Why are schools getting the blame for boys harassing girls?

PearPickingPorky I completely agree, but demonising teenage boys does nothing for either sex. But as girls are groomed so are boys. I just find the 'blame the boys' argument very naive and from experience it has the effect of entrenching misogyny.

I should think boys are egged on by friends at school, they have that pack mentality. I should hope at home the parents check up on their behaviour and phone etc

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/10/tory-mp-maria-miller-accuses-ofsted-failure-sexual-abuse-schools

Looks like OFSTED might also be blame deflecting.

Schools need to be a big part of the solution.
They have been failing in listening to girls, and in addressing the boys responsibility for their actions.

When my DD was 10 and sent porn from other 10-year-olds - school district found which ones by their ISP - the teacher and principal had a conversation with each set of parents-with the exception of one set (foster parents who were dealing with a boy with many troubles and acknowledged it ), the rest to a fault denied the seriousness and NONE reached out to apologize. I even spoke publicly about it at the school in a post asking for everyone to pay attention to what their kids were viewing online. I got several#mydaughtertoo! and support from others, but the parents of the boys did and said NOTHING. No accountability and the teacher (a veteran of 30 years) said he was disgusted by their, "porn is healthy bs." The schools can only do so much as the boys have a right by law to be there. One mother of shit boy runs the school's social media, so I can only imagine what got deleted/edited/controlled.

These are middle and upper middle class parents btw, various races/ethnicities as we live in diverse urban area.

Schools need to do more. The government needs to do more.

Parents need to do more. Society needs to do more.

This report is about schools because what happened was that the Everybody's Invited website was set up where teens could detail sexual abuse and harassment and name the school. The sexual abuse and harassment often happened outside of school, however because schools were named, Ofsted could investigate.

Basically, Ofsted have just turned over a massive rock and found horrible things underneath, but because they're Ofsted, they have to do it through a schools lens. It's a societal issue and certainly doesn't stop once people leave school.

That's not strictly true bunny . We deal with incidents on the way to and from school, which can be galling and incidents of bullying which spill out or into school. We wouldn't deal usually with something that actually happens in the home. It has been known re sexting though.

But we simply do not have time....

Why are boys getting all the blame? Insta is full of girls under 16 (under 13 often) posting nearly naked pictures, yes they have rights to post what they like but Why do they want to post these things? I know I'm going to be slaughtered for this and I do think we have to address male violence but the premature sexulisation of girls also needs to be addressed.

Blame isnt the right word. It's a report on sexual harassment within schools, so or course it's all about it happening in schools.

But, it is so so wide spread that it simply means schools are not tackling it. But that's a government failing because they arent tackling it. When you do make complaints to schools about this sort it behaviour, they all handle it differently, often not actually taking any serious action, asking parents not to involve police. It really does depend on the teacher you get and what training they have had, which isnt much so again, a government failing.

My son was sexually assaulted when he was in primary 1 by a boy in primary 2 whilst they were in the toilets. That boy pushed into the cubicle with my son and locked the door, standing between my son and the door and assaulted him. The school's reaction was all about protecting the other boy because he was deemed "vulnerable". It took over a year to have him removed from the school. My son was offered no help or support, he wasnt even given a guarantee that the other boy would not be allowed in the same playground or lunch room. The school didnt even place any restrictions on his going to the toilet unsupervised so he was able to do it to another child several months later. It was me and that other parent who called in social services ourselves, and pushed through getting that kid removed. The school would have allowed him to continue going into the toilets with other small children and doing whatever the wanted. It makes me furious.

Schools need to do more. The government needs to do more.

@PlanDeRaccordement schools will absolutely not get involved in behaviour that takes place out of the school/school hours. They stand firm on those times being parental responsibility. The exception is if it’s a bunch of kids clearly pupils of that school, doing something along ASB lines, and getting caught. The school will give the kids a talking to then ‘bringing the school into disrepute’

[quote PlanDeRaccordement]@EastWestWhosBest

If you can prove to me that boys have been taught by the schools in PSHE classes how to behave, and that the schools take sexual harassment seriously, then yes the “boys are to blame”. But let’s not forget we are talking about children here. Minors with no criminal responsibility and therefore cannot be prosecuted as you would an adult. For children, the response is always to educate and enforce, but if the schools aren’t doing either of those things, then yes they are definitely a large part of who to blame.[/quote]
A couple of PHSE classes does not have an impact. It needs to be a whole school culture thing.

