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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Misogynistic Teen Boys

206 replies

livinginaweirdworld · 06/02/2019 10:59

I have name changed for this due to some outing details.

I work in an all boys school, these are very bright boys in a selective school. But the sexist and misogynistic words I hear coming from them even in year 7 and 8 absolutely astounds me.

I have spoken to them when I hear them speaking like this, but they literally dont give any fucks whatsoever.

I have done tutorials on these subjects, I have asked how they would feel if there mum or sister were spoken about like this and they still do not care.

I am talking about rape being banter (akin to the Warwick Uni students), calling a girl frigid as she wouldn't send nudes or give them a blow job. Saying they were going to dump a girl as she wouldn't take it up the arse. They also seem to think women in the workplace will always be inferior as they have to go off and make babies and leave the bosses and the men with the proper work.

The treat female members of staff with disdain and contempt. Admittedly some of them treat male members just as badly but nowhere near as many as the female staff.

Where is this attitude coming from? I would say a good 75% of the students here have this attitude. Not all of them can get that from poor parenting surely?

AIBU as a woman to want to take my 2 daughters and move to Mars to get away from this kind of society?

OP posts:
MyBreadIsEggy · 06/02/2019 11:03

No advice from me, but reading that makes me want to vomit.
Year 7 and 8 pupils are what? 11? 12?!
What the actual fuck.

StreetwiseHercules · 06/02/2019 11:03

You don’t say what they are saying so it’s hard to give you any kind of meaningful answer.

StreetwiseHercules · 06/02/2019 11:03

Disgregard previous post. Sorry, I misread.

Ifangyow · 06/02/2019 11:05

What is the head doing about it?

Thesuzle · 06/02/2019 11:07

Name and shame the school... not just on here

Original poster
livinginaweirdworld · 06/02/2019 11:09

ifangyow not a lot unfortunately. It has been noted. But they are quite misogynistic themselves om SLT. Behaviour management here is poor.

OP posts:
hopingforhappiness · 06/02/2019 11:10

Totally agree with OP. I work in a similar setting.
Even at 11/12 years old

pollyname · 06/02/2019 11:11

This is tragic and scary - both for girls and boys. My DS is 4, I can't believe this is only 6 years into the future...

MarshaBradyo · 06/02/2019 11:14

That is abhorrent, I’m not sure what to say it’s so bad

They are so young. At any age it’s bad but that age

Do you think they completely stop at home?

DianaPrincessOfThemyscira · 06/02/2019 11:14

Oh god. I’m with @MyBreadIsEggy this makes me want to vomit. I have two boys who will be in secondary school two years in September. I’m already worried about SEND provisions for them, how to keep them off YouTube where they are bombarded with these damaging messages and everything else.

Ifangyow · 06/02/2019 11:21

I would be tempted to inform the LEA in that case OP.
They may have someone who goes to schools to give talks on subjects such as this. ( sorry, I'm not too familiar with the UK education system for kids older than 9 )
Perhaps it's something that you and like minded colleagues could act on, in as much as forcing the issue with the head and having appropriate action taken. Writing to the parents of the boys regarding their behaviour may be a good start?
Unfortunately not many boys of that age see the bigger picture in relation to what they're saying, the only way forward is to educate them on the subject, preferably from a much younger age.

NotAnotherJaffaCake · 06/02/2019 11:21

My cousins went to an all boys' grammar school in NI. It was exactly like this. Boys were generally nice as pie in public, but how can you trust them when you know what they really feel?

My nephew goes to the same school now. It hasn't changed.

Agree that you need to name and shame, if you can, without losing your job. Although I'd be interested in the employment law angle, having to put up with that kind of language every day...

