To ask how to teach boys how to respect women?

[cadburyegg]

There are lots of messages in the media atm and for good reason.

Educate your sons.
Teach boys to respect women. To accept rejection. To value women’s opinions.
Lift boys up in healthy ways.
Help your boys do better.

i 100% agree with this. I have 2 boys and I am just not sure how I can do my part. How do we change the narrative? What do I tell them? How do I tell them? I guess I’m looking for practical, real life advice.

I asked a mixed class of 16 year olds if their mums worked. Most raised their hands. I asked if their grandmas had worked. Fewer hands. I was making a point about participation in the workforce but hopefully it made them think.

Which is why we currently have two problems parents that had no relationship initially the emotional bank account was never filled up when they were little. I see that a lot with young boys. Nobody cuddling them nobody ruffling their hair.
There’s a statistics somewhere about the number of touches in a day that an average 1314-year-old boy will receive and it’s something like three
Versus a two-year-old little girl who is almost constantly physically touched in someway which probably brings its own issues. But it’s stark the contrast.

That's really interesting @Staceysmum2025. The boys at my secondary are constantly trying to touch each other. Mostly disguised as shoving.

I absolutely agree. Parents (females and male) should model good behaviour and kindness; treating everyone the same, regardless of sex, colour, religion etc. They should be raised to treat everyone with kindness and respect. Teaching boys to treat girls with respect isn’t the answer; teach them to treat everyone with respect. Perhaps if everyone did that, we wouldn’t have the problems we do.

I think it goes further than that though. We need to teach children (girls and boys) to have respect for themselves, to stand up for themselves when others don’t treat them properly. No child or adult should accept being treated badly by anyone, be they male or female. Poor behaviour and attitude should be called out immediately.

I know this will be controversial, but I disagree with initiatives promoting females at the expense of males, both for children and adults. It doesn’t help with raising boys to believe that both sexes are equal. Whilst I can understand that some females need encouragement to take part in some things, I’m not sure that schools, for example, should have “girls in STEM” , “girls in IT” days etc. I say this as a parent of both sexes. My daughters can’t understand why boys aren’t included in some of these days. They want to be treated as an equal. My sons can’t understand why boys are excluded. Obviously I’ve explained why these initiatives exist. Surely where equality is the aim (and rightly so), we should encourage this by treating everyone equally. We shouldn’t be treating sexes differently. Unfortunately, I think that these initiatives sometimes alienate boys which doesn’t help the attitudes of some teens where their parents haven’t explained the background. I totally understand the idea behind these events, but surely the best way of getting girls to see themselves as equals is to treat them as equals, not by giving them special treatment?

As for the comments about housework and finances etc, I don’t think an obsession with splitting everything 50:50 helps. Children should be brought up in a household where everyone works together as a team regardless of sex. It’s fine, for example, if one parent works and earns more but the other does more housework (if both are happy with that arrangement). Children should be raised to believe that both contributions are equally as valuable to a household. The problems start when children believe that cooking, for example, is a less valuable contribution than earning money for bills.

I saw a clip from an American news reel you know when they kind of like look back on something that happened and re-enact it.
Where this cop basically pulled somebody back over from the bridge that he was gonna jump off and kill himself and he hugged the guy and he hugged him and hugged him and hugged him
And the man said that it was the first time he’d been touched in a year by anyone.
I do wonder whether they all just want a damn good snuggle. They don’t know how to ask for that so they ask for sex.

Women aren't a separate species - you teach young people to respect everyone.

If they're repeating some behaviour they've learned online or in school, you remind them that everyone is deserving of respect and consideration including them. "You wouldn't like to be judged like that, would you? So you don't do it to other people."

I’m afraid I disagree with this. The attitudes of teen boys now are generally far worse than they were, say, 50 years ago, where more mothers were SAHM. The problem is that, over the years, society views running a house as less valuable than earning money. Women have been told that they should do “better” than be a SAHM. It’s no wonder then that boys and men view running a house as a lesser contribution. The answer is to treat all contributions to a family as equal.

There are plenty of decent, respectful children I know who have had a stay at home parent (mums and dads). There are plenty of children with dreadful attitudes whose parents both work full time.

The problems with male attitudes is certainly not because of SAHM. If it was, those attitudes would have improved as more women entered the workplace, not got worse.

Can we all please agree to call out arsy male drivers too? I KNOW they wouldn't flash and honk at a man because they think I should let them past, or overtake in a huff, or pull out in front of me from a junction, get stroppy at waiting in a car park etc etc. They act completely differently towards women and I think partners need to express this when they see it, particularly if kids are in the car.

At mine too. The rugby lads are constantly jumping on each other, wrestling, arms round necks and shoulders in wrestling type moves but yes, really I think it's a way of getting that physical contact. My hulking 15 yo wants a hug every morning when I wake him up and when we sit on the sofa. It's lovely really.

Following. Son is a misogynist and has been viewing sexist content. I'm scared of that. I wonder how many of his peers feel the same

I agree with previous posters that it’s about modelling behaviour - especially when they are still young.
Doesn’t necessarily need to be the child’s father - any positive male presence in their life has the opportunity to model respect and decency towards the women in the child’s life.

Personally I also think it’s important that our kids understand that we are also people outside of simply being “mum”. It’s so easy for kids to just view us as service humans who are nothing more than their mother.
We had an interesting moment a few weeks back - DS (8yo) was mouthing off at me over some basic thing I’d asked him to do, and before I could shut it down, DH stepped between me and DS and said “You do not speak to my wife like that”……not “don’t speak to your mum like that”. I could see the cogs turning in his little head, coming to the conclusion of “shit….mum isn’t simply just my mum” 🫠

I had a fallout with DH last week because he had an argument with his 19 year old apprentice who was being disrespectful in a clients home (like walking in with muddy boots, leaving fag ends on the drive etc) and this lad got lippy rather than apologetic and it got so heated they apparently were squaring up to each other. I was horrified and gave DH a hard time about it who shrugged and said “guys deal with things differently”. Anyway DH got a grovelling apology from him later that evening and we ran into his mum the following weekend who told DH how much her son loved working for him and how he his attitude towards her and the house had changed since he’d been working.

I know it’s anecdotal but there was a thread about having positive male influences in young men’s lives and I thought of this after speaking to this lads mum.

I'm wary of any argument that blames SAHMs.

My sincerest hope is that the government comes up with schemes that give young people more opportunities, and also brings back youth work - that has been utterly decimated and it's not really any surprise that social media platforms are filling that void.

I really think a smart phone ban under sixteen would help a lot, but the government is adamant about it's digital strategy, UK being at forefront of AI.

I also think the answer lies in more family friendly work policies.

At this point though I think communities need to mobilise and campaign.

I know what you mean @Another76543and I disliked those things even as a girl in an all girls' school.

Sadly, however, we are far from equality.

Boys are much more likely to take Physics and Economics and girls to take English and Psychology, to take a few examples.

The fewer girls there are in the former and boys in the latter, the more stereotype threat for those there are or might be.

The difference between girls' schools and mixed schools when it comes to subject choice post 16 is stark.

But where are the campaigns to get more boys into the "girly" subjects?

13 is plenty old enough to have conversations about sexual consent/ rape.

The absolute most important thing is letting them see their father, or other important men in their lives treating women-including YOU respectfully and as an equal all the time, even when/if you fall out.