It’s Not Misogyny But Misandry in the Classroom We Need to Worry About
Imagine the uproar if it was the other way round: 65% of teachers in secondary school and 85% of primary school teachers were men. Schools would be labelled: institutionally misogynistic, it would be lamented that girls had insufficient female role models, and the single-sex dominance would be branded a ‘significant safeguarding concern’. And yet there is bovine blindness about the paucity of male teachers in education today. To repeat the actual fact today: only 35% of secondary and 15% of primary school teachers are men; the overwhelming majority of teachers are women.
When Jess-let’s-ignore-the-rape-gangs-for-as-long-as-possible-Phillips announces that boys will receive anti-misogyny lessons I can’t help but wonder how different things might be if, rather than anti-misogyny lessons, boys were provided with an education system designed and delivered by 50% men, not one designed by women for girls. The misogynistic term Karen seems a perfectly apt response to this sort of misandrist initiative.
When explaining on Good Morning Britain the reasons for the misogyny initiative, Jess Phillips said that she didn’t want her two sons developing “bad attitudes that lead them into criminality in the future”. I couldn’t fathom this logic, but I do know that the delivery of a number of lessons on misogyny by a regiment of female teachers is not going to help matters. A friend was spitting with rage when her son’s first Economics lecture at Edinburgh University this autumn consisted of a talk about consent. “The assumption was that my son, a perfectly decent human being, would, if not for this consent lecture, be intent on a raping spree across the university.”
I have three sons, one currently working on a cattle farm in Australia, the middle one at a state Sixth Form and the youngest at a state primary. Not one of them has ever had a male primary school teacher. And guess who were their favourite teachers? All men from the 35% (or thereabouts) of male teachers at their secondary. The PE teacher who called all the boys “gentlemen” and the Kiwi teacher with tattoos who unlocked the misery of maths. Our Year Six son was delighted this morning because they were set to use “saws and cold glue guns to make a structure”. That this activity lasts one day in an entire primary school career is one solitary example of an education system designed by women for girls. [Cold glue guns FFS.]
It is not an original point, but it is worth repeating: the problem is not men, but insufficient men in the lives of boys. With 52% of children now born outside of marriage or civil partnership and with 45% of children not living with both biological parents, hundreds of thousands of boys are raised without fathers and, with scarce male teachers at school, limited male role models. Let’s not forget that by the end of primary school around 63% of girls meet the expected standard in reading, writing and maths, compared to 56% of boys; at GCSE, 71% of girls achieved grade 4 (C) or higher across subjects, compared to 64.2% of boys.
“You’re not still going on are you?” asks my husband before making his misogynistic white noise sound. It’s a perfectly natural response to female hectoring and one that the boys in the misogyny lessons will recognise.
Yes of course there are superb female teachers, yes there are female teachers like my now retired mum and my sister who understand boys, and yes there are various aspects of female-dominated education that suit boys very well, particularly lower down the school. In general though, feminised behaviours – such as sitting still and socially complying – are rewarded and masculine behaviours – such as making obscene jokes and engaging in physical play – are punished.
Just imagine how different many aspects of modern schooling, and the boys within it, would be if the majority of teacher staff were male. I conducted a straw poll in the school car park today and asked parents how primary schools would differ if they had majority male teachers:
- Generally much stricter
- More risk-taking
- Field play all year round not just the summer
- Outdoor breaks and lunchtimes even when it’s raining
- Wrestling and playfights would be allowed
- More chess clubs (because in spite of Rachel Reeves, men play more chess)
- More sport
- A boxing/martial arts club on site
- More physical learning, building walls etc
- Less focus on neat handwriting and colouring in
- Desks on treadmills so reduced need for boys to sit still
- More books read with male heroes as leads
And if boys weren’t so bored and frustrated in female-dominated schools, and were taught instead by 50% male teachers in schools designed for girls and boys, perhaps they would be less inclined to lean back in their chair, flick the bird and tell the latest female supply teacher to ‘fuck off bitch’.
