To think primary schools now days are more misogynistic amongst the boys, than in the past?

[Thatcastlethere]

I hate to be all 'back in the good old days' and tbh I don't even think it was that great in the past... I think I just expected it to be better now days.
But am I wrong for feeling like there's been a massive upsurge in misogynistic feeling amongst primary age boys?
My two eldest are at primary school. It's a state school but it's regarded as a good school in a very middle class area. It's also considered a faintly hippy/alternative place.
Yet some of the things I've seen and heard regarding my 9yo son and my 6yo daughters experiences at school have really shocked me.
My son for example uses all this language 'sigma' 'alpha' etc... well he did until I explained to him that it was harmful macho nonsense. He's also asked me about andrew tate and trump etc as these people seem to be hero's for some of his male friends. These boys are 9!!
My son doesn't have unsupervised access to the Internet. And the access he does have is limited to one hour on his tablet in the living room on weekend days. During which he just plays roblox and Minecraft. We have disabled YouTube from the TV and he is not allowed YouTube on his tablet.. yet he still seems to come across endless misogynistic content at school somehow.
My son is a sweet boy imo and he forms his own opinions.. he was telling me how he disliked andrew tate for example, without me even having said anything
So it's not that I'm worried about him absorbing these ideas.. it's just a bit concerning that it's so prevalent!
I've also overheard some of his friends in the park sating horrific things about girls and women. Once I even heard one of them threatening to punch a girl. I did step in at this and told him it was disgusting and the boy did look faintly ashamed at least.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Also my 6yo has been subject to comments on her appearance by boys! Already at 6!
I'm sure it wasn't quite this bad wen I was at school or perhaps I just didn't notice?
My husband is a fair bit older than me and was also remarking that he never knew anything like this at school..
Altho obviously misogyny was alive and well when we were kids.. you just never really heard this so directly

Jesus, it’s not something I’m experiencing with my girls but let’s face it Trump has just got into power again after referring to a fellow politician as a bitch. It’s everywhere.

Well maybe they aren’t keep on you controlling their opinions.

I find it alarming how over sexualised kids are, one of my relatives is constantly mimicking female celebs on insta pouting, staring down the camera, etc she’s 8!!!! No idea why she even has social media.

But they are a reflection of society I guess

@Username9898 I have a 4 yo DD, she already comes home from school (reception) and says things like “girls can’t be friends with boys, I can’t play with X because girls don’t play with boys” “why is that lady wearing boys clothes”

I have absolutely no idea where she gets this from as I actively try and encourage her to like/play with all different things and correct her when she says things like this.

We'd all be pretty naive to see how popular a man like Trump has been to young men in America and think that a significant number of young men over here won't also believe that they are being under represented and marginalised. I know several of my son's peer group (whose parents would be absolutely shocked) express positive things about Andrew Tate, and unfortunately he does impress a lot of them. My sons claim they don't like him / aren't impressed but I think it would be pretty naive to assume they are saying the same things to their friends. It's something I think everyone needs to be properly aware of, and not assume this is some other class of boys other than their sons.

Me? Control their opinions? Do you have teenagers?🤣🤣🤣

They know what rape is. They know what rapists do. And they don't admire them. But you go ahead and teach your sons whatever @Michelle12A. I can't stop you being part of the problem. On your own back be it.🤷‍♀️

I've actually noticed the opposite. Boys and girls wearing less stereotyped clothing for example. When I was a kid (in my early 40s now) there was no way on earth a boy would have worn pink or sparkles, or a girl blue. Kids are much more tolerant about what others wear now. Same with hobbies - lots of female footballers at our school etc.

Mine are 10 and 8 and the only thing I've heard said about Trump is how horrible some of his behaviour and policies are. We've discussed women's rights, abortion, racism and all sorts of things and they are highly aware of equality. Far more than I was at that age.

My kids watch YouTube etc but it's all harmless- minecraft, lego etc.

You clearly that you are against them supporting him… Nothing more controlling than that whatever their opinions may be.

We'd all be pretty naive to see how popular a man like Trump has been to young men in America and think that a significant number of young men over here won't also believe that they are being under represented and marginalised.

Hes popular with plenty of women….

