Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #993 Schoolyard Misogyny with Stephanie Westcott

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#993 Schoolyard Misogyny with Stephanie Westcott · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers. Now Gooday. This
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  Speaker 1: is doctor Justin Coulson, the founder of Happy Families dot com.
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  Speaker 1: Do you thank you so much for joining me today
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  Speaker 1: on the Happy Families Podcast. Lately, it seems that boys
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  Speaker 1: can't catch a break, and in some ways they don't
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  Speaker 1: deserve it, at least some of them because of some
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  Speaker 1: of the challenges that are occurring. My guest on the
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  Speaker 1: podcast today is doctor Stephanie Westcott. Stephanie is a researcher
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  Speaker 1: and lecturer in the School of Education, Culture and Society
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  Speaker 1: at Monash University and just recently wrote a piece for
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  Speaker 1: The Conversation that has I don't know how else to
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  Speaker 1: say it's Stephanie. Would blown up be the right way
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  Speaker 1: to describe what's happened? I mean, you must have been
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  Speaker 1: doing so much media around what you've written.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been doing a lot recently.
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  Speaker 3: Our research was also covered a few months ago by
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  Speaker 3: ABC seven thirty and so that generated a lot of
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  Speaker 3: interest too, which is good because they're necessary conversation.
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  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about this name that just
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  Speaker 1: keeps on coming up again and again and again Andrew Tate.
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  Speaker 1: I thought he disappeared. I thought with the whole trafficking
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  Speaker 1: issue over in Romania, I thought that was the end.
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  Speaker 1: But he keeps on coming up. You've done this research,
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  Speaker 1: and specifically, I mean Andrew Tate is a symptom of
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  Speaker 1: a larger problem. It's not really a conversation about him
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  Speaker 1: as much as it's a conversation about misogynistic views about
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  Speaker 1: women obviously that are infiltrating Australian schools and the way
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  Speaker 1: that too many teenage boys are being influenced by this
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  Speaker 1: ideology that is so heartful and so bad for them
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  Speaker 1: as well as for the people around them, especially women
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  Speaker 1: around them. Would you tell me a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: the research that you did. What was it, who'd you
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  Speaker 1: talk to? What did you find?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So we began this research because there was some
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  Speaker 3: news coming out of the UK that Andrew Tate had
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  Speaker 3: infiltrated schools in the UK basically, and that boys seemed
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  Speaker 3: to broadly be big fans of him and he was
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  Speaker 3: actually changing their behavior, and so we were curious about
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  Speaker 3: whether this was happening in Australia. So we put a
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  Speaker 3: call out to speak to women working in schools, and
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  Speaker 3: we were inundated with emails basically from women wanting to
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  Speaker 3: talk to us. We decided to speak to thirty and
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  Speaker 3: we managed to caption only every state and territory except
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  Speaker 3: for ACT, both primary secondary and every sector too, so
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  Speaker 3: faith based, independent and government schools. And we chatted to
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  Speaker 3: those women in depth about what they were experiencing and
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  Speaker 3: seeing in their schools. And our findings confirmed what was
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  Speaker 3: happening in the UK that was absolutely rife here as well.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so when you say it was absolutely rife, I
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  Speaker 1: presume you're talking about misogynistic attitudes. This is obviously going
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  Speaker 1: to be a little bit sensitive and for parents who
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  Speaker 1: are listening with their kids, depending on the age of
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  Speaker 1: your child, you may want to press pause and come
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  Speaker 1: back to it later. I want to ask you some specifics.
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  Speaker 1: What can you tell us about the experiences that women
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  Speaker 1: are having as they teach or work in other roles
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  Speaker 1: in education contexts, Like you said, primary school, high school,
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  Speaker 1: a whole lot, private and public everything. What are they
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  Speaker 1: telling you?
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  Speaker 3: So the first thing to say, and we say this
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  Speaker 3: in our research papers too, is that sexism and sexual
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  Speaker 3: harassment misogyny have always been part of schooling there's research
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  Speaker 3: dating back a few decades now on this, so we
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  Speaker 3: accepted that. But also what we noticed when we spoke
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  Speaker 3: to women was that the sort of frequency and tenor
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  Speaker 3: I suppose, of these kind of behaviors have increased. That
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  Speaker 3: women were saying to us that boys were sort of
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  Speaker 3: just starting to become quite hostile towards them, challenging their
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  Speaker 3: sort of their authority and position, quite often wanting to
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  Speaker 3: engage in very hostile debates about Andrew Tate and things
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  Speaker 3: that he says, very sexualized comments about women and their appearances,
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  Speaker 3: gendered slurs towards women and girls in the classroom, some
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  Speaker 3: violence too, physical intimidation and acts of violence like for example,
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  Speaker 3: a boy spat in his teacher's water bottling class, but
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  Speaker 3: actually really disturbing and disgusting statements made towards women as well.