Just a thought.
Joanna Gray is a writer and confidence coach.
Stop Press: Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has said that Labour’s plan to teach schoolboys to respect women and girls is a “complete distraction” from the real issues, and that if the Government really wants to halt the surge in misogyny in the UK it should crack down on immigration from cultures that “don’t respect women”.
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Labour’s displacement activity: instead of asking what it is about Muslim culture that produces rape gangs, let’s hector schoolboys and tell them they are latent misogynistic thugs.
Oh, yes, and to stop even the possibility of anyone asking a question like that, they will also introduce blasphemy laws.
It’s like that stupid Adolescence series on Netflix all over again. Total misdirection and deflection from who’s the real threat. I’m on team Kemi for this, though I’m no fan of the Tories;
”It’s not 11-year-old boys who are committing violence against women and girls.
We need to get people who have come from cultures that don’t respect women out of our country! Not all cultures are equally valid.
Labour’s plan to lecture schoolboys to respect women and girls is a complete distraction. This is what a government looks like when they’re completely out of ideas.
Deport all foreign criminals. Put more police on our streets. Conservatives have a funded plan to recruit 10,000 extra officers.
Pretending a few extra lessons in school will fix this is complete nonsense. Labour need to stop watching Adolesence and get real.
But they can’t, because they’re too scared, weak and divided. They have no serious plan to tackle this problem.”
I know it’s radical, but what about having the option of single sex state schools? The boys schools could have joint after-school activities with the local all girls school (no sniggering at the back please) and both schools could get on with educating their pupils in the best possible way without the distraction of the opposite sex – especially as the pupils work their way through puberty and its hormonal challenges. It worked for my single-sex direct grant school in the 1970’s who had strong ties with the local all girls DG school.
As far as I am aware, both schools just produced a majority of well-rounded adults contributing to society. I’ve not heard of any pupils becoming misogynists or rapists.
As far as I know there are lots of single-sex state secondary schools in the UK. Two out of four in my town are single-sex – one boys and one girls.
I wasn’t aware of that – the state schools around here are all mixed. How do they compare to mixed schools in terms of discipline, behaviour and results?
What’s interesting is the disparity in countries because, here in the Netherlands, my daughter gets taught by a majority of male teachers across her subjects in high school. In her primary school, if we count the head teacher and gym teacher, it was 50/50 with male/female teaching staff. Her last two teachers at primary school were men. So all in all my theory is that the wages are not attractive to men in the UK, women probably have other priorities than wages for going into the profession, plus the UK has serious woke-infestation problems compared with here, I must say. So perhaps the dreaded DEI factors in too, as opposed to hiring people solely on merit.
My impression is that the two single-sex schools are more popular/sought after among parents – all the local parents I know have their kids in the single sex schools. Small sample size. They have mixed 6th forms. I went to an all-boys grammar school – I liked girls so I was sad we didn’t have any, though to be fair we certainly mixed with girls outside of school. The 6th form at my old school is mixed these days. Where we used to live in London the only single-sex secondary schools were Catholic.
Thank you for your response, TOF.
My 3 children went to the local mixed sex (very rural) comprehensive and thrived. We count our blessings that all 3 are well-rounded with well-paid, professional careers. Their school had a mixed and varied intake, but all 3 of them have described their former school as “being like a state-owned private school”. We consider ourselves lucky that they went there.
If we had a choice, however, I would have sent them to single-sex schools like the local parents you describe above. I just feel that there are less distractions and that single-sex schools have a better chance of maintaining discipline. I also agree that a mixed 6th form is no bad thing. My children and their friends seemed to mature rapidly in the few months between GCSE results in the summer and entering 6th form in the autumn – so being in a mixed environment from the age of 16 is probably no bad thing.
Our two girls went to the local mixed sex comprehensive on the outskirts of inner London. I guess it was OK – nothing special. Mediocre to good. Probably saved by the pupils and the parents more than the staff.
