muscovyduck
Good IT skills and food hygiene competent
The problem is, if you're a woman and you get good at fighting, you're going to find people keep trying to throw you back in the bear pit for their own ends or amusement
it's more the manner of participation, such as one poster coming in and suggesting that teaching women and girls MMA or some other in vogue chop socky was the solution, then we have an equally new obviously male poster jumping to their defence and flagging off a multiply marginalised woman who iphas a relevant professional and personal background....What did he say that entitles you or anyone else to airily dismiss his opinion or to suggest that he lacks insight into the subject?
I hadn’t really anticipated that new forum members were likely to cause such disquiet around here. How long do we have to be here before we are permitted to participate without suspicion and hostility? Clearly I was naive.
To be honest, it's all rather typical.It's white knighting if you disagree with the point and not white Knighting if you agree with it.
The personal relationship stuff is quite interesting.Intervening when things get lairy in public is obviously a big vexed issue and needs discussion.
But again, I’m trying to pull it back to the other more tricky discussion about what we do about the more subtle stuff.
What about the normal everyday interactions. Should we intervene there? If we’re out as a group of couples should we intervene when we think things look like they’re going wrong? How? If we think a mate isn’t doing well, or behaving well, inside their relationship how do we get involved without being an interfering busybody?
Is it even our business?
What about of we see them raising kids in a way that looks problematic (eg “boys will be boys etc”)
What about the stuff that happens at home in normal relationships. How do we examine and parse the way we divide housework, dominate the remote control etc. Of our relationship is “good enough” do we still need to do this work?
What about the daily grind of this stuff?
How do men and women recognise the way we all contribute to it? How do we take that apart in ways that are thoughtful, useful, co-creative?
I’ll add to that thoughtful list: and what if your partner (male or female) doesn’t want to engage in the reflective attitude and challenge the common-sense norms? If they stick with the banal ways that the domination is reproduced. Relationship systems take (at least) two people to make them.Intervening when things get lairy in public is obviously a big vexed issue and needs discussion.
But again, I’m trying to pull it back to the other more tricky discussion about what we do about the more subtle stuff.
What about the normal everyday interactions. Should we intervene there? If we’re out as a group of couples should we intervene when we think things look like they’re going wrong? How? If we think a mate isn’t doing well, or behaving well, inside their relationship how do we get involved without being an interfering busybody?
Is it even our business?
What about of we see them raising kids in a way that looks problematic (eg “boys will be boys etc”)
What about the stuff that happens at home in normal relationships. How do we examine and parse the way we divide housework, dominate the remote control etc. Of our relationship is “good enough” do we still need to do this work?
What about the daily grind of this stuff?
How do men and women recognise the way we all contribute to it? How do we take that apart in ways that are thoughtful, useful, co-creative?
I'm actually quite proud of him. Earlier in the year he paid for a girl he barely knews taxi fare to get home because she was really drunk, her friends had left her and he was worried about her getting home safe.
Sorry but I’m struggling to make complete sense out of this post - maybe partly due to what appear to be typos but I’m not sure.it's more the manner of participation, such as one poster coming in and suggesting that teaching women and girls MMA or some other in vogue chop socky was the solution, then we have an equally new obviously male poster jumping to their defence and flagging off a multiply marginalised woman who iphas a relevant professional and personal background....
This is often the way with young boys, they'll talk a lot of shit and quote people like Tate as role models but you'll also see that they've got that fundamental kindness to them where they'd never actually do anything cruel or abusive, and quite the opposite would look to protect those more vulnerable than they were.
But I'm also aware that that's what I'd like to believe about everyone, and that I won't always be right. I can sometimes spot the boys that are maybe more at risk of going a bad way, usually the ones with dogshit fathers and troubled home lives generally, but the truth of it is you don't know.
A lot of what we can do as teachers is reactive, not proactive. We can model kindness and empathy but you can't really teach those things, particularly to kids who come from an environment where they're not valued things. And I'm not just thinking about your deprived and broken homes here, lots of wealthier families are severely lacking in empathy and kindness. Which is hardly surprising when you think about the sort of behaviour that is rewarded by our society; grasping at whatever you want and trampling over other people to get it.
