How can we teach boys respect if we don’t give them any?
On the 27th of January a letter appeared in The Times, written by a group of campaigners, including Holly Dustin from the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Justine Roberts founder of Mumsnet, and Polly Neate from Women’s Aid.
The letter calls for reform of the way that sex education is taught in the UK, specifically for it to be made compulsory, and for it to be updated to address both the influence of violent internet pornography, and the high level of abuse of girls by boys.
The Times also carried an accompanying article, on its front page, discussing and elaborating on the contents of the letter.
The central argument, that more needs to be done to protect girls, is surely beyond dispute, but nonetheless several aspects of the campaigners’ approach are open to legitimate criticism.
The letter makes almost no attempt to clarify the nature or scale of the problem. Only a single statistic is used :-
“One in three girls experiences groping or other unwanted sexual touching at school.”
No source is given for this figure, and no estimate is made of what proportion of boys might be involved in committing these acts, nor how many are being influenced by violent online pornography.
But even beyond the shortcomings of the way in which the case for reform is being presented, of greater concern ought to be the manner in which the debate around these issues is being framed.
The accompanying article appears under the headline “Boys need to be taught how to treat girls.”
One might hope that this was just a provocative simplification of the article’s content, intended to draw the reader in, but in the very first paragraph we find –
“Sex education should be compulsory at secondary schools to teach boys to respect girls, according to prominent campaigners.”
And in the second –
“Boys and young men appear to be getting their education about sex and relationships from internet pornography, the group says, leading to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.”
And further along still we are told that schools should be “educating boys to develop a more respectful attitude.”
If generalisations containing this degree of negativity were being made about girls, or about a particular race or religion, would it still be seen as acceptable for them to appear, without qualification or counter-argument, on the front page of The Times?
Throughout the article boys seem to exist only as the perpetrators of abuse against girls, never as children in their own right with their own issues deserving of consideration.
Unfortunately the attitude taken in the article is only a reflection of a wider mindset.
In the UK we seem to have a collective indifference to the problems facing boys today. In the last couple of decades boys have fallen steadily behind in most aspects of education.
One only has to walk past almost any college or university to see how un-ignorable the gender gap has become and yet, most of the time, we just keep on ignoring it anyway.
In particular we seem immune to the possibility that any form of bias may be operating against boys, even when that bias is in plain sight.
Statements like “boys need to be taught how to treat girls” are making an assumption of guilt based solely on gender.
Surely the best, most obvious and easiest solution is to seek to bring up boys to have a degree of self-respect and confidence in themselves which prevents them from being susceptible to malign influences from their online worlds or anywhere else.
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What will be the outcome if these sentiments find their way into any future education reforms?
If boys perceive that they are being taught about respect in a way which shows no respect for them, then how likely is it that the whole exercise will simply backfire, discrediting the very issues it was intended to address?
Surely the best, most obvious and easiest solution is to seek to bring up boys to have a degree of self-respect and confidence in themselves which prevents them from being susceptible to malign influences from their online worlds or anywhere else.
Would it be so difficult to incorporate this approach into a new sex education curriculum, fundamentally revised to address not just the problems but also the possibilities that the 21st century has created?
Whatever difficulties the easy access to online pornography might be causing for young people trying to make sense of their sexualities, the internet has also made it possible for them to seek out, in safe anonymity, genuinely informative and balanced advice. This has surely been at least partly responsible for an unprecedented level of awareness of the wide variety of sexualities and of healthy sexual practises that now exists.
As a society that values diversity and equality, should we not be seeking to build upon this level of awareness by producing a sex education program based around mutual respect, open-mindedness and tolerance, in which negative stereotypes play no part, and in which the definition of ‘normal’ is expanded to include any safe practise that consenting adults wish to engage in?
The promotion of the idea that boys are inherently predisposed towards misogyny and abuse is utterly incompatible with such progressive principles, and does not represent a step towards female equality but rather an unthinking leap straight past that point and into a new set of inequalities.
The way that sex education is taught in the UK certainly needs to be updated, and greater effort and urgency needs to be put into tackling the sexual harassment and abuse suffered by girls. But these are not the only issues which need to be addressed, and demonising the other half of our children isn’t going to solve anything.