I’m not sure about whether single sex is generally better, though I do think that the article makes a lot of good points and that teaching more sympathetic to the “typically male” may be better delivered in an all boys school. That said, at least one of our girls would have benefited in my view from the emphasis outlined – maybe both of them, somewhat. Schools in general in my opinion for both sexes don’t feature enough DOING.
I wish the state would get out of education.
“I wish the state would get out of education.”
Spot on!
We have 2 single sex grammar schools in our town. Fabulous schools.
One overlooked advantage of the single sex model is that, while at the mixed sex school the choir, the actors, the school orchestra etc are 90% female, at the boys school they’re, inevitably, 100% male. There’s no sense of being ‘uncool to act or sing or play the violin. When you bring in the girls suddenly the boys stop doing the culture stuff.
We have five single sex schools where I live!
There were some where I grew up but they were direct grant grammar schools.
Some internet searching indicates maybe only 10% of state secondary schools are single sex now, and religion-affiliated, particularly Catholic, schools are over-represented.
A higher proportion – at least 20% – of private schools are single sex. This suggests that there is a “market” for single sex schools that is not being catered for in the state sector.
The first thing I said to my wife of 57 years when this misogyny nonsense was raised, was that it was misandry that was the issue. She, of course, was not listening as I am always ranting about something so I was pleased to put Joanna’s headline under her nose. I attended an all boys boarding school in the 1950s and 60s and we did have a social club for senior boys for arranging dances with local girls’ schools as well as local girls. I also became a campanologist so I could miss ‘prep’ to go bell ringing in the local town which I only joined for the young female participants. We respected females and to this day stand when a lady enters the room but I am also aware of the huge pressure on young men now who are suppressed from doing normal male pursuits because of the now overwhelming influence of women in all walks of life. This is particularly centred on primary and early secondary education and it is proving to be unhealthy for young males who need to be allowed to flourish as young men without continuous female traits of feelings and constrained risk taking. This… Read more »
Do you have any evidence to support your assertion that there is misandry at play? Because all I see is a growing trend of more women wishing to go into the teaching profession than men over time, and if this is happening organically then I’m not sure how women can be blamed. Is there a retention issue among males? Or are there just less males than females applying to begin with, for reasons unknown? After all, women have dominated teaching for decades too, including when you were at school, but if you attended an all boys school you’ll have been sheltered from this reality. I’d say it’s the teaching material and methods, not the sex of the person delivering the lessons, which is most influential. And I’m not sure how much autonomy teachers have if they’re expected to cover specific material and perhaps not deviate much in their methods. Tell me: do you think nursing is a misandrist profession, by virtue of the fact it is also female-dominated? After all, there’ll be countless men being the recipients of personal care provided by women care-givers, but wouldn’t they much rather have a fellow man attend to them? Yet I don’t hear… Read more »
I agree. I remember a friend of mine lamenting that education was designed for girls and that as a result her four boys were at a disadvantage. I noticed the same effect on my own sons – ordinary rough and tumble was classified as fighting, and all sorts of reports had to filed. Fortunately there were some very good male teachers in the school. This was about 20 years ago, and things seem to have got worse since then.
“Jess Phillips said that she didn’t want her two sons developing “bad attitudes that lead them into criminality in the future””
You’re their Mum (God help them). Up to you to teach them right from wrong, along with their Dad (God help him). You do you, Phillips. If you have strong feelings about what kids should be taught, you have two of them, knock yourself out. Just leave the rest of us alone. But it never works like that with these bastards, does it? They have to impose things on everyone else too. Just sod off “Jess”.
I had that exact thought on reading this.