One thing we can do is try and foster self-respect in boys. Tell them well done when they've got something right. Try and get them to acknowledge their own virtues and take a beat now and then to see themselves as being actually worth something. Because I do think a lot of crimes against vulnerable people come from a place of fear and a sense of inadequacy. I don't deserve this loving partner and she'll figure that out sooner or later so I need to make sure she doesn't leave. I'm a piece of shit so she's probably cheating on me because why wouldn't she? I doubt this is ever a conscious thought process but I think it's there in a lot of cases.
As always with this stuff I'm guessing a bit because it seems so alien to me, the idea of being violent to anyone I care about. But then again it's maybe not that far away from my own experience. If you're a man, or any kind of human at all, you know what anger and fear and weakness feel like. You know what kind of actions those feelings can lead you to if you allow them to take over.
Rational thought takes longer than emotional reaction, which is important if you're dodging predators in the savannah but a liability for us in a complex society mostly devoid of existential threats. That is not something that is on the school curriculum. The fact that there can be a gap between stimulus and response in which you can make a choice is something I often find myself explaining to students, particularly boys. They often look at me like I'm mad, like this the first time anyone has told them that they can make choices.
Listening I think is such a key thing. I think a lot of teenage boys feel so powerless yet are told they hold all this power. Which, they do in some ways but don’t in many other ways. One of my frustrations with certain liberal approaches to talking about patriarchy in schools has been to ‘teach’ it, rather than explore it. So instead of telling boys they’re more powerful (when most of them don’t feel that way at all) and just have to control themselves, exploring the ways it negatively impacts everyone, and how to collectively take responsibility to shift that culture.I worked with a particular male teacher who transformed the lives of teenage male students. He was an amazing teacher. He "got" to them. He built self esteem in them through activities. Sports. Running. Music. Performance. And he talked to them ... really talked. Listened..to them. Challenged them. He became a father figure in their lives.
He definitely worked harder and longer than other teachers. He made them part of a family ... in his classroom. Sadly he passed away too young. But I have no doubt his impact has changed their lives and the lives of everyone they become close to.
He was a rarity in teaching in that the curriculum for him was secondary to the personal development of these teenagers.
This is often the way with young boys, they'll talk a lot of shit and quote people like Tate as role models but you'll also see that they've got that fundamental kindness to them where they'd never actually do anything cruel or abusive, and quite the opposite would look to protect those more vulnerable than they were.
But I'm also aware that that's what I'd like to believe about everyone, and that I won't always be right. I can sometimes spot the boys that are maybe more at risk of going a bad way, usually the ones with dogshit fathers and troubled home lives generally, but the truth of it is you don't know.
A lot of what we can do as teachers is reactive, not proactive. We can model kindness and empathy but you can't really teach those things, particularly to kids who come from an environment where they're not valued things. And I'm not just thinking about your deprived and broken homes here, lots of wealthier families are severely lacking in empathy and kindness. Which is hardly surprising when you think about the sort of behaviour that is rewarded by our society; grasping at whatever you want and trampling over other people to get it.
One thing we can do is try and foster self-respect in boys. Tell them well done when they've got something right. Try and get them to acknowledge their own virtues and take a beat now and then to see themselves as being actually worth something. Because I do think a lot of crimes against vulnerable people come from a place of fear and a sense of inadequacy. I don't deserve this loving partner and she'll figure that out sooner or later so I need to make sure she doesn't leave. I'm a piece of shit so she's probably cheating on me because why wouldn't she? I doubt this is ever a conscious thought process but I think it's there in a lot of cases.
As always with this stuff I'm guessing a bit because it seems so alien to me, the idea of being violent to anyone I care about. But then again it's maybe not that far away from my own experience. If you're a man, or any kind of human at all, you know what anger and fear and weakness feel like. You know what kind of actions those feelings can lead you to if you allow them to take over.
