Last week, a teaching union warned that a “masculinity crisis is brewing” in UK schools after almost a quarter of female teachers it surveyed reported that they have been subject to misogynistic abuse from a pupil in the last year.
It is the fourth year in a row that NASUWT has surveyed a rise in teachers reporting misogyny from pupils – up to 23.4% from 17.4% in 2023 according to a report on the @BBC – Teachers union warns of ‘masculinity crisis’ brewing in schools – BBC News
One teacher described the misogyny as “traumatising”, while others said it leaves them feeling “humiliated” and “violated”.
Matt Wrack, NASUWT’s general secretary, said if female teachers are struggling to contain gender-based aggression, it is a “ticking time bomb” and male students need to be helped before “it is too late”.
Is it being ‘glorified’ or ‘vilified’?
Recently highlighted on our screens by both Adolescence and Louis Theroux’s: Inside The Manosphere the rise in prevalence of misogynistic values and attitudes is clearly evidenced. At the beginning of the documentary, Louis remarks how he had noticed ‘parts of the Internet were being taken over’ by male influencers claiming to provide young men with ‘cheat codes to win at life’.
“These aren’t figures on the margins – anyone who’s got kids, and especially boys, will know that they are making inroads into the culture. Their influence is being felt in schools, in the workplace and all across the internet.’
“We have a masculinity crisis brewing in our schools. Teachers desperately need increased support to deal with this new frontier of behaviour management.”
How bad is it?
We’ve been delivering our schools outreach programme for 18 months now and these figures do not shock us in the slightest. Even before they step through their front door young women and girls are subjected to relentless online tech abuse, and we have seen how this has been extended to the female teaching staff too.
Responding to the survey, one of the female teachers said a student made AI naked images of her and other girls, which she labelled “horrifying”.
Another respondent said: “Boys have confronted me, shouted at me. Have had boys joke about raping girls in front of me and laughed about it when challenged.”
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Professor Lee Elliot Major said teachers are acting as “de facto parents” in the classroom, explaining that a lot of “societal challenges” come out in this setting.
“Teachers are incredibly stretched because you need training for this sort of challenge. I think the balancing act that teachers now face is more challenging than it’s ever been before.”
How does our schools outreach programme help?
What is clear is that teachers need professional training to help them “identify, challenge, and safely de-escalate behaviour rooted in online radicalisation, sexism, and hate.”
Whilst there are calls for a ban on all social media accounts for under 16s, this will be hard to regulate with the levels of smart tech that young people in the UK have access to.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said misogynistic views are “learned” and the government is “committed to using every possible tool to achieve our mission of halving violence against women and girls”.
The statement added that the department has updated guidance, is providing teachers with resources to recognise the signs of incel ideologies and is strengthening guidance for mobile phones in schools.
However, we know that when specifically dealing with abuse and violence against women and girls, guidance alone isn’t enough.
Our team works with both the students and the teaching staff to identify or uncover any existing damaging behaviours. We then act to put in place specialist healthy relationship workshops that provide pupils with the tools to spot and stop the signs of domestic abuse.
One of our first early cases saw a 15 year old girl spotting signs of misogynistic and abusive behaviour from her boyfriend who then reported back to our worker that she had “Binned him. He was showing way too many of the red markers you talked about.”
Our outreach worker Laura comments: “This ongoing engagement has enabled me to provide direct support to students around healthy relationships, boundaries, and the impact of domestic abuse. Notably, this work has also extended to offering support and guidance to teaching staff, many of whom have sought advice around their own experiences. These school-based initiatives continue to strengthen our preventative work in the community and promote early identification of domestic abuse.”
Prior to the roll-out of this specialist schools support around 14% of females coming through our service were aged 16-25. We expect this figure to have at least doubled after 12 months of delivering the service.