”Misandry = a hatred of men” collinsdictionary.com It can hardly be referred to as ‘misandry’ unless literal misandry can be proven: e.g, is there active discrimination against male applicants happening whereby female candidates are being deliberately favoured? What is undeniably clear is that there’s a significant gender imbalance, but then, as I understand it, teaching generally has always been a female-dominated profession throughout history, and much like nursing, it isn’t down to active discrimination against the male sex. Could it be that teaching just organically attracts more women than men? Do men and women have different reasons to go into this profession? E.g Males = wages driven, females = flexible hours. It’s a bit like the ”Why are couples having less children these days?” question, in that there will likely be various reasons and it’s always best to actually ask the people on the ground. Therefore, are there no DS members who work in education who can shed some light on this issue? This article is a few years old but may offer some possible clues: ”The decline in the proportion of men in the school workforce has occurred across most of the country. Since 2010, every region in England… Read more »
Misandry is a strong word. I think the article makes excellent points but I don’t think I would have used that word and it may detract from the rest. Perhaps it was partly used as a convenient juxtaposition with accusations of misogyny and the “re-education” of boys to be less boyish. If the other side distort language I don’t think we should. At best it’s misandry by omission – trying to shoehorn boys into forms of education that in general suit them less than girls.
The article seems to attempt to cover 2 separate issues, just not very well, and from the usual biased standpoint I’ve come to expect from the author. Firstly: this stupid new training, which nobody in their right mind would support, is designed to instill collective guilt and poor self-image/confidence in young boys and therefore will be destined to fuel further division of the sexes. Secondly: The woeful lack of male high school teachers. And until somebody goes and does some actual research on the ground of why there are more men leaving the profession than applying, we’re all just left guessing the reasons as to why there’s a stark disparity between genders. I’m highlighting Joanna’s obvious bias yet again ( she keeps reminding us she has 3 sons, so there’s the clue ), due to her default position of always blaming females. It was the same in her last article about periods. See here; “And if boys weren’t so bored and frustrated in female-dominated schools, and were taught instead by 50% male teachers in schools designed for girls and boys, perhaps they would be less inclined to lean back in their chair, flick the bird and tell the latest female supply teacher… Read more »
Well I agree that the buck stops with Starmer for all this stuff, but I doubt the author is a fan of his either or is giving him a free pass because he’s a man – I expect she’s focused on Phillips because she is the one presenting the policy.
Yes sort of 2 separate issues but arguably part of the same trend – a trend that I think is having negative consequences. I don’t think it’s all that useful to argue which sex is to blame – just focus on the ideas and try to agree on a sensible approach that takes into account the reality of how kids react to different situations.
As to why males don’t seem to want to join the teaching profession, there are probably many reasons, some of which are just organic. I don’t like the idea of sex quotas or any interference in the hiring process based on blanket criteria, but maybe there’s a case for trying to address the sex imbalance in teachers. Tricky one.
Blimey, Starmer has started a Substack, and guess what his very first article is about. Surprise surprise, the comments are switched off, too; ”Because while society has broadly become less violent over recent decades, we have not seen anything like the required change when it comes to violence against women and girls. The statistics tell the story. Police in England and Wales now record a domestic abuse related crime every 40 seconds. Fourteen per cent of women are estimated to have suffered sexual abuse by the time they are eighteen – in other words when they are children. And this violence kills too. Every spring, my colleague Jess Phillips – the Minister for Violence against Women and Girls – reads out a list of all the women killed by men in Britain that year. For the year ending in March 2024, that list will be 156 victims long. There is no other way of putting it – this is shameful. And so the strategy commits us to a bold new mission: to halve violence against women and girls within ten years. But speaking as a parent, there is one issue that looms large across the whole strategy: technology. And I’ll be honest,… Read more »
I am not clicking on the link….A bit petty, but I don’t want to give him the impression his contribution is worth reading.
What I do find interesting is that clearly Substack is taken more seriously. Would be good if politicians read some of the excellent contributions.
“Surprise surprise, the comments are switched off, too;”
Yeah, social media can be toxic, Mr Prime Minister – suck it up!
