To be worried about teenage boys?

[Summerisicumenin]

I am a HLTA in a secondary school. Naice area, very well thought of school and all that.

Teenagers seem to think that adults are all hard of hearing, and because I'm working over a range of classes, I often hear some "interesting" conversations.

Recently, however, I have been struck by the attitudes that seem fairly common amongst the boys.

For example, in the last few weeks I've heard the following, all from different groups of boys chatting in class

• a conversation on how stupid feminists are, discussion of an anti feminism YouTube video they all seem to have watched and swallowed whole, how feminists are thick, stupid, whores.
• one boy was talking about his mother - she earns 40k a year in a responsible, professional role. We are far from London and this is a very good wage in our area. Her son informed his friends that she was a lazy bitch, her wage was pathetic, and she was stupid for working for anything under 70k.
• porn videos they have watched
• one boy got a girlfriend. She allowed him to "finger her". On discovering her pubic hair, he told her "that's disgusting, shave it off". Loud agreement from his friends.
• discussion of a local news story about breastfeeding. Agreement that it's disgusting and women shouldn't do it in public.
• once or twice when a nearby girl has attempted to join the conversation she is jeered at and told to shut the fuck up.
• people on benefits mocked

These are all specific examples. If I were to list the throwaway comments regarding women and girls, I'd be here all day.

On top of this, I've noticed an increasingly dismissive attitude to female members of staff, and in class it's almost always boys who are rude, disrupt the class, and shout down other pupils.

Girls rarely speak in class. When they chat amongst themselves, it is normal stuff about their day, whereas many of the boys have a default attitude of furious and critical.

I don't want it to seem as though I have a downer on boys - I absolutely don't. I've encountered many more who are absolutely delightful young men, and a joy to work with. However it seems as though a significant and growing minority of boys are incredibly angry, rigid and sexist in their thinking, especially around women. I can't help but think a lot of it is down to porn. I don't remember hearing boys speak like that when I was a teenager, and if I did I would have challenged it. I had just as many male friends as female.

It worries me that these boys will become men in a few years, men with views that I thought were outdated long ago, and nobody is challenging them. Or helping them for that matter, because they don't seem very happy either

If you can hear it why don't you challenge it there and then?

scurry while that is a point, I don't think it's the point IYSWIM.

Part of it is probably porn but I think a larger part of it is the internet as a whole- sexist white supremasicists getting large platforms on youtube/twitter/etc and teenagers getting unlimited access to internet. Would you be able to challenge them, even indirectly, by relating work to sexism etc?

YANBU though. Teenage boys are still children and for them to be developing views like this so early on it really is concerning.

Both mine are / will be at all girl secondary.

Teenage boys have always been abit like this remember from school. Depressing if it's got worse. The worry is the prevailing culture the decent lads have to go along with it or risk ostracism

Scurry it's is extremely difficult if not impossible for teachers to change the underlying culture of a school. This was my fathers conclusion anyway at end of 40 year teaching career.

Scary & sad.

sounds like a bunch of opinionated teenagers finding out what is acceptable and what isn't.

Really? Did you really hear all this? Never reported any of it or pulled up any of them? A couple of things mentioned could even be safeguarding issues!

I'm not surprised. It's scary and sad.

Sorry if I was blunt. It is a problem but it isn't new. The op raised the question of nobody challenging them when as a figure of authority in a school she would be in an ideal position to educate and raise awareness.

Agree with scurry, I'm a teacher I would pick them up on it

Yanbu op it is disgusting.

Certain groups of boys were like this when I was at school. Thankfully they were always challenged by my excellent teachers (when they were overheard of course). I had hoped, for the sake of both my ds and dd, that things had changed.

I console myself with thinking about the silent majority of boys that were really lovely. Many of them are Facebook friends, decent men, loving husbands and fathers.

Challenge, challenge, challenge op.

Boys talked like that when I was a teenager - how old are you (roughly)? I'm nearly 30. It's mainly posturing and they do grow out of it, most of them know it's all bullshit although I find it pretty repellent as well. The boys who are the worst for it tended to grow into sexist twats whereas the ones on the fringes grew up and left it behind.

To add to this what was common in my peer group was jokes about raping each other/each other's female family members or girlfriends or about said women/girls being attracted to the boy doing the insulting, homophobia including references to anal rape, joking about the boy being insulted being attracted to/found attractive by girls they found ugly. Some racism too though sexism/homophobia was more widespread. TBH I taught some teenage boys last year and I had to make a couple of pointed comments explaining that this kind of language/insults towards one another wasn't acceptable to me. They found that surprising because I didn't mind if they swore but I think there's a line.

