Teachers describe a deterioration in behaviour and attitudes that has proved to be fertile terrain for misogynistic influencers

Teachers describe a deterioration in behaviour and attitudes that has proved to be fertile terrain for misogynistic influencers

“As soon as I mention feminism, you can feel the shift in the room; they’re shuffling in their seats.” Mike Nicholson holds workshops with teenage boys about the challenges of impending manhood. Standing up for the sisterhood, it seems, is the last thing on their minds.

When Nicholson says he is a feminist himself, “I can see them look at me, like, ‘I used to like you.’”

Once Nicholson, whose programme is called Progressive Masculinity, unpacks the fact that feminism means equal rights and opportunities for women, many of the boys with whom he works are won over.

“A lot of it is bred from misunderstanding and how the word is smeared,” he says.

But he is battling against what he calls a “dominance-based model” of masculinity. “These old-fashioned, regressive ideas are having a renaissance, through your masculinity influencers – your grifters, like Andrew Tate.”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    23·
    11 months ago

    Me: “Why the fuck would I reconsider my decision to help stop her from being suicidal?”

    You: “Still not developing real social skills in online classes. Social skills is by far the most important thing kids learn during their time in school”

    If I am not allowing her to do “by far the most important thing kids learn during their time in school,” I’m abusing her. That would fit the definition of abuse, not allowing them to learn the most important thing they learn in school. It is neglectful and neglect is a form of child abuse.

    I’m just going to paste these from another comment that I made since you aren’t going to bother reading it in the thread. You probably won’t bother reading it here either, but I’ll paste it anyway and then if you read it, you can decide whether or not I’m a bad father who is doing the wrong thing for his child:

    my daughter was so severely bullied that she actually had developed anxiety to the point that she had trouble going to a lunch party at the house of an old high school friend of mine with about 20 people in it. She was starting to get suicidal. She broke down one day and told us she literally could not go to school one more day because she was so bullied that even the bullied kids bullied her.

    …

    she’s so mentally healthy now that she was able to tell some girls from her old school that were harassing her at the roller skating rink to fuck off. She has never had that much self-esteem. She’s also never had as many friends as she has now.

    So somehow, according to you, I am not allowing her to do the most important thing in school, that thing being socialization, despite the fact that she was too bullied to be able to socialize properly in school and the fact that she has far more friends now than she ever had in her 6 1/2 years in public school. Which makes me an abusive father.

    • rab
      32·
      11 months ago

      I mean if this is the character your daughter deals with then I might end up at this conclusion. Hopefully this is just how you talk on lemmy.

        • rab
          24·
          11 months ago

          And you know the saying “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” yeah? It may explain the bullying.

            • rab
              22·
              11 months ago

              No, but bullying happens in every school, why was your daughter being bullied by even the kids who get bullied, as you said? It doesn’t just happen randomly, kids find the weakest one of the group and let them know it. I say this as someone who was extensively bullied in school and yet another reason I don’t care for having kids.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
                31·
                11 months ago

                And you know the saying “apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” yeah? It may explain the bullying.

                Your words. That is saying the bullying is justified. You’re blaming her for being bullied.

                I would not even remotely suggest that your extremely rude behavior would “explain” your extensive bullying. Because it doesn’t. That is victim-blaming. Why you think anything my daughter has ever done “explains” why she was bullied is just disgusting. It’s exactly the same sort of victim blaming as “does she wear short skirts? That may explain the rape.” There is no difference whatsoever.

                And you being bullied does not excuse you from blaming the victim of bullying.

                • rab
                  22·
                  11 months ago

                  I’m going for a hike while there is still some daylight. Hopefully you don’t waste your entire day on here sir.