Terrifying? Well, bringing up kids in any age of history is pretty daunting I would say. If you don’t feel a huge responsibility and daunted at least sometimes then there’s something wrong with you. I am not sure I have often been “terrified” and certainly not by “technology” but by particular stuff happening in our kids’ lives. He’s just wheeling out his kids to promote whatever political agenda he has.
Honestly, the ratio on this post: 5000 likes and 20,000 comments, all negative that I’ve seen, lol! He was even Community Noted: ”Labour MPs voted to block an inquiry into Pakistani rape gangs.”
‘Tis true;
”I want my daughter to grow up in a Britain where she feels safe in school, online, and in relationships.
Every young girl deserves that, and every young boy should be protected from harmful misogynistic influences.
My government is making that happen, by backing teachers, calling out misogyny and intervening early.
We can stop harm before it starts and save a generation of young men from the influence of online misogynists.”
https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/2001563161674068421
Just a couple of responses, as you can imagine the general theme.
”Well you fucked that up haven’t you. By letting boat loads of misogynists from misogynistic cultures enter this country. Lucky for your daughter will get security that the working people of Britain can’t afford.”
”Will you be re-educating boys from misogynistic religions?
Will you fuck, you spineless twat..”
Yeah those comments are spot on
If all the comments have that level of clarity I might have to go and have a read!
Totally agree on respect – your values come from your home / parents / wider family etc. it’s not down to teachers to have to educate the basics on that. They can add to it I’m sure, as people grow and develop….
Growing up I’d never have done anything like that – one reason being the walloping I’d have got, and secondly the worry I’d let my family honour down by being such a prick. Honour might be an old concept, but it’s certainly alive in my world.
The world and its dog has an opinion on this topic on Twitter, unsurprisingly. Also unsurprisingly, everybody’s saying much the same thing. I agree with Ben Habib. Schools need to stop trying to parent. It’s interfering and unnecessary;
”Needless to say misogyny is wrong. But the state has no place in seeking to “educate” this out of our children. Respect for women and the adoption of social skills should be left out of the classroom and to parents and the school of life. Indeed, the best way to learn social skills is through social interaction, not indoctrination. The state cannot help itself. This new initiative comes hot on the heels of other “subjects” being handed over the schools, such as learning how to spot fake news and climate change. Debate is being set aside and so, therefore, is the natural evolution of our children’s belief systems. Perhaps the state has felt the need formally to take over the advocation against misogyny because it knows the threats posed to women by some of the less sophisticated cultures that are now practiced in the UK?”
https://x.com/benhabib6/status/2001982340164473047
The idea that all males are rapists is a far left idea and is used to cover up that, for example, 25% of rapes are committed by Afghans who are not here is great numbers. A snivelling councillor from Walthamstowe was on Patrick Christy’s show and was denying that Afghan rapists exist and that the real problem was men and we should be under a 10pm curfew. Respect to the the grown ups and Patrick for not telling him he is an ignorant twat.
As far as schools go, I believe the answer is single sex schools since quite clearly there is a difference in the way girls and boys learn. I presume that there are fewer single sex schools than there used to be. My old boys prep school has gone and is now a dual sex primary school for example. We had slightly more male than female teachers at that school. Would there be an increase in males going into teaching if schools were single sex?
Spot on. My boys were lucky enough to go to private school where the ratio of male teachers was at least 50:50, even in primary (although not the very early years). The balance was very good, but there was also a lot more for the male teachers to get their teeth into – coaching the various sports teams, acting as house masters, various after hours DT, maths, science, music and sports clubs, and probably very little scope for those looking for part time work. It must have been full on for the teachers, but also enjoyable – a very active sort of place which engendered a real sense of belonging. Harder to replicate in the state system but not impossible. As Joanna says, the system needs a complete change of mindset.
Points I have been making for many years, based on honest observation, and which I have been heavily criticised for.
They’re just desperate to show the silly Netflix drama “Adolescence” in schools …. so not only can they lecture boys about their behaviour, they can also make it perfectly clear that it’s white working class boys they’re targeting as potential rapists/murderers …. and not the ethnic and religious minorities who are the real problem.