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  Speaker 3: But these aren't just sort of one off raretis sort
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  Speaker 3: of what black they might have been that every single
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  Speaker 3: day for women in schools, and two of the women
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  Speaker 3: out of the thirty who we spoke to have decided
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  Speaker 3: to leave teaching because of this behavior and the sort
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  Speaker 3: of lack of support and thinking to themselves, I can't
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  Speaker 3: come to work and deal with this behavior every day.
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  Speaker 3: It's no one should have to, of course, especially without
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  Speaker 3: institutional support. Step.
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  Speaker 1: When I'm speaking in schools, I unfortunately consistently hear from
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  Speaker 1: usually female teachers. Sometimes it'll just be whoever I'm talking to,
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  Speaker 1: they'll tell me that they know that it's rife conversations
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  Speaker 1: around boys as young as grade four who are making
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  Speaker 1: sexual sounds, groaning and moaning. Of course, when the teacher
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  Speaker 1: asks them what they're doing or what have they deny
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  Speaker 1: it's not what you think it is, and they've always
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  Speaker 1: got a story. They've got a way of getting out
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  Speaker 1: of it. You're not in your head as I'm saying this.
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  Speaker 1: Tell me a little bit more about what you found.
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  Speaker 1: How young is this happening, What kinds of behaviors are
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  Speaker 1: specifically being reported in those thirty interviews that you did.
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  Speaker 3: In terms of age primary school teachers. We spoke to
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  Speaker 3: that sexual groaning noise is a really common thing that's happening.
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  Speaker 3: It was reported recently, I think in the Sending Morning Herald.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's actually separate though to what we're talking about.
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  Speaker 3: In regards to Andrew Tate, How's that I think that
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  Speaker 3: a lot of boys when they're making that sound, I
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  Speaker 3: would guess that.
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  Speaker 2: A lot of them don't actually know what they're doing.
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  Speaker 3: I think some of them do, But I think some
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  Speaker 3: of these things spread in schools as sort of habits
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  Speaker 3: or provocations that I think specifically can be contributed to
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  Speaker 3: the accessibility of pornography without a doubt.
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  Speaker 2: But I think Andrew Tate is separate to that in that.
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  Speaker 3: What we suggest he is doing is actually almost radicalizing boys,
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  Speaker 3: training them deliberately, very deliberately doing this because it's income
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  Speaker 3: generation for him, recruiting them to share anti feminist and
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  Speaker 3: anti women ideas, to start to see themselves as victims
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  Speaker 3: in the world of the progress of feminism and of
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  Speaker 3: maybe changes to gender power relations in society, and that
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  Speaker 3: sort of victim position and sort of framing yourself in
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  Speaker 3: that way works very well for Andrew Tate. We've seen
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  Speaker 3: him weaponize that since being charged with a range of
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  Speaker 3: things in Romania. But boys are starting to vocalize these
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  Speaker 3: kind of views and beliefs to classrooms as well.
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  Speaker 1: My contention was going to be, and I was going
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  Speaker 1: to put it to you and ask you if I
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  Speaker 1: was on the right track or not. My contention was
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  Speaker 1: going to be that in the same way that Andrew
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  Speaker 1: Tate promotes a misogynistic worldview, so too, just the explicit
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  Speaker 1: content that young people seeing, whether they're in grade three
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  Speaker 1: or whether they're finishing high school, and both of those
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  Speaker 1: things combining and just creating this horrible melting pot of
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  Speaker 1: I guess, male aggression or dominance or an expectation that
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  Speaker 1: they can get away with this kind of thing. So maybe,
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  Speaker 1: before I go into what you're saying, would you push
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  Speaker 1: against that or you say that's a reasonable position to take.