Rational thought takes longer than emotional reaction, which is important if you're dodging predators in the savannah but a liability for us in a complex society mostly devoid of existential threats. That is not something that is on the school curriculum. The fact that there can be a gap between stimulus and response in which you can make a choice is something I often find myself explaining to students, particularly boys. They often look at me like I'm mad, like this the first time anyone has told them that they can make choices.
It seems to be a generalisation referring to martial arts. Why they couldn't have said 'martial arts' instead of that quite dismissive and quite frankly bordering on racist term I don't know.Sorry but I’m struggling to make complete sense out of this post - maybe partly due to what appear to be typos but I’m not sure.
What is chop socky?
Listening I think is such a key thing. I think a lot of teenage boys feel so powerless yet are told they hold all this power. Which, they do in some ways but don’t in many other ways. One of my frustrations with certain liberal approaches to talking about patriarchy in schools has been to ‘teach’ it, rather than explore it. So instead of telling boys they’re more powerful (when most of them don’t feel that way at all) and just have to control themselves, exploring the ways it negatively impacts everyone, and how to collectively take responsibility to shift that culture.
It certainly doesn't assist them in making the point, and like you, I felt there was something quite pejorative about the term.It seems to be a generalisation referring to martial arts. Why they couldn't have said 'martial arts' instead of that quite dismissive and quite frankly bordering on racist term I don't know.
More therapeutic training for teaching staff would be wonderful imo. Or specialists coming in to deliver training/support with young people. Can’t see it being rolled out any time in the new future though :/I was trained to work with very traumatised young people but I don't think its my special training that's most helpful, its that I like the boys I work with and I'm interested in their experiences and they sense that. I don't think boys get a lot of that.
I'm having a bit of a crisis in my work currently but the strength of psychoanalytic therapy is that it acknowledges conflicts as the basis of emotional difficulty. In schools having some input into group work is where I think we would be really helpful.
There is also the issue of home not caring and with the manosphere actively encouraging.This is something I’m finding very difficult in schools at the moment.
There doesn’t seem to be one solution, but a myriad. Schools and teachers aren’t often given the time to be able to try and work out what those are in their specific contexts, and often don’t have deep relationships with home to be able to understand what’s going on in individual kids’ lives. And even if they do, often home doesn’t often know what’s going on either.
One thing we’re trying to do where I work is promoting the idea of therapy and self reflection. A few years ago we noticed a few 12 year olds getting quite stubbornly into the manosphere, rejecting therapeutic support and claiming they didn’t need help because they weren’t ‘broken’. We have done lessons, PHSE sessions and 1-2-1 support to try and break this down and a few of this group have accepted therapeutic support (though I has taken some big outbursts and a few punched walls!). They’re quite a dominant group, and we’re hoping that this leads to a bit of a culture shift, where talking about feelings, looking out for one another is seen as a positive thing for their year group and the wider school community.
I've noticed this. The jumper thing can be quite extreme. Multiple laters no matter how bloody hot it gets and yes a lot of it is down to body image. Self harm is also ever increasing.The Sex Education (Relationships and Sex Education) course we have designed looks at (as well as all the classic things) social power dynamics in forming, maintaining and ending relationships. We were concerned by the classic manosphere response to rejection being defensiveness and potentially violence and abuse, so facilitated discussions between the students to encourage them to empathise with why rejection can be difficult, discomforting but also sometimes necessary and how to cope with it.
I think teenage boys feel a huge amount of shame and insecurity. I’ve noticed a trend of boys going to the gym to build muscle from very young ages (12/13). I was speaking with some teacher friends at the weekend who were complaining about boys not taking off their coats/jumpers/hoodies in the sweltering heat and i wonder if this is also a body image thing for them. Its only something i’ve noticed in the past few years but wouldn’t be surprised. As has been said upthread, Tate and that lot are a symptom, but a very powerful one, and one which harnesses the shame of boys and turns it into something vile and violent.