A friend of mine, now a retired very successful ex primary school head teacher (you know you are) moved from secondary to primary school teaching during his teacher training because he was propositioned by several teenage female pupils during teaching practice and he was smart enough to know that sooner or later he would be on the wrong end of a $€xu@l @$$@ult case brought by a rejected admirer. I think ex teacher Sting had something to say about this in his song. “Don’t stand so close to me”
A good friend, a Christian, was deputy head of a state primary school in what became a majority Muslim area. He was accused of inappropriate contact by two boys – lost his job, was cautioned, charged and was put on the offenders’ register. The boys later admitted that they had been “put up” to the allegations (to have him and his faith) removed, by which time the damage was irreversible.
It occurs to me that this programme is, to mix a few metaphors, putting the cart before the horse after the horse has bolted…
Andrew Tate’s apparently popular views are a symptom of where young boys find themselves, not a cause.
Like ‘populism’ in politics, those concerned about it lack the ability for self-reflection to consider the part they might have in creating it.
As a retired teacher I look back on some of the activities and trips in the ’70sand 80’s I organised and helped with in amazement. At least no one got killed…. but risk assessment was still in the future.
I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment of this piece (and also with Kemi Badenoch’s intervention). Boys need respectable male role models around them as they grow up. (Not just the weak, ineffectual specimens that advertisers so love to mock on television.) And girls, too, need the opportunity to interact with adult males as well, as good preparation for adult life in society.
I often comment on how the lack of men in teaching (particularly primary schools), in nursing and healthcare never elicits comment from those in positions of power and influence. Nor does the lack of women in road maintenance, construction and household waste collection. We’re subject to a constant barrage of messaging about the importance of diversity, but it seems that some professions are exempt.
Once upon a time ‘it took a village to raise a child!’
Nowadays, if a child is misbehaving in public, no-one would dare reprimand them for fear of reprisals.
Males considering going into teaching, don’t, because ‘you can’t even touch them on the shoulder without being labelled a paedo. Why would I put myself through that?’
In supermarkets, on seeing a lost child, even as a female, I’d be nervous of approaching the child for fear of… trying to abduct them…..?
How did we get here? Safeguarding has gone very wrong.
For those interested, a site which documents the disadvantages faced by men and boys:
http://empathygap.uk/
Thanks for that vitally important link. Two of those points are very rarely mentioned elsewhere:
“Female genital mutilation is illegal and universally reviled. Male genital mutilation is regarded as perfectly acceptable and without disbenefit to the man (it isn’t).”
“Female suffering is newsworthy, male suffering is not.”
Another disadvantage was pointed out by Oxford journalist David Thomas in his ground-breaking book “Not Guilty: In Defence of the Modern Man”.
In that book, he discussed the discouraging effect on modern men and boys of being forced to wear drab colours and boring designs, to provide a dull background to females in all their colourful glory.
I remember years ago visiting a large department store with male & female colleagues, and when we all went to the upper floors, one of the men took one look at the Men’s Clothing Department, covering an entire floorspace, and refused to go any further, declaring that all the clothes were so dull and drab that he didn’t want to see any of them.
I think men ought to kick up about this more, and berate the fashion designers.
A very good article by Joanna Gray, though I take issue with one of her assertions:
“masculine behaviours – such as making obscene jokes and engaging in physical play – are punished.”
Christian men are perfectly masculine WITHOUT MAKING OBSCENE JOKES to each other or watching porn.
This idea that men aren’t masculine unless they make obscene jokes or discuss crude bodily functions is merely a product of our debauched society, encouraged by the Satanic Globalist attempt to force the whole of humanity to be OBSESSED WITH SEX as a recreational activity, which is not normal behaviour in any biological species.
The Satanic Globalists are forcing that upon mankind because SEX IS A SOUL TRAP.