Anti-misogyny classes - have schools lost trust in boys, what went wrong

[Renati]

Why do I feel like the default expectation from boys in schools is that they are a threat so that we need to have these classes in schools.

What went wrong?

We all know and can feel what boys need and want in life to be good brothers, fathers, husbands and people in the community and somehow...instead of reinforcing these things in schools they are going off on a tangent based on what? The manosphere? Seriously? How distracted can an entire government get.

Is the only way out of this backwards caveman style teaching is to homeschool? Boys in school are not given the space to express themselves without first being told the reason the feel the way they feel is...innately probably because they are a person who needs correcting.

This doesn't just affect men, if you provide a society where men grow up resentful of the conditions and expectations set around them, you will have men more resentful for women....and guess what...this does encourage boys to not the become the brothers, fathers and husbands they could be because this is only possible if society creates a safe space for boys to feel secure and validated for their feeling growing up.

A big issue is that primary schools are woefully unequipped to deal with “lower” level stuff. It all gets dismissed and brushed off as he’s too young, he didn’t know what he was saying, he didn’t mean it etc. Consequences are minimal, same as shoving someone (if any), and there are rarely conversations around what the behaviour means and why it is wrong.

A concrete example that happens way too often in schools. Girl does something a boy doesn’t like (from normal playground squabbles to the girl refusing to be his gf and anything in between). Boy then threatens girl with rape. 99% of the time the boy will be given the handy excuse of “he didn’t know what it means” complete with leading questions. The focus is on the word and meaning, but once it’s established he didn’t mean it(and it nearly always is) that’s where it stops beyond “it’s a bad bad thing, don’t say it again”. There’s no explanation of what it is and why it is bad, what a threat like that can do to a girls, what having the conversation and finding out can do to a girl. There’s no acting on the fact that regardless whether the boy knew the meaning of the word or not, his answer to being told no was to threaten a girl. With something bad. There are almost never conversations and consequences around that.

Then they grow up and behaviour that was funny, or even cute (because they’re tiny), banter, didn’t know what he was doing/saying etc. suddenly IT IS that bad.

I agree with your sister. It is teaching awareness of how men can intimidate women without even knowing. We know not all men are rapists and abusers but the vast vast majority of sexual abuse and rape is committed by men. It’s simply stating facts to say your son will therefore be more likely to intimidate a lone female. He can be aware and practice ways to make lone females feel less intimidated.

If you had a daughter would you tell her to be careful in dark streets? When she gets in a taxi alone? When she is walking in an isolated place? Not to listen to music when alone etc? Think about it. It is no different.

But that isn’t happening. Lots of these young boys are being swept along in online vitriol and misogynistic views. It’s creeping into how they treat their teenage girlfriends and influencing what they will be like as husbands. I don’t necessarily think a crash course in anti misogyny is the answer as it could potentially have the opposite effect but I think your view is too simplistic too.

No clue. I haven’t had it in my classes, presumably because I’m too old to bother passing a judgement on my sexual attractiveness. It tends to be the younger female teachers who get it.

Men are the biggest threat to everyone's safety. It's long overdue that we actually name this and tackle it.
"Not all men" doesn't cut it. Misogynistic culture is endemic. Look at Gisèle Pelicot, all those men locally who participated, men who knew her, men who were seen as good husbands and fathers, men who were ordinary monsters walking amongst us.

And yet again, it's a problem schools have to fix.
Where are the dads? Or the mums' boyfriends?Most of the attitudes- racist, homophobic, misogynistic tend to either come directly from the dads or are condoned by them.

Some of the worst offenders tend to have absent dads, who they then idolise, and see their mums and by extension other women, as inferior. Especially if they they see a knob head boyfriend treat their mum badly too.

Why aren't all the decent men fighting this? Why aren't they all calling it out and challenging other men?

Fuck that. Just call a spade a spade: misogyny is on the rise it needs to be addressed.

Its labelled misogyny because it is misogyny.

Equally, some of the worst offenders have present dads and feminist mums.

The media is bombarding boys with toxic masculinity and some are more impressionable than others.

What we need to be doing is de-sexing toys, interests, activities, work, expectations of each other, so that saying boys and girls can be interested in anything, do anything, achieve anything is actually true, and not just a prayer for change.

