Female teachers facing rising misogyny- how can we tackle this?

[Carla786]

Very worrying article

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpd5j4lnnq0o

Something must be done : but what?

Female teachers need their own union. One that actually cares about female staff. Not one that is far more interested in promoting ignoring equality laws as clarified by the Supreme Court, ignoring the Cass review recommendations and promoting queer theory.

This, definitely.

Top of my list to curb teen misogyny would be :

Phone or at least SM ban for under 16s. They can use a brick to call parents.

More male teachers- a lot of this stems from boys without good men in their lives who try to find a model online.

More spaces for young people to spend time offline- youth clubs, parks etc

money. The schools need money and they don’t have any. They have huge amounts of problems to deal with, huge amounts of pressure on the children. Huge issues with staff safety in mainstream and Sen. I was sexually assaulted by a pupil once and the other kids were trying to beat him up on my behalf becuase they knew nothing really would happen.
you expell them you get done by offsted. And there’s no good provision when you expel them anyway so you’re just releasing this into the community unaddressed when you do that.
it can’t all fall on schools. There’s a rape culture in our society that needs addressing. Until you do that schools are just firefighting

This is definitely worrying. I also am concerned to read that the teaching union feels ‘more training’ is a potential solution to the problem. The issue presents at school but training isn’t going to solve anything. That is just firefighting. The issue needs solved at the source! Account of these awful influencers shutdown and careful monitoring of what children are engaging with online.

And stop prioritising religious and cultural beliefs over women’s safety, privacy and dignity - and receipt of a decent education. I don’t care if you claim that your religion or father tell you that all women - or some women not belonging to your religion or culture - are your inferiors and that you have nothing to learn from them- you’ll behave or you’ll be excluded. Schools need to be empowered to have rules, enforce them and have effective sanctions for bad behaviour. They should worry more about their staff and misogynistic attitudes than causing offence to the ‘religious’ - won’t happen though, at least while this Labour government is in power with its new blasphemy laws.

Parents should have to sign a contract before the state is obliged to educate their children. It should be made abundantly clear that the deal - free education- is conditional on basic respect being shown by NT pupils to teaching staff.

And parents need to step up.

I'm a single mum and have raised my ds alone. His school is excellent, good lessons on consent and equality, plenty of male teachers, a male HT who is present on a daily basis and several male heads of dept.

However if I thought for one moment ds was tending towards the Andrew Tate way of thinking, I'd make him eat his words. I wouldn't put up with that nonsense for a second. That's my responsibility too.

I agree strongly with this. Cultural & religious beliefs encouraging misogyny need to be clamped down on..the article was focusing on Tate et Al but there are other factors

You sound like a great mum 👍.

Why do parents allow this? It's difficult to restrict Internet access wholly (as some schools foolishly require it and teens could covertly buy) but there has to be some effort made.

How do you stop it?
I have an 18 year old DS with quite strong, bordering on misogynistic views despite that not being his upbringing at all.
What do you mean you wouldn't put up with it?

If ds comes out with anything misogynistic I challenge him immediately. He apologises or he'll find himself walking into town, cooking his own food, doing his own laundry paying for his own clothes & generally enjoying life less. But I don't need to. We have lively political debates - about trans and university fees for example but not misogyny.

And anyway, he has eyes and a logical mind. I'm the one paying the mortgage, paying school fees, running the house and a department. I'm the one who is there when ds needs help and he's not a fool.

I control the broadband & pay his phone bill. I can see what he looks at every day, a lot of YouTube, political humour, memes against Donald Trump, and science/engineering stuff. He doesn't like Tiktok.

I'm lucky, we get on well.

I think some of it is boys pushing against boundaries , and there are so few consequences for poor behaviour. Misogynistic behaviour towards female teachers is part of the “just how far can I go”

My mother handled one of my brothers well back in ancient history when we were young teens and he started to be a little sexist.

She sat him down and said she was worried that she’d done him a bad turn - she was terribly sorry - that she’d shopped, cooked and cleaned for him, given him lifts in the car she’d worked for and bought etc which had clearly given him the impression- very foolish of her - that she was some kind of slave or skivvy - scum really - not worthy of any respect - or even love - because of course, basic respect is an essential component of love…

So she would stop doing all these things and he could cook clean get the bus etc - after all so easy and valueless anyone could do it … his face was a picture. After a few weeks he was much nicer again! He’s a great husband dad to three girls and feminist in adulthood.

Lack of male role models always seems to be the issue. A lot of boys can grow up to be adults without having never come into regular contact with an adult male.

The irony is that the NASUWT was formed by amalgamating the National Association of Schoolmasters & Union of Women Teachers. The NAS campaigned against equal pay for women teachers which was a matter of contention for those of us in the UWT when they combined back in the day.

And yes to parents stepping up about all this - difficult as it is.