Photo— Flickr/ Eagle Brook School
I do not believe the issues of fairness and equality can be solved through yet another attempt at sex education reform or government interventions.The problems is us,men and women.There are tens of thousands of laws combined at the local,state and federal levels. I think,in America ,we have reached an intellectual,spiritual and moral fork in the road.We may just be too fractured and too big to fix our problems.Its a damn shame when a brother and sister can’t recieve a similar quality education at the same school.But America has always had problems with fairness.
@Tom Yes Tom they should be held accountable but we know why that doesn’t happen.But men have to admit that we haven’t supported each other as well and have been divided.Mainstream men with access to wealth,status and rank have had an everyman for himself attitude and eagerly excoriated men who did not measure up.You know,those other men are just not MAN enough to be successful.
Your point about building consensus is well taken but having tried to suggest building the kind of alliances needed for consensus building ran afoul.Here’s why.When this issue is discussed boys is used perjoratively even though it really means white male boys.I am not calling anyone a racist,I am stating a fact.I, have many times, tried to illustrate the similarities in how boys of color have suffered in the educational system for decades,as white boys and men are experiencing now.This is not done to diminish,hijack or ignore what is happening to white boys and men.But this how it is taken.For some… Read more »
At http://www.mindingthecampus.com is an article called “Why Men Are Avoiding College” by Helen
Smith that elaborates on this kind of mindset.
It’s a good article. I’ve always felt that the greatest weakness in these teach boys / men to respect girls / women programs and the reason why they seem to fail is that in order to respect other peoples boundaries, we must feel that our boundaries need to be respected. If someone doesn’t believe that they are worth respecting, why would they believe that anyone else is worth respecting? ogwriter, I think the reason you don’t see feminists advocating to teach women to respect men is if they admit women abuse men as well then they’re saying that everybody does… Read more »
With so many boys being raised by women, isn’t there another level of accountability for women? But what I’ve seen in these situations is that the blame again falls on men because they’re not part of these boys lives. No matter what, it appears that men are the cause of societies ills.
I am not sure why GMP runs these kinds of articles. So very little of its content deals with criticisms men and boys may have of women and girls. John, my daughter once mentioned that as she advanced her education they were fewer and fewer boys in her classes. My sons, while in school, needed me as an advocate to create space for them to be boys. I feel sorry for boys in western schools who have no advocates.
@John Gottman and Eagle 35
The points you make, that the door of respect should swing both ways, is lost on most feminists out of fear that any admission by females of wrongdoings will hurt the credibility of their narrative. Therefore, they must project as the victims at every turn. As a result, they almost never see themselves as perpetrators, only men. Women abuse more than men Eagle 35. They abuse elders, babies (male and females),men, boys, girls and other women. Yet, they stand in eternal judgment of men, above any criticism.
I would give a slightly different reason for feminists not admitting female wrongdoing: To do so would necessitate denouncing it, and put pressure on women to behave better, and responsibility on their peers (i.e. other women) to make them behave better (just like we are supposed to be our bother’s keeper, and “not that guy” who stands by when other men harrass). In other words, it would put pressure and duties on women. But feminism’s understanding is that there are already way too much pressures and duties on women and to put more on them would be an act of… Read more »
And that’s what frustrates me further about not just certain pockets of the feminist movement but society in general: None are willing to see how the other half of the pegs make the gears shift. Never willing to teach that other half about how they’re contributing to a culture that enforces these outdated tropes men and boys get hammered with.
We talk about “Boys being boys” as something to be examined. How about the reasoning of “Girls being girls” when they engage in harmful, abusive behavior? No wait, that’s “Empowerment” according to them. Silly me.
OP: “If generalizations containing this degree of negativity were being made about girls, or about a particular race or religion, would it still be seen as acceptable for them to appear, without qualification or counter-argument, on the front page of The Times?” That’s just it, though. Boys are constantly harped on for their supposed lack of respect for women and girls. But, as you said, the other way around is taboo for people. Maybe we should start by eliminating that taboo. If boys need to be taught respect for women and girls, then it’s safe to say the reverse should… Read more »
The reason an equivalent article about girls wouldn’t appear is that it would quickly be condemned by individuals and organisations from almost every part of the political spectrum. Surely the best way to defend boys is to seek to build the same level of consensus that prejudice against them is no better than prejudice against anyone else?
A counter-campaign to teach girls to respect boys would probably backfire for the same reason that the campaign against boys will probably fail. Why take an ‘eye for an eye’ approach to equality?
Nice one, John! 🙂