What are you talking about?

I agree with things being problematic at a young age for both boys and girls.
I teach in primary and the amount of children in year 3 talking about the things they watch on you tube and comments about fortnight games is awful.

The thing that got me last week was I over heard a child being incredibly unkind to another child whilst I was on playground duty. When challenged the year 2 child said... its all good we are just having a roast battle you know.... roasting each other. I said I wasn't interested in what they thought they were doing it was unpleasant and we don't use language like that in our school.

This is something we all need to be aware of. I listen to some quite out there stuff with Andrew Tate, Tommy Robinson, Jordan Peterson etc which my sons find equally shocking and hilarious as an almost 40 year old feminist but we need to hear what these people are saying and understand what about them is appealing to young men. We do ourselves a disservice by writing this stuff off and refusing to even try to understand because it’s out there and it’s striking chords. It’s difficult to be a man at the moment, young men don’t quite seem to know where to position themselves, mental health is poorer than ever and instead of looking to their fathers as previously, some of them are finding role models in some pretty divisive figures which won’t end well. I like to be able to talk to mine about this stuff openly and offer my views from the perspective of a woman they hopefully love and respect as opposed to just what they hear from their friends in school. Luckily their father is brilliant and we all have some interesting discussions.

You're completely right, sadly. But there's no doubt that this kind of misogynistic behaviour from rich men is a bit of a honey trap for lots of young men and my point really was that we should assume that could include our own sons. And make sure equally that our daughters don't start thinking it's acceptable or something they can turn a blind eye to!

@Mlanket I know but it’s so normalised. Some other older relatives were showing me their insta feed which had lots of photos of classmates posing suggestively in bikinis etc. my nephew said he felt uncomfortable liking the posts but that it would be seen as rude if he didn’t & my niece said she felt she had to like the photos too but didn’t want to as she felt it put pressure on her to be sexy & she doesn’t feel sexy or want to be sexy but that’s apparently bad. I had no idea what advice to give, thank god I grew up without it.

@ThisZippyDenimGoose I think it’s so confusing for both sexes & there are real mixed messages. That’s a convo I’ve had a lot with my niece, she doesn’t like how the whole Onlyfans is a legitimate career choice but says she can’t say that as it’s shaming. She doesn’t want to send photos of herself to boys but again said she’s the odd one out.

Hahaha ofc, just a joke.

You're completely right, sadly. But there's no doubt that this kind of misogynistic behaviour from rich men is a bit of a honey trap for lots of young men and my point really was that we should assume that could include our own sons. And make sure equally that our daughters don't start thinking it's acceptable or something they can turn a blind eye to!

But this is another element where I think it’s very confusing. My younger female colleagues are very different to myself (I’m a millennial) and older colleagues in terms of how they think eg a lot more gendered & old fashioned.

It’s alarming how quickly things change because of parents allowing unsupervised internet access.

My son was in primary school in 2016 and him and his friends would do Trump impressions about building a wall rather than the extreme misogynistic crap that some kids are watching today. In his day, it was very unusual for primary school kids to be doing stuff like vaping too.

Do they discuss it at school? Do you discuss it at home? We did have to have a discussion about the beauty and the beast with our kid. Wouldn't ban her from watching it but I do encourage discussions about problematic story lines at home.

Yes of course I discussed it and with school they thought I was loopy.
It's the fact that it's on the Oxford reading tree that annoyed me.
Things need updating.
Also demonising the character of Rumpelstiltskin is problematic but I was writing in the context of the thread.
I've always disliked traditional fairy tales.

My son is 8, year 3 and has no idea who Trump or Andrew Tate are. He just wants to run about at lunchtimes and watch spongebob when he gets home.

At my children’s primary school there’s a rhyme the boys proudly chant -

Boys are strong, like King Kong
Girls are weak, throw them in the creek

This is from reception age. No idea where it’s come from. It deeply disturbs me.

“I'm just a bit fed up of the constant boy bashing on here to be frank.”

This is not personal. It’s a widely reported and worrying social phenomenon. Your child might be Perfect Peter now but at some point he’ll be breathing that toxic air. You need to take the blinkers off and be part of the resistance.