The Inbetweeners was spot on IME.

Yes teenage boys are largely pretty socially inept (not all). I loved the inbetweeners because it was so true of my own memories of them and I'm 41. Most of them grow out of it but absolutely they need to be told it's not acceptable if overheard.

They will grow out of it because otherwise they won't have girlfriends!

I'm sure some of their mothers would be horrified!

Misogyny is becoming increasingly acceptable.

Assaults against girls are increasing, this attitude needs challenging. Get all the boys together and give them a talk.

I am unfortunate enough to travel by public bus around school time and this is the type of thing I have heard too- lots of derogatory names for women, calling women teachers slags and that they want to have sex, constant use of 'rape', just endless horrible remarks. I used to hang out in a mixed group of friends, and went to a rough comp and I don't remember this from the 80's at all. Not this bad anyway- there was a bit of 'your mums a slag' type talk, but this is vicious and highly sexualized and just repulsive.

I don't know what you can do. The more I know about the content of young men's minds and the porn culture, the less I want my girls to have anything to do with them. I would be equally concerned if I had boys that they were exposed to this culture. It's going backwards, considering women as sex objects to be derogated, for sure.

I can't understand why, if you heard boys telling a girl to 'shut the fuck up' they weren't immediately challenged.

On any of it, actually. Why are you just letting this sort of behaviour pass in class? Except for the overt references to sex - which I would imagine is something to be dealt with privately, why isn't there a sharp ' that's not acceptable language?'

I'd be super pissed off if I knew that teachers at my child's school were just listening to this sort of stuff and tutting to themselves without challenging it.

And, I think it IS the point to challenge it. Otherwise, they continue to believe it's an acceptable way to speak. If the teacher can hear this sort of talk in class surely so can all the other pupils. Even if it didn't change what the boys themselves were saying it at least shows others in the class this isn't an acceptable view. By letting it pass it's just reinforcing that what they are saying is ok.

I find this post very odd.

What is your school doing to challenge this? As the mother of boys I would really hope that schools would tackle this sort of misogyny head on (for the sake of their female students if nothing else). My sons never hear this stuff at home, and I do talk to them about sexism and misogyny. I know they will meet this attitudes at school but really don't want them to consider it "mainstream".

It's not being socially inept, it's being abusive and bigoted.

The only difference it being adolescent posturing by some of them makes is that the chance of them being rehabilitated is higher. It doesn't mean it's not dangerous and damaging to the victims.

I agree that this is no worse than the kinds of things that were said and done when I was at school, but it damaged my education having to be in that environment and I still despise everyone who failed to point out how repulsive it is, even just while the perpetrators weren't around. I did stand up against it, but I was one person and picked on a lot, so no-one really listened. There were people who did have the power to make a difference to this, but they acted like it was no big deal. As far as I'm concerned, if you do that then you're part of the problem.

There were also plenty of boys who did not behave like this, so it's obviously not an inevitable part of being a teenage boy. Even if it being inevitable would oblige everyone else to put up with it, which it wouldn't.

A few classes on ethics, and how it's abusive people, not their victims, who have something wrong with them - using examples like some of those above - wouldn't go amiss.

That's if that can be taught without people accusing you of being "bleeding heart" or "a communist" or whatever the current insult for people who aren't psychopaths or abuse-apologists is.

The OP is a TA not a teacher, if that makes a difference.

It’s really sad but I try to focus on the nice ones and challenge the assholes. The thing is challenging them won’t work.

I currently work with high school kids in Korea and although they have more of a veneer of politeness in front of adults, I overhear stuff that is just as bad. There is more sexism here but less sexual talk about rape or fingering or pubes or whatever. The girls are generally quiet even though they are much harder working.

In a class of 20, (even mix boys and girls) there are three boys who are sweet and kind, two who are sexist idiots and five who are somewhere in between.

I agree OP. I have a teenage boy. He is shy and awkward and doesn't knoww hat is right. He repeats stuff like this at hoe and of course I challenge him - but the prevailing culture is that this is the way to behave and peer pressure is strong.

As a teacher I am sure you do challenge it - but you can't stand round all day challenging every conversation you hear. Exhausting and ineffective anyway.

Porn is problematic as is the Youtube crap but even with blocks on the internet impossible to ban everythign - especially when they get to 16/17.

I keep plugging away but I'd be interested to hear what others think

The OP is a TA not a teacher, if that makes a difference.

No I don't think it makes a difference. In my ds's school it's the (female) TA who the pupils respect the opinion of. It's up to everyone, whoever they are and whatever position they hold, to challenge this kind of talk and attitude.