing. I'm a single parent and I like to think I'm doing a good job of raising my two boys. However the culture of toxic masculinity goes way deeper than I could ever have an influence on.
An example. Rugby clubs, have you heard the songs they sing? 'You can tell by the smell that she isn't very well when the time of the month comes around' is one particular gem. How grim is that?
If you see a picture of a woman online there will undoubtedly be a comment underneath my some male 'I'd smash that' I always report these to get told that it doesn't violate their standards. These are just two tiny examples of toxic male behaviour.
Much more needs to be done to stop vile behaviour such as this being seen as acceptable.

A change in culture and belief - for example absolute zero tolerance of threatening sexual violence - that led to the kind of enthusiastic hailing of toolkits down on schools that we see for other subjects, values reflected and considered by the BBC in all tv programmes and broadcasts, expectations upon the police and on social media regulation, would have a bigger impact on what happened inside all family homes.

There are a lot of subtle messages constantly going on in biased policing, biased prosecution, media everywhere that promote, female people matter less, that some things are more ok if they happen to a female, that treating female people this way is ok - and in some ways and fields is framed as actually quite righteous and to be celebrated.
That's what creates the culture we live in and the messages we're bombarded with all the time from every screen in the house.

But men are to blame for this. Where is the condemnation when a man runs off with another woman and leaves his young family to grow up without a good father role model?

Where are the men calling out other men for wanking off to women being raped on online porn?

Where are the men saying hang on, “why do you want access to that single sex space for? You’re welcome in our spaces!”

Have a look at the relationship board at some of the homes children are being raised in........ It's said on here daily ' mothers are the primary carers' as the primary carer of my dc I see it as my job to teach them what a healthy relationship is. What respect is and what boundaries are.
It's not assigning blame. But if we as women remain in homes where being put down, groped and assaulted is the norm don't be surprised when sons copy that behaviour and daughters go for the abusive man because that's all they know. And yet women stay because it's easier or the kids don't know etc etc.
I really think the answer to improving things is to pump vast amounts of money into women's refuges so the right choice is the easy choice......... I look at the years of cuts under the Tories and could cry. All those victims and all those children that will grow up to be abusers and victims.

@spookycookies of course it's not pointless. I have excellent parents but there are so many conversations they didn't have with me and my brother they could of had.

Consent is a big one, I'm not just talking about sex, but there's lots of way to instill the idea of consent into a child as the consentor and consentee, for example, not tickling children, given children choices and control. There are far too many men in this world that do not understand or respect consent.

I think it's pointless. Any half decent parent does this subconsciously anyway. We bring all our kids up to be decent humans. The boys who will grow up to do this will have parents who don't care. Who are either modelling poor behaviour or simply don't care. And no amount of hastags will change that.

There's two ways to look at it really.

1. sex is the issue: male people are naturally and inately different to female people, they're going to be rough and physical and that should be accepted and not repressed - in which case women need strong sex based protections and protected spaces for equality and safety, no arguments and no wittering about NAMALT or sex isn't really a thing. Third spaces needed.

2. Sex isn't the issue, it's just poor behaviour which men should be expected and made to control. Major, major and dramatic action needed in this case, and no excuses or justifications for that behaviour with strong legal enforcement, strong consequences and social expectation that no one of any sex or gender ever behaves this way.

Two sounds nicer on paper but would be very difficult to enforce, and is going to take decades even if we start now.