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.”
Sadly, this is even an issue at university. As a lecture assistant I will just get ignored or not taken seriously by some groups of young male students. They will talk loudly, ignore my request to not talk during lecture or exercise. My male colleagues don’t have such issues and it angers me more each year…
what a pain, sucks to hear that. do you think it is more common in like your field of study or is there not too much difference? i took cs classes and found a lot of the younger guys louder and obnoxious compared to those in my chem or bio classes (bio was majority women, chem was sorta equally spilt, obviously excluding other genders, it was not something i was really knowledgeable about the time and ignored)
Do you have the authority to do anything more about the talking or is a verbal warning it?
In theory I can always do a short verbal test. But apart from the shock effect that doesn’t have any consequences…
That seems like it’d be a factor in people not taking you seriously; if you don’t have any authority to do anything about misbehaviour.
My male colleagues are in the same situation but they don’t have this issue. It’s also not all or the majority of students, but each semester there will be a group of young man behaving this way.