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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Rape culture starts in primary school

63 replies

WarriorN · 22/03/2025 18:37

This is the Everyone’s Invited primary school list 2025. It contains 1664 schools that have been submitted anonymously onto our website by survivors of sexual abuse during
their time at primary school

https://www.everyonesinvited.uk/PrimarySchoolsList2025.pdf

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ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly · 03/04/2025 19:44

See what you mean… we were/are pretty rural so there wouldn’t be any alternative , you’d just have to wait … I guess that is why that didn’t occur to me.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 03/04/2025 19:08

ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly · 03/04/2025 19:05

Not sure how having smartphone helps though. Bus still isn’t there.

If you are unfamiliar with the locality, you can use an internet-connected device to investigate alternative journey options.

When I was a child, I had a mental map of alternative buses and trains to get me home from school that served the same purpose.

ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly · 03/04/2025 19:05

Not sure how having smartphone helps though. Bus still isn’t there.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 03/04/2025 18:49

ScrollingLeaves · 02/04/2025 20:52

Some buses now just cancel, whatever is on the timetable. That does not matter if there is one every few minutes but it does if there is one every half hour or hour.

I am against smart phones for children but am annoyed by how everyone is supposed/presumed to have one.

In a cafe today I found the loyalty card stamp of old now is a SP tap and if you don’t have one too bad.

Some buses now just cancel

That happened when I was a child too. We just dealt with it.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 03/04/2025 18:48

ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly · 02/04/2025 21:11

That is annoying

I feel we are relying too much on tech now

if the tech us hacked/fails we are stuffed…

I keep maps and a compass in my car for that exact reason.

ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly · 02/04/2025 21:11

That is annoying

I feel we are relying too much on tech now

if the tech us hacked/fails we are stuffed…

ScrollingLeaves · 02/04/2025 20:52

ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly · 02/04/2025 06:55

I remember going abroad and being amazed to find a wondrous thing called a Timetable on the bus stop! And last time I went abroad they were still there. Stop Press: we could try doing that!

Some buses now just cancel, whatever is on the timetable. That does not matter if there is one every few minutes but it does if there is one every half hour or hour.

I am against smart phones for children but am annoyed by how everyone is supposed/presumed to have one.

In a cafe today I found the loyalty card stamp of old now is a SP tap and if you don’t have one too bad.

Jetplanesmeetingintheairtoberefuelled · 02/04/2025 10:07

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 01/04/2025 23:21

When I was a child, there were these things called "payphones". Boarding schools could use those.

Day schools don't have that pastoral requirement for the kids to phone home. Barring emergency, a child should be able to go from one end of the school day to the other without phoning a parent.

It gets locked up in a big box and they have to go to ask for it after supper if they want to ring home. There's no texting friends or playing Snake, just ringing mum and dad. That's pretty close to using a payphone but without the queue.

ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly · 02/04/2025 06:55

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 01/04/2025 23:16

I had that problem as a child too. No phone, no shelter at the stop, no timetable. We just had to wait. No one died.

I remember going abroad and being amazed to find a wondrous thing called a Timetable on the bus stop! And last time I went abroad they were still there. Stop Press: we could try doing that!

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 01/04/2025 23:21

Jetplanesmeetingintheairtoberefuelled · 31/03/2025 17:34

There is a specific, non-urgent-but-still-important reason for most of the pupils wanting frequently to call home, and their each having a mobile makes that much, much easier than queuing at the matron's office, but please don't let the possibility of another school operating differently from the one you went to get in the way of sanctimony.

My son boards and calls home 2-4 times a week. I'd guess his classmates call 1-7 times depending on the circumstances.

His school insists that the phone is a dumbphone with no camera. No smartphones or smart watches allowed. When he goes to senior school, he'll be issued with a specific Nokia model at the start of term.

When I was a child, there were these things called "payphones". Boarding schools could use those.

Day schools don't have that pastoral requirement for the kids to phone home. Barring emergency, a child should be able to go from one end of the school day to the other without phoning a parent.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 01/04/2025 23:16

ScrollingLeaves · 31/03/2025 22:59

Another modern problem for children travelling home from school is erratic bus services. Buses due sometimes simply do not turn up. So people use their smart phones for bus apps to find out what is happening. There are no guards or bus conductors around to ask.