It's not just schools though. Parents and society at large have let children down.

Because heavens knows, we can’t possibly make parents bring their children up with decent values, respect etc etc..

The attitudes are learnt at home, reinforced in school mixing with peers. Where else can we get in and try to stop the rot?

Boys and sexual harassment, girls ganging up on other girls, racism, homophobia, islamophobia - kids absorb parental views, this isn’t something new. Don’t blame ‘the boys’ - blame society, blame their parents. Then come up with a zero cost, human rights foolproof way to eradicate such views across all of society.

Or you could just try getting the right info in robustly, via schools where we at least have them captive for a few hours, and some minds might be changed.

Or just keep ‘blaming boys’ with no realistic solution.

I think schools are in an impossible position. They seem to be expected to take over a lot of roles that formerly a family / local community.

Yes. It's always schools. Teachers actually. Teachers who have not had training. Yes, there's safeguarding training but there's lots to cover in safeguarding. CSE, neglect etc rightly gets a fair chunk of the training time but I think this issue also needs more specialist training.

How do you expect schools to stop boys texting girls outside school hours?

How do you expect parents to stop boys texting girls when the parents are not with the child?

Both parents and school, and also society generally, have a responsibility here.

Do we have the time in 1800 pupil schools to do that?

I don't think you are correct that we can sanction activity that happens in the home.

How do you expect schools to stop boys texting girls outside school hours?

Parents can get schools involved in any out of hours problems such as bullying at the bus stop to yes, texting, or other malicious communications done off campus and outside school hours. Schools can still give the guilty child one on one remedial lessons in good behaviour as well as give detentions or even exclusions.

@EastWestWhosBest

If you can prove to me that boys have been taught by the schools in PSHE classes how to behave, and that the schools take sexual harassment seriously, then yes the “boys are to blame”. But let’s not forget we are talking about children here. Minors with no criminal responsibility and therefore cannot be prosecuted as you would an adult. For children, the response is always to educate and enforce, but if the schools aren’t doing either of those things, then yes they are definitely a large part of who to blame.

To be fair, I agree that lots of schools don't take harassment seriously and the toxic masculinity can be a culture amongst adults too. Men tend to dominate leadership positions and that can create a trickle down .

The schools have much of the the blame to bear.

1- They teach the mandatory Relationships and Sexual Health (Sex Ed) from primary age on. These lessons should include basics like don’t ask girls to message you nude pictures or send them dick pictures.

2- The schools are responsible for keeping girls safe from sexual assault and harassment from other pupils while in school. That’s their safeguarding responsibility. I suspect they just don’t take sexual harassment seriously.

Elephant in the room - kids are not born knowing how to drop litter, yell abuse, bully others. Boys are not born with these appalling attitudes.

Parents teach them. Not all parents, but plenty of parents. The parents need the punishments too.

The head teacher of a Solihull school said on Radio Two this morning that teenagers are living an online life that parents and teachers don't understand and the views expressed by the adults in real life is completely different from the views expressed online but more meaningful to the teens. Those with the loudest online voices are dictating everyone else's lives.

Jonathon Haidt has stats on how social media is impacting on girls' well being. Whilst this might not be directly related to the OPs question, I do think teachers, schools and parents aren't equipped with the knowledge of how to deal with the impact of teenage online life such as social media, porn and websites like Reddit.

There needs to much more done by government to train schools and staff to deal with sexual harassment online and offline.

I bang on about teenage use of devices to anyone who listens. Teenagers don't have the emotional resilience to cope with what is going on online as the adults around them flounder. It's a whole generation of children who have been let down.

mobile.twitter.com/JonHaidt/status/1083018006911963136