Local misogyny
The BBC reports that phones teach boys to be aggressive misogynist little piggies.
Sexism is on the rise in schools because of harmful content on children’s phones, according to the National Education Union’s (NEU) general secretary. Daniel Kebede said boys watched “aggressive and violent pornography” and influencer content that “completely distorts their view of women”.
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Mr Kebede’s comments come as teachers at the NEU conference, in Bournemouth, prepare to debate a motion about the rise of online misogyny and its impact in the classroom.
Kaspar Zeta-Skeet said there was an “assumption” among some teenagers he taught “that women are things just to be observed” and he had heard words such as “slut” and “whore” being used about female pupils and staff. “We know where this is coming from in terms of the social-media content surrounding… what it is to be a ‘real man’,” he said.
Yes yes yes but the important question is how does this harm our trans siblings?
I hope these boys have sensible fathers, uncles, or older brothers who can talk them out of that kind of Andrew Tate nonsense, and treat women with respect.
I’m not saying that assholes like Andrew Tate aren’t a problem, but they strike me as just being the latest delivery method for misogyny. There were plenty of boys calling girls and women “sluts” and “whores” long before the internet was widely available.
Oh sure. But the internet can reinforce it and entrench it even more than it already was.
Perhaps transgenderism contributes to that distorted view by insisting that woman is nothing but a costume, or pose, or a collection of preferences and mannerisms that can be assumed by men at a whim. (Or abandoned if necessary on the part of women and girls.) That’s a new kind of completely distorted misogynistic view of women that’s just an extension of the old-fashion, traditional, dehumanizing misogyny we all know and love. Just as blackface, racial discrimination, and lynching are all part of a continuum of contempt, so are womanface, sex discrimination, and femicide.
The problem isn’t confined to the social media content being absorbed by your students. (Both male and female. The girls are absorbing messages from this material too; maybe not the same set of instructions and behaviours, but the flip side, or receiving end of the misogynistic script in which they’ve become unwitting participants.) The rot goes further than you think Mr. Kebede. What’s your union’s position on “gender identity”? What impact has it had on your female membership? (Because if you accept the concept of “gender identity” to the extent that you believe that men can be women, then I can guarantee that that position has already had deleterious effects on the women in your union. You might want to look into that during your little get together.)
Hey Kaspar, have a look at what genderists believe it is to be a “real woman.” Under their “expanded” and “inclusive” definition of “woman,” it’s the appropriation and performance of those observed features, often to exaggerated, sexualized extremes, that can make a “real woman” out of a man. Does your Union agree? How was any questioning or criticism by women regarding “gender identity” motions discussed in your union received? Any name-calling or bullying?
Oh yes, just so we’re clear: What is a woman? According to your union. Ask one of the executive; I’m sure they’ll tell you.
I doubt trans ideology has much influence on the majority of teenage boys but I don’t doubt for a moment that its continued existence is an impenetrable obstacle to doing anything effective about their misogyny. If you can simply identify out of something it’s just not real.
I fear that that is indeed a common assumption of boys, made much worse by social media.
In France, we are experiencing a particularly nasty series of violent attacks on teenagers by other teenagers — three in three days, not all girls. The first concerned a young girl of 13 in Montpellier. She had been bullied for around 18 months, especially by a somewhat older girl who considered that she wasn’t a proper Muslim because she wore normal clothes and joined in regular school activities. This older girl, or one of her friends, sent a telephone message to many people at her school asking them to meet outside the school to teach the younger one a lesson. About 20 people, mostly or all teenagers, did exactly that, and gathered outside the entrance. Three of them (including the older girl) knocked the victim down and kicked her, on the head and elsewhere, until she was unconscious and had a brain haemorrhage. She was taken to hospital and fortunately her life is no longer in danger. What the other 17 were doing I don’t know, maybe just enjoying the spectacle, or taking videos on their telephones.
The second occurred in the outskirts of Paris the next day and concerned a boy on his way back from school. He was attacked by five older boys in balaclavas and left unconscious in the middle of the road. Tragically, the doctors weren’t able to save him, and he died. They’ve not revealed any information about the apparent motives. The boy was called Shemasedine, so maybe this also had a religious motive.
The third occurred in Tours the following day, but they haven’t revealed any details.
In the1990s and earlier hazing was a big problem in the cours préparatoires for preparing for the examinations for the Grandes Écoles. The then Minister of Education, Ségolène Royal, ended it in 1998 almost from one day to the next by announcing the principals of Lycées would be held personally responsible for any hazing that occurred and if they said that they couldn’t prevent it they would be relieved of their positions and replaced by someone who could. Suddenly they all found that they could prevent it. That was in 1998; in 1999, when our daughter went to the Lycée Thiers in Marseilles, which had had some of the worst cases, there was no hazing at all, and she loved the two years she there. I think something along the same lines with schools that today don’t prevent bullying and sometimes violence might have a good effect.
That is horrible.
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