Why are schools getting the blame for boys harassing girls?

[EastWestWhosBest]

Surely we need to ask some very serious questions about how boys are being brought up and more to the point the accessibility of porn.

Girls asked for nudes by up to 11 boys a night, Ofsted finds www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57411363

That's not strictly true bunny . We deal with incidents on the way to and from school, which can be galling and incidents of bullying which spill out or into school. We wouldn't deal usually with something that actually happens in the home. It has been known re sexting though.

But we simply do not have time....

Schools need to do more. The government needs to do more.

Parents need to do more. Society needs to do more.

This report is about schools because what happened was that the Everybody's Invited website was set up where teens could detail sexual abuse and harassment and name the school. The sexual abuse and harassment often happened outside of school, however because schools were named, Ofsted could investigate.

Basically, Ofsted have just turned over a massive rock and found horrible things underneath, but because they're Ofsted, they have to do it through a schools lens. It's a societal issue and certainly doesn't stop once people leave school.

When my DD was 10 and sent porn from other 10-year-olds - school district found which ones by their ISP - the teacher and principal had a conversation with each set of parents-with the exception of one set (foster parents who were dealing with a boy with many troubles and acknowledged it ), the rest to a fault denied the seriousness and NONE reached out to apologize. I even spoke publicly about it at the school in a post asking for everyone to pay attention to what their kids were viewing online. I got several#mydaughtertoo! and support from others, but the parents of the boys did and said NOTHING. No accountability and the teacher (a veteran of 30 years) said he was disgusted by their, "porn is healthy bs." The schools can only do so much as the boys have a right by law to be there. One mother of shit boy runs the school's social media, so I can only imagine what got deleted/edited/controlled.

These are middle and upper middle class parents btw, various races/ethnicities as we live in diverse urban area.

@Ducksurprise

Why are boys getting all the blame? Insta is full of girls under 16 (under 13 often) posting nearly naked pictures, yes they have rights to post what they like but Why do they want to post these things? I know I'm going to be slaughtered for this and I do think we have to address male violence but the premature sexulisation of girls also needs to be addressed.

Who is telling and asking for these pictures?!?!?

Schools need to be a big part of the solution.
They have been failing in listening to girls, and in addressing the boys responsibility for their actions.

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/10/tory-mp-maria-miller-accuses-ofsted-failure-sexual-abuse-schools

Looks like OFSTED might also be blame deflecting.

@Ducksurprise

Why are boys getting all the blame? Insta is full of girls under 16 (under 13 often) posting nearly naked pictures, yes they have rights to post what they like but Why do they want to post these things? I know I'm going to be slaughtered for this and I do think we have to address male violence but the premature sexulisation of girls also needs to be addressed.

Do pre-teen girls sexualise themselves? Or does society groom them into thinking this is something that they should do?

I should think boys are egged on by friends at school, they have that pack mentality. I should hope at home the parents check up on their behaviour and phone etc

PearPickingPorky I completely agree, but demonising teenage boys does nothing for either sex. But as girls are groomed so are boys. I just find the 'blame the boys' argument very naive and from experience it has the effect of entrenching misogyny.

Delphinium20 if you really think that girls only post on Instagram because boys ask then you are naive. They ' choose' to post these pictures, probably because they get lots of likes, but the likes are not just from teenage boys, they are also from their girl friends and less salubrious people

@Mymapuddlington

I should think boys are egged on by friends at school, they have that pack mentality. I should hope at home the parents check up on their behaviour and phone etc

And parents of girls should do the same. As a parent that actively monitors my children's accounts I am horrified by what girls post, egged on by other girls. I am not condoning the issues put in the report and I am no male apologist. But to solve this we need to talk to our boys and girls

@Piggywaspushed

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jun/10/tory-mp-maria-miller-accuses-ofsted-failure-sexual-abuse-schools

Looks like OFSTED might also be blame deflecting.

That Guardian article is interesting, piggy because it does suggest that what was found was going on in schools, misquoting the report which doesn't specify schools.

"after a report by the schools inspectorate showed that sexual harassment and abuse in schools is so commonplace that pupils don’t bother to report it."

However the Ofsted report says "This rapid thematic review has revealed how prevalent sexual harassment and online sexual abuse are for children and young people. It is concerning that for some children, incidents are so commonplace that they see no point in reporting them."

It also says "When we asked children and young people where sexual violence occurred, they typically talked about unsupervised spaces outside of school, such as parties or parks without adults present, although some girls told us they also experienced unwanted touching in school corridors."

And "In the schools and colleges we visited, some teachers and leaders underestimated the scale of the problem. They either did not identify sexual harassment and sexualised language as problematic or they were unaware they were happening. They were dealing with incidents of sexual violence when they were made aware of them, and following statutory guidance. But professionals consistently underestimated the prevalence of online sexual abuse, even when there was a proactive whole-school approach to tackling sexual harassment and violence."

If children are being sexually harassed and abused online or assaulted outside of school, it should be the police dealing with this, not schools.

I'm not saying that it's not happening at school too, of course not. But that article is misrepresenting the report.

@Ducksurprise

Delphinium20 if you really think that girls only post on Instagram because boys ask then you are naive. They ' choose' to post these pictures, probably because they get lots of likes, but the likes are not just from teenage boys, they are also from their girl friends and less salubrious people

Please see my post below about the parents of some (not all) boys and how they reject accountability. I blame the parents who raise them as much as I blame the boys, who subsequently become the men who egg on the girls. If the girls egg on one another, they are acting under a culture that centers boys, is uninterested in holding boys accountable and excuses their behavior.