Boys and girls aren't the same. Males - at a population level - are more aggressive, more risk-taking, more sexually driven. They are still going to make different choices, to respond in different ways when presented with the same toys / interest / activity / job, driven by these biological differences. This is why a biy can turn a piece of toast into a gun and shoot his sister, while she just eats the toast.

From a Guardian review of Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves. (my bold)
What is just as relevant here as there is the fact, delicately handled by Reeves, that masculinity is first and foremost a product of biology rather than culture. We live in an age in which there is a growing conviction that gender, and indeed biological sex itself, is a social imposition from which we are able to liberate ourselves. But, as Reeves points out, the greater propensity for risk and aggression that have been a feature of masculinity throughout history is not a social construct.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/oct/03/of-boys-and-men-why-the-modern-male-is-struggling-by-richard-reeves-review-the-descent-of-man

Nonetheless boys and men can learn to manage these impulses, and millions of them do put them to good, positive use - in sports, in science, in families and businesses, every single day. But they aren't going to learn it from female teachers preaching at them to 'be kind', 'use your gentle hands'. How they are to learn, in these days of absent fathers, internet porn and the rest of it - I have no idea.

As a mum of two boys I totally agree. We can’t tar all men with the same brush because of the actions of a minority.

Minority?

@Renati sorry to harp. This was your quote, or it wasn’t? Just trying to get straight whether it was you victim blaming women for their own assaults or not.

It isn’t a minority though. Read or watch your local news any given day of the week. Assaults, rape, domestic violence, coercive behaviour. Read the threads on here. Men are more of a threat to women than women are to women so why shy away from that? Encourage them to be aware of how they could make a lone female feel just by their presence. Encourage them to make women feel safer by simply crossing the road. You’re not telling them they’re a rapist. You’re telling them some lone women are scared and intimidated - a fact.

I work on this and the misogyny from young boys is quite rampant most parents aren't aware of what's coming from their boys mouths.

It's quite scary

Minority? It’s not all about rape and murder.

How many men watch porn?
How many men use sex workers?
How many men engage in sexist and misogynistic “banter”?
How many men view childcare, housework etc. as women’s work?
How many men think they’re entitled to have sex with their wife/partner?
How many men mansplain?
How many men dismiss a woman’s opinion because she’s a woman?

And many, many more.

It is NOT a minority.

I’ve told me son he should do this

PHSE classes from young age at Primary up to Secondary school will teach about being kind, respect etc but that is not having an impact on the level of misogyny we are seeing in schools etc.

We see it ion MN. The acceptance of porn, partners going to sex clubs on stag dos, acceptance of male banter, boys will be boys. Your partner may be kind and respectful to you on a daily basis, you might not recognise/see some of their behaviour as misogynistic, the majority of them won’t see it as that either.

Unfortunately it needs to be spelt out to them and men need to be leading by example and calling it out

So a man might feel a bit upset that he could be seen as an attacker when he's not. I think a woman's potential fear of attack overrules a man's hurt feelings, including your son's and my son's. The woman indeed might not be scared at all - it doesn't worry me that much - but I still appreciate men doing that. It's really not much to ask and helps men and boys to be considerate.

Yeah I think most would be very shocked at what the boys they have raised turn into. And it’s not always because the mum or dad has done something wrong. Lots of boys who have had every privilege and with involved loving parents treat and speak about women like pieces of meat. And on Mumsnet you see so many posts about strip clubs and contacting escorts and sending nude photos of women to mates. It’s really widespread.

Social media has made it worse in my opinion, even more than three years from 2019 of a misogynistic Prime Minister whose personal behaviour including not even acknowledging all his children is a disgrace.

Well I think we should be teaching critical thinking from a much earlier age, a lot of these troubled boys have bad behaviour because they're not really questioning themselves or other men, they just have knee jerk acceptance.

Flapping about with PC, “Not my child”/“NAMALT” will not help. There is a VERY serious problem that needs urgent attention nationally.

My sons were raised to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated and to be aware of how their actions can affect others. They are very aware of how unsafe women can feel in certain circumstances.

Woofing/ barking noises. Sadly this isn't new.

As a mum of 2 boys and a girl I fundamentally disagree.

I have brought up my boys to respect and to consider women.