I had that problem as a child too. No phone, no shelter at the stop, no timetable. We just had to wait. No one died.

WhenYouSayNothingAtAll · 01/04/2025 20:12

A big part of the issue is the minimising, from schools, parents, society. They/we actively look for explanations that make it all innocent and not a big deal, until they/we find one (often giving a get out card to the child involved) and then they/we can pat ourselves on the back that the issue was dealt with.

Boys will be boys, curiosity, he didn’t mean it, he didn’t know what it means , he’s only little etc.

While he might be little, that’s not the case at 10 or 15 or 20. If he doesn’t learn at 5 that it is wrong, that there are consequences, that people are upset and that it is NOT ok, it’s fucking madness to expect them to suddenly understand that at a later age.

Minimalistmamaoftwo · 01/04/2025 19:53

It’s so depressing. I have two boys and feel that we are doing everything right at home, my eldest has just started pre-school in a lovely area, great school and I’m appalled. The majority of the other boys are really rough bordering violent to the girls, already much talk of boys being better etc and many of them taking about violent games and YouTube videos that frankly aren’t suitable for teenagers never mind four year olds, I despair. It feels so difficult when you are going everything right and then sending your child into this cesspit because other parents seemingly can’t be bothered to parent their children, I dread to think what these boys will be like at 15 but also what my own will be like with these kind of influences, it makes me want to homeschool

ShockedandStunnedRepeatedly · 01/04/2025 19:49

RedToothBrush · 23/03/2025 08:26

The trouble with this is you are missing a huge point here.

DS is ten. He has no interest whatsoever in girls. But then he has no interest whatsoever in boys who play football either.

We had a conversation with him about this not long ago. There is a girl he does talk to and seems to get along with at an out of school activity he does. His comment was that he didn't have anything in common with the girls in his class. He regards them as somewhat vacuous and only into beauty stuff and Taylor Swift. But that's not a lot different to the boys who are into football. He said this girl at this activity was "the only girl who he has something in common with". He doesn't have a lot of time for the boys who actively look down on him because he doesn't conform and fit into their gang. He took exception to a teacher describing his classmates as his friends. He commented "just because they are in my class, doesn't mean I'm friends with them. I just have to get on with them but that doesn't make us friends".

And actually that's a fairly mature understanding of the difference between acquaintances and colleagues and actual friends you seek out, want to spend quality time with and trust.

And the problem lies with the 'enforcement' and the bullying that comes with non conformity. The 'in boys' other the children who aren't in their gang and are part of their collective identity. This is where gender stereotypes and obligations to follow them matter and are problematic. Not a disinterest in another child in the class. It's about forced interests and the closing off exploration of interests because they are 'girls/boys' interests.

It's about the formation of hierarchies within society at an early age. And how they are propped up and enabled by adults. It's tribalism that's ultimately the problem here. Boys who like Taylor Swift are quickly made to be embarrassed and told they are effeminate. Likewise girls who like football are quickly told they aren't good enough, even if they are more skilled.

Disinterest, in its self isn't a problem. As adults we all have people who you really don't particularly want to engage with and pretend to be best buds with. And that's ok.

Your argument here neglects the point that girls do the same thing in terms of general disinterest. They don't want to engage with the boys for similar reasons.

There's one boy in my son's class who has been somewhat rejected by the other boys (he gets on with my son well but he doesn't fit in with the rest of the group). He's one of the most immature, smallest and struggles with gaming because of motor skills issues so doesn't have that in common. The result is he's ended up playing with the girls who he does get on with, but he still wants to play with the boys. Put him in a different environment with some of the same boys (including DS) and they get on amazingly well. The issue is the social space and hierarchies which don't allow you to get to know peers in different ways and to find common ground in different ways.

The issue here is these same social hierarchies exists across the world - they've studied it in numerous different cultures - and there's these same patterns of the sporty ones and the cool ones having higher society status than the outsiders and nerds.