But to solve this we need to talk to our boys and girls

I started a thread in chat suggesting this and got zero responses.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4267401-Sexual-abuse-and-harrassment-rife-among-children-report-finds

@Ducksurprise oh definitely. My cousin is 12, her social media accounts say she’s 18 and it’s photos of her and her school friends looking like strippers to be quite honest. Her mum is actually friends with her on fb but doesn’t care less. I find it really awful.

It's another multi faceted issue. Schools, society, parents can't fix it alone. It needs support from all corners to change attitudes and protect girls.

Sexual abuse does happen in school. Mysogonistic comments are rife from both sexes. However by far the majority of incidents happen outside of school. This needs dealing with by the police. Yet again lack of funding impacts everywhere.

It is so obvious that children and teenagers should not have mobile phones/lengthy internet access.

Why can't they all just have simple phones with a map function and a function to call home. Please can someone invent this.

Most adults, myself included, struggle to regulate their phone use so of course kids can't do it.

[quote Bunnyfuller]@PlanDeRaccordement schools will absolutely not get involved in behaviour that takes place out of the school/school hours. They stand firm on those times being parental responsibility. The exception is if it’s a bunch of kids clearly pupils of that school, doing something along ASB lines, and getting caught. The school will give the kids a talking to then ‘bringing the school into disrepute’[/quote]
They can and do, see @Delphinium20’s post regarding school actions that were taken in her experience.

I left school in 1975 and can remember two incidences of boys being suspended from school for sexually assaulting girls. The school took instant action (I don't know if the police were involved). It must be an absolute nightmare for parents nowadays, with everything free and available to see, where children are given laptops, smartphones etc. and are often left unsupervised for hours. Some of the parents are glad to see the back of them, couldn't care less what they are getting up to. The schools have to take responsibility for the actions at school, but the parents have to take a fair share of responsibility for these boys behaviour.

There seems plenty of blame to go around: schools, parents, children themselves, society, lack of internet safety, etc. Just because oftsted is focusing on schools, doesn’t meant they think schools are 100% to blame.

@bytheby

It is so obvious that children and teenagers should not have mobile phones/lengthy internet access.

Why can't they all just have simple phones with a map function and a function to call home. Please can someone invent this.

Most adults, myself included, struggle to regulate their phone use so of course kids can't do it.

I agree really. Especially with how phones are now.

I'm 33, I had a phone when I started secondary school. But all you could do was make calls and text. And texts on PAYG were about 12p a message so didn't take long to eat £5 credit. I remember my first phone with internet. It was crap and cost a fortune to use. I often feel people my age were the guinea pigs a little bit for internet use as our parents had no idea about it really but it just wasn't as bad back then, and we weren't online all the time, had to use the family computer and would regularly be kicked off so mum could make a phone call.

I've just listened to a report on this on R4 news - at no point at all, in the whole report, did they say who is was that was doing the harassment. Just that girls were the victims of it. Even the girls who were interviewed didn't say it was boys and men who were doing it. If they won't even name it.... I found it so frustrating

And don't get me started on Alistair Stewart on Today this morning talking about the 'good blokes' who 'made a mistake' posting misogynistic and racist tweets

@StrawberryLipstickStateOfMind I am the same age as you. I had to beg to get a 3210 for my 16th birthday as most of my friends had them by that point. My phone did me no real harm other than a bit less homework due to trying to 'complete' snake! I definitely don't think it was a positive addition to my life with hindsight though.

What was definitely negative was MSN messenger and I think that is more equivalent to what goes on today. My friends and I used to talk to total strangers online and I remember receiving sexual messages (which didn't feel threatening to be honest we just found them hilarious) and the odd bit of bullying (horrible). But this lasted for max 1 hour a week when I was allowed on the internet at the weekend - so it didn't take over my life/scare me/impact my mental health.

it is the constant access to absolutely everything that is so terrifying.

I have a toddler now. I pray by the time she is older it has somehow become socially unacceptable to give kids phones/tablets... I'm not naïve though, I know if all her friends have one I will cave so she isn't an outcast. She will probably hate me as I am sure she will be one of the last ones standing.

I blame the parents who raise them as much as I blame the boys, who subsequently become the men who egg on the girls. If the girls egg on one another, they are acting under a culture that centers boys, is uninterested in holding boys accountable and excuses their behavior

But can't you see that this view absolves the girls? It's convenient to blame boy children and refuse to acknowledge the role girls have. Refusal to acknowledge helps no one

Shit, just typed a long response, the bottom line being:
Listening to the Today programme this morning, I found it irritating that the gist seemed to be that boys should not be held accountable for sexual violence against girls until we have somehow managed to educate them otherwise.
I work in a primary school and daily expect quite young pupils to take responsibility for their part in quite complex instances of manipulative, coercive or violent transgressions. They invariably understand exactly how their behaviour or attitude has contributed to a negative outcome. To not expect boys of mainly secondary school age to know that sexual harassment is unacceptable is ridiculous. Of course they know. Every last one of them. But they still do things to female peers which fall into that category. They just don't care enough not to do it.
And I despair at the use of phones in schools. With IT capability and hardware improving in schools all the time, I can not see the need for pupils to have phones during the school day.
Likewise parents who do not closely monitor their kids phones and allow 24:7 access. Just why?