There is I think a genuine repulsion among some for the way women are treated in porn. Maybe it starts as the beta thing and then they look it up and find other negatives. This wouldn't mean they don't use it and that would likely lead to more shame.One of the newer stances i’ve learnt about this year is the male anti-pornography sentiment. That masturbating is unclean and porn is for ‘weak’ ‘betas’. This also often goes hand in hand with homophobic and transphobic bigotry and is (from my experience) expressed by those who are most likely to be using pornography and with very low self esteem. This is one of the reasons we’ve been working so hard on increasing the positive framing for therapy, and trying to support the boys (in particular, but other students as well) to talk to their friends about how they feel, and to hold one another to account when they fuck up.
100%Another aggravating factor I’ve noticed is undiagnosed/unsupported learning needs and mental health. The young men who express these thoughts loudly and (seemingly) confidently in my context have a lot of unmet needs either at home, at school or both. As always, funding for proper support is desperately needed, but I can’t seen the new government putting anywhere near enough money into this.
I touched on this as well. TV has been full of this crap as long as I can remember. I think as well girls are exposed to this stuff. I remember struggling as a teen as girls seemed to like a lot of the people on TV who were shits coming out with sexist crap. Same with lads at school. I'd say something I'd read somewhere or positive I'd seen (my brother in law was quite involved in housework, bringing the kids up etc which I didn't see a lot of elsewhere) and get laughed at by both boys and girls. If I said something shitty I'd seen on TV or something similar (I had a gift for repackaging shitty humour tbf) I'd get laughed with. It could seem like the worst behaviour would be rewarded.There is also the societal level and all the stuff we can’t control in school. The content on the internet can be bad, but I think that’s a bit of a cop out. I grew up with those awful comedy panel shows normalising people like Russel Brand, and Little Britain normalising racism, misogyny and transphobia. We didn’t have the option to like or share it online, but we’d endlessly repeat the jokes in the playground or when together. In some ways that feels worse.
Thank you. I don't think I would ever have guessed what is was... not least because afterwards I wondered if the "in vogue" bit before it was part of the same concept.It seems to be a generalisation referring to martial arts. Why they couldn't have said 'martial arts' instead of that quite dismissive and quite frankly bordering on racist term I don't know.
More therapeutic training for teaching staff would be wonderful imo. Or specialists coming in to deliver training/support with young people. Can’t see it being rolled out any time in the new future though :/
I found that the move towards behaviourist, zero tolerance punishment in schools has has a negative impact on building positive, healthy, listening and respectful relationships between teachers and students. In my previous school I didn’t have much chance to build those relationships, we were just encouraged to punish poor behaviour. Those kids you did take the time to listen to really valued it, but we were so squeezed for time in other ways it was very hard to maintain the relationship.
The Relationships and Sex Education courses? They’re statutory (though parents can remove kids from sessions specifically about sex). The ones I helped design were in collaboration with some academics and targeted at KS3 (Year 7-9).zedr who attends the course/s?
As a multiply marginalised woman, it's a shame you feel the need to bully and ridicule other women here. And chop socky sounds somewhat racist.it's more the manner of participation, such as one poster coming in and suggesting that teaching women and girls MMA or some other in vogue chop socky was the solution, then we have an equally new obviously male poster jumping to their defence and flagging off a multiply marginalised woman who iphas a relevant professional and personal background....
This is a big issue IME. This is also connected to what you say elsewhere about learning difficulties being missed. I have heard "there is nothing wrong with me." A lot.One thing we’re trying to do where I work is promoting the idea of therapy and self reflection. A few years ago we noticed a few 12 year olds getting quite stubbornly into the manosphere, rejecting therapeutic support and claiming they didn’t need help because they weren’t ‘broken’.
He was a rarity in teaching in that the curriculum for him was secondary to the personal development of these teenagers.
From what I hear from friends in teaching, the demands of the curriculum have become all-important, and made supporting personal development near impossible.
I've noticed this. The jumper thing can be quite extreme. Multiple laters no matter how bloody hot it gets and yes a lot of it is down to body image. Self harm is also ever increasing.
We haven't learned...have weMassive downside to social media. Now boys can be constantly bombarded by imagery and advice about appearance, health, firness and this is incredibly harmful.