This is where how you teach tolerance or authoritarian ideas matters. If you have a society that places higher value on enforcement of conformity. This is where sexism starts to fit in. It's about conformity and non conformity.

Perversely if you go too full on with enforcement of 'inclusion' you stray into the realms of authoritarianism of forcing kids who don't things in common and genuinely don't get on, see how quickly they kick back and complain because they want to play with their mates. You can't force the issue. You can only gently put kids into different scenarios with new experiences away from the set social bonds and change attitudes.

So putting the all football kids with the girls who like Taylor Swift and asking them to get on won't work. Put one with another and a whole group of different kids doing a climbing activity they've never done before and you might get a totally different response. Because you have a reset and are on neutral ground.

The kids start to mix when they are older because they suddenly have something in common - hormones! And that's a natural reset point.

You can make that work if you then have healthy peers and influences about how you treat the other. That's doomed from the off if your only reference points are unhealthy online echo chambers and porn. That's why the whole role model thing is relevant.

But equally the macho attitudes of parents does impact here. Football and a somewhat toxic masculinity go hand in hand in a way that's different to other sports (each sport has its own culture surrounding it). Why does football have hooliganism when other very masculine sports don't? That's the type of question you should ask...

...the answer comes back to tribalism and power every single time.

Great post - should have known it would be you, @RedToothBrush
wish you were my real life pal!

Potlights · 01/04/2025 19:37

BiscuitsAndButtons · 23/03/2025 08:39

I teach in a primary and honestly don't recognise any of the above about boys' and girls' relationships. The girls and boys all socialise and are often very good friends. Girls make up about a third of the children who play football at break and aren't treated differently. There isn't some big divide between them. It's the same at my child's primary. I'm not doubting there are schools like that but it isn't universal.

This is absolutely not our experience.
I have a sporty DD who was far better at football than many of the boys but the boys NEVER passed to her because she was a girl.

ArabellaScott · 01/04/2025 15:56

It's far better to use a search engine like Google and add the word 'mumsnet' than to try to use MN's own search engine.

MarieDeGournay · 01/04/2025 12:10

I came across this while searching for something else [fruitlessly - I wish MN had a better search facility😡]
Best dumb phone for kids (#1 is under £20) | Mumsnet

Call me political-correctness-gone-made but I find it hard to say dumb phone - I know it's the US/German meaning =stupid, but it means people who are non-verbal on this side of the Atlantic.

Fortunately 'Nokia' is usually accurate. Nokias are the Hoovers of the mobile phone worldSmile

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 01/04/2025 11:04

Back in the day (remember that? Possibly some of you are too young) NOBODY had a Smartphone. We phoned home (if our homes even HAD housephones, which mine and many of my peers didn't), from the school office. We spent our evenings watching the tv with our parents (three channels, no choice).

And we survived. We learned to be streetwise, we learned not to talk to strangers, get into people's cars (the old-fashioned version of online grooming). Technology moves so fast and the only ones who can really keep up are the very young.

But I was SA by a boy in primary school. This would have been 1969. So the desire, the tendency, has always been there, even before the ready access to porn, to technology. In my view we need a two pronged approach - to tackle technology and its effects on the young mind and ALSO to tackle the 'othering' of the opposite sex, that makes someone with different genitals to you somehow an object, or less-than-human.

WarriorN · 01/04/2025 10:52

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 31/03/2025 16:34

My son is in year 7 and has a Nokia dumbphone for calling home because his school insists on it.

When I was in year seven, if I needed to call my parents, I could ask at the school office and they would look up the contact number and place the call for me. I didn't know my parents' work numbers. Usually, it would be a teacher calling because something had gone wrong, such as illness or injury, that required my parents to collect me.

It looks to me like your son's school have abdicated their safeguarding responsibilities for knowing that your son has an emergency at all in order to need to make a call home, pushing that responsibility onto your son.

