How do you teach students about misogyny without alienating boys?

We are always in regular contact with teachers and students, so when both groups started raising concerns about the increase in misogynistic rhetoric towards the end of last autumn, we responded by developing CPD for teachers and a new resource pack to help tackle this growing and concerning issue.

Between January and May we have delivered training to hundreds of schools with the combination of our webinar and resource packs forming a ‘tackling misogyny’ toolkit for teachers to use in school. The training was completely free to all schools and has been shortlisted for one of the Education Resources Awards 2023.

Using evidence-based, best-practice approaches to develop the training and resource pack, we are confident that many schools across the UK and beyond are in a better position to address this concerning issue.

The main challenge for us was to develop an approach that effectively addressed the issue without alienating boys. In line with advice from experts in the field such as Dr Emily Setty we advocate allowing boys to air their views, even where they are unpalatable and encourage consideration of other perspectives. By doing so it is more likely that we can move towards deconstructing misogynistic arguments in partnerships with boys as opposed to telling them they are wrong and shutting down the debate. To many this seems counter-intuitive, and we accept that it can be quite challenging, however, it is far more likely to keep boys engaged and hopefully move towards a more questioning position around misogynistic rhetoric.

Feedback from schools attending the training and using our materials has been excellent and this is what makes it all worthwhile for us. We will continue to offer this toolkit in the new academic year, so check our website and twitter for new training dates for this and other CPD sessions.