From Hollywood to Westminster, farming to tech, the #MeToo movement is drawing attention to widespread sexual harassment in society. Schools are no exception, with teachers and students affected.
In this context, discussions about gender equality take on a fresh relevance. We need to look at the gender norms that suggest men are worth more than women. A recent study found that children around the world are “straitjacketed” into gender roles in early adolescence, led to believe that girls are vulnerable and boys are strong and independent. Girls are taught to emphasise their physical appearance and are seen as potential targets and victims, while boys are viewed as predators. The good news is that because these are learned views and behaviours, they can be changed. Here are five things you can do in your school to advance gender equality.
Consider what you’re communicating about masculinity
Understanding what young people are learning from their school culture about masculine norms is important. Are they seeing that aggression and shouting are how you get what you want among teachers and pupils? Are they learning that boys need to “man up”? Do careers advisers smile when a boy says he wants to be a nurse? Do male students think it’s possible that they could be a nurse?For your next training day, think about leading a discussion and mapping exercise with your colleagues to explore the following:
- What are your expectations for the behaviour of young men in your school?
- What version of masculinity – and what language and behaviour – do you model as a faculty and leadership team?
- What steps can you take to shift how gendered attitudes and language shape young people’s behaviour and wellbeing?
Get young people to think about gender norms
To help your pupils reflect on this, you may wish to print out age-appropriate excerpts from some of the many articles about the men accused of sexually harassing or assaulting people in recent weeks for your class to analyse. Some questions to initiate discussion might include:
- Why is sexual harassment happening? (It will be important to challenge normalised answers such as “because you fancy someone”.)
- How might someone feel after experiencing sexual harassment?
- Why is it overwhelmingly men who engage in sexually predatory behaviour? Why are the victims overwhelmingly women?
- If the women weren’t believed, why was this the case?
- How can we avoid behaviour that encourages sexual harassment?
We need to get young people to think critically about the assumptions that trivialise harmful behaviours.
Don’t buy into the notion that “boys will be boys”Sayings such as “boys will be boys” normalise harmful and dangerous actions. When we buy into this notion we are saying that boys are cannot be held to the standards we’d expect of others. It also frames the behaviour as inherent rather than learned, and diminishes boys’ humanity. And when that happens, we all lose.
Ensure sex education goes beyond biology
Earlier this year, the government announced that sex and relationship education (SRE) would be compulsory in English schools. But this education must go beyond biology: if we want young people to understand the foundations of healthy relationships, we must teach this explicitly.
As your school develops its plans for SRE, it’s imperative that it covers respect in relationships, rights, sexuality and consent. This is central to normalising the fullness of people’s sexualities and gender identities in our schools.
Remember that inequalities don’t exist in isolation
Women of colour have been noticeably absent from the mainstream declarations of #MeToo, in part because the stakes are higher. Not everyone has empathy for victims of sexual violence – consider victim-blaming culture, for example – and this is heightened in the case of minorities. Racism poses an additional restriction on our collective capacity for compassion.
As educators, it is worth considering whether your compassion for some students over others is racialised. Whose voices do you listen to? If we are to ensure that our schools are places of equity and belonging – where students can be honest about their experiences, knowing teachers are on their side – then it must be so for all students. This means that educators must do thoughtful work to tackle inequalities in our schools.
- Hanna Naima McCloskey is founder and chief executive of Fearless Futures. Sara Shahvisi is director of programmes.
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