Edited

schools are clearly an issue in all this. All my sons homework is online

OP posts:
WarriorN · 01/04/2025 10:51

@MarieDeGournayhe does have access to an iPad at home though 😆

however it broke recently.

so now watches a lot of random things on iPlayer. The 7/7 bombing documentary being the last one….

he’s playing chess more though. One iPlayer find was a sort of great pottery throw down style chess thing. (As well as binging marvel movies)

we get asked for one regularly though. It’s a small group of parents who are doing this so it helps. I also wish iPods were still available as he loves music. We now have an Apple Music account for him with playlists that we play though headphones or a speaker.

I think local parents of children currently in ks1 seem MUCH more opinionated on this though, (anti any phone) from birthday party chat.

and we do often feel mean.

But parents can say no to kids.

OP posts:
WarriorN · 01/04/2025 10:45

I’ve mentioned elsewhere; in Japan children from 4 onwards to 12 are issued with a government mobile phone which can store 10 numbers and they can have something like 10 texts and calls a month. They are then expected to walk to school on their own with this (according to my Japanese friend, happy to be corrected!)

Though, as I type that, “government issue” opens other questions….!

OP posts:
ScrollingLeaves · 31/03/2025 22:59

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 31/03/2025 16:34

My son is in year 7 and has a Nokia dumbphone for calling home because his school insists on it.

When I was in year seven, if I needed to call my parents, I could ask at the school office and they would look up the contact number and place the call for me. I didn't know my parents' work numbers. Usually, it would be a teacher calling because something had gone wrong, such as illness or injury, that required my parents to collect me.

It looks to me like your son's school have abdicated their safeguarding responsibilities for knowing that your son has an emergency at all in order to need to make a call home, pushing that responsibility onto your son.

Edited

Another modern problem for children travelling home from school is erratic bus services. Buses due sometimes simply do not turn up. So people use their smart phones for bus apps to find out what is happening. There are no guards or bus conductors around to ask.

Jetplanesmeetingintheairtoberefuelled · 31/03/2025 17:34

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 31/03/2025 16:34

My son is in year 7 and has a Nokia dumbphone for calling home because his school insists on it.

When I was in year seven, if I needed to call my parents, I could ask at the school office and they would look up the contact number and place the call for me. I didn't know my parents' work numbers. Usually, it would be a teacher calling because something had gone wrong, such as illness or injury, that required my parents to collect me.

It looks to me like your son's school have abdicated their safeguarding responsibilities for knowing that your son has an emergency at all in order to need to make a call home, pushing that responsibility onto your son.

Edited

There is a specific, non-urgent-but-still-important reason for most of the pupils wanting frequently to call home, and their each having a mobile makes that much, much easier than queuing at the matron's office, but please don't let the possibility of another school operating differently from the one you went to get in the way of sanctimony.

My son boards and calls home 2-4 times a week. I'd guess his classmates call 1-7 times depending on the circumstances.

His school insists that the phone is a dumbphone with no camera. No smartphones or smart watches allowed. When he goes to senior school, he'll be issued with a specific Nokia model at the start of term.

selffellatingouroborosofhate · 31/03/2025 16:34

Jetplanesmeetingintheairtoberefuelled · 29/03/2025 13:23

My son is in year 7 and has a Nokia dumbphone for calling home because his school insists on it. It doesn't have a camera and there's no data to go online. He won't be getting a smartphone until he's a lot older. A lot of the parents in his school feel exactly the same about smartphones, and he's never been teased, as none of his classmates ever bring them in.

My son is in year 7 and has a Nokia dumbphone for calling home because his school insists on it.

When I was in year seven, if I needed to call my parents, I could ask at the school office and they would look up the contact number and place the call for me. I didn't know my parents' work numbers. Usually, it would be a teacher calling because something had gone wrong, such as illness or injury, that required my parents to collect me.

It looks to me like your son's school have abdicated their safeguarding responsibilities for knowing that your son has an emergency at all in order to need to make a call home, pushing that responsibility onto your son.

Whatthechicken · 30/03/2025 09:36

ScrollingLeaves · 29/03/2025 14:06

I don’t know if people already know about this, but in case not, the idea of this pact from Smart Phone Free Childhood is to form large enough groups of children who do not have smart phones so that the peer pressure to have one is less strong.
parentpactresults.smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk/

Brilliant, I’ve signed it.