Confusedbeetle · 06/02/2019 11:23

This is so depressing. They have terrible influences in the media. I imagine most of it is bravado but it is difficult to know how to challenge it. Most adolescents are incapable of seeing outside of their own bubble. I doubt if they let their mothers hear such talk. I thought that the Gillette advert was a good start, and celebrating decent men, but apparently not and many men were furious. Personally, I would slam down hard every time I heard stuff, but then I believe young people have to learn what is not acceptable. I have brought up both boys and girls and never heard my sons say any such thing, but society today is far more misogynist and in a serious way.
In my youth, I met a lot of public school boys who had all the wrong attitudes. In essence, they hadn't a clue about girls so played it in a very predatory way. We can only hope as they come out of the me me ego of adolescence the penny will drop. Maybe when they fall in love. In the meantime our daughters need to be strong and vocal and not persuaded to go along with "pleasing " I thing girls can make bigger changes than adults sometimes if we empower them . The world is talking more about these issues which probably makes the boys insecure so they brag more

userschmoozer · 06/02/2019 11:26

If they aren't listening to you it may be because they need to hear it from men.

propertywoe · 06/02/2019 11:35

Porn is a huge problem, peer pressure and trying to outdo each other makes it worse. The parents probably have no idea and even if told it would be blamed on the other boys leading them astray. It is also depressing hearing young girls putting so much pressure on themselves to conform to the the idea of what girls should look and act like.

Original poster
livinginaweirdworld · 06/02/2019 11:40

Oh I do slam down on it hard. Detentions and letters home, unfortunately higher ups take over the management of the behaviour and back down and give them weak, shitty punishments that don't make the boys think hard about their actions at all. I am very close to jacking it all in and moving into a different field.... but then i realise the misogynistic bastards have won!

OP posts:
Halloumimuffin · 06/02/2019 11:41

Boys were exactly like this at my mixed comp, 20 years ago. Asking girls whether they were 'fridges' (never kissed anyone) and spreading this 'status' around, asking teachers personal questions about their relationships, telling girls they needed to shave everything or they were disgusting and demanding to know their bra sizes, asking for 'a suck' in the corridors, etc etc.

They all grew out of it and became perfectly pleasant men. I'd be more concerned here because as an all boys school, it doesn't appear that they have any positive male role models, nor enough contact with girls to see them as human. I don't know how to fix that, other than saying I disagree with single sex schooling partly for this reason.

longwayoff · 06/02/2019 11:42

This is abysmal, more so because I heard related views from a 16 year old lad the other day by which I mean nasty American misogynistic racist gossip received via the Net. Absolutely shocking. Sat with him and asked him to provide evidence from credible sources to prove his statements. Total failure to be able to do so. He looked slightly chastened but I despair. He's not thick. He's not poor. He's got a clutch of O levels and is studying for A levels. Such views are common, so he says, amongst his peers in his small but comfortable Home Counties town. They are being slowly radicalised, if thats the word although I would say corrupted. It's extremely worrying and reminds me of Warwick.

MirriVan · 06/02/2019 11:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
livinginaweirdworld · 06/02/2019 11:45

Halloumimuffin There have been studies that show boys do better in a mixed sex education environment but girls do better in a single sex environment.

I do agree that an all boys school is not a good thing, then add in the mix of academically bright and a lot of arrogance and you get what I have here.

OP posts:
Namebot · 06/02/2019 11:47

Misogynistic attitudes are rife amongst boys and some girls in my mixed sex state school. It is challenged and my subject allows me to educate students about inequalities so the views are challenge. At time, it feels as though some of the boys are “performing” toxic masculinity as part of developing their identity within in the group. Often, deep down, the boys that participate in this behaviour don’t agree with what they are laughing along with and when called out on it they are much more likely to see why their behaviour is inappropriate. It’s very hard for boys to be the lone voice of dissent.

I’m not sure if punishing it out of them will work. What subject do you teach?

Namebot · 06/02/2019 11:49

I would add that commentators like Jordon Peterson are definitely contributing to opinions that I’m increasingly hearing from teenage boys - they parrot some of his key ideas like some kind of trump card.

spudlet7 · 06/02/2019 11:59

@Namebot which Jordan Peterson ideas would you say are contributing?

Tunnocks34 · 06/02/2019 12:00

Teenage boys in school I work are similar.

I had one year 9 boy call his alarm year 9 ex girlfriends ‘vagina’ ‘the worst set of beef curtains he’d ever seen’. I rang his mum and she absolutely didn’t believe me. ‘He must have got carried away’

I have also heard rape ‘jokes’, frigid ‘jokes’, cat calling of pupils and female members of staff, ‘jokes’ about woman belonging in the kitchen.

They don’t care when they are pulled up on it. Often their parents defend them getting detentions as the school ‘over reacting’ and that the ‘boys were just being boys’

Tunnocks34 · 06/02/2019 12:02

Alarm = also