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  Speaker 3: I would say that's reasonable broadly. But I think what
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  Speaker 3: Angrew Tate is offering is slightly different in that he,
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  Speaker 3: I guess, vocalizers or intellectualizes, not that I'm calling him
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  Speaker 3: intellectual at all, but intellectualizes maybe feelings that boys might
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  Speaker 3: have about, you know, being a little bit disaffected about society,
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  Speaker 3: a little bit confused about how things are going.
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  Speaker 2: Not quite sure where they fit.
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  Speaker 3: And he offers a really neat and prescriptive narrative for
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  Speaker 3: how to show up in the world and how to
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  Speaker 3: be in the world.
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  Speaker 2: And that is related absolutely.
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  Speaker 3: To very explicit content that feeds into derogatory ideas about
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  Speaker 3: girls and women. They do work together, but slightly in
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  Speaker 3: slightly different ways.
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  Speaker 1: So I think I'm really hearing you say, is that
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  Speaker 1: the Androw tape phenomenon, And if it's not him, it
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  Speaker 1: will be somebody else. He's not the only person out
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  Speaker 1: there with these views. What they're doing essentially is radicalizing
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  Speaker 1: masculinity and turning it into a masculinity is becoming a
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  Speaker 1: victim status in some ways, saying well, hang on now,
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  Speaker 1: the girls have got too much power. We've seen the
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  Speaker 1: sexual revolution change things to a point where there's a
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  Speaker 1: lack of balance and we need to reclaim that. Is
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  Speaker 1: that a better restatement of that.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's absolutely what we're seeing, and even that's
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  Speaker 3: what women who we spoke to in our study reported
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  Speaker 3: as well, saying things like boys now view us women
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  Speaker 3: as their oppressence and they have been exposed to sort
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  Speaker 3: of these debates online about things like the gender wage
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  Speaker 3: gap and myths about feminism's goals and aims, and that
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  Speaker 3: is very much a radical or radicalized view about women
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  Speaker 3: and about feminism, And the effects of hearing that narrative
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  Speaker 3: is that you start to treat women and girls with
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  Speaker 3: suspicion and start to understand yourself in relation to them.
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  Speaker 2: Very differently.
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  Speaker 1: I hear this sort of stuff and I'm just I
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  Speaker 1: know that I've got a PhD in psychology and all
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  Speaker 1: the staff, right, but I hear this and I just
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  Speaker 1: kind of think, can't we just be nice to each other.
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  Speaker 1: I'm writing a book at the moment about bringing up
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  Speaker 1: boys and my definition of masculinity, the working definition that
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  Speaker 1: I'm reasonably settled on. It might need some more tweaking
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  Speaker 1: as the book is refined, but the idea is that
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  Speaker 1: if you're a real man, if you hold your masculinity
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  Speaker 1: well and in a healthy way, that you make the
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  Speaker 1: people around you feel stronger and safer. And it's exactly
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  Speaker 1: the opposite of what you're describing. I mean, and it's
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  Speaker 1: not that hard to be nice. Well, it doesn't feel
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  Speaker 1: to me to be that hard to be nice. I've
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  Speaker 1: got a wife and six daughters. I'm nice to them,
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  Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? Just I find it infuriating.
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  Speaker 1: I'm sure that parents are listening to this, going how
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  Speaker 1: is this guy infecting our kids? When you look at
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  Speaker 1: this research, you spoke to all of these women, I'm
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  Speaker 1: sure that it wasn't just explored. Let's understand what's going on.
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  Speaker 1: I know that you've done some really smart work. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: we're going to link to your article that was in
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  Speaker 1: the Conversation, the one that you wrote with Stephen Roberts,
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  Speaker 1: who's a professor of education and social justice at MUNASH.
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  Speaker 1: As you've thought through this challenge, what do we do?
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  Speaker 1: How do you see us moving past this? How do
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  Speaker 1: we combat the rise of these radicalized masculine myths. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know what else to call them.
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  Speaker 2: They are myths.
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  Speaker 3: The first thing that I would suggest, there's been some
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  Speaker 3: research that's come out of Ireland that indicates that Andrew
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  Speaker 3: Tate and sort of similar figures online their content. The
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  Speaker 3: algorithm shows their content to.
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  Speaker 2: Boys, whether they search for it or not.
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  Speaker 3: So the first thing for parents is that they need
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  Speaker 3: to be aware that algorithms are changing and influencing how
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  Speaker 3: their children see the world, are informing it at the
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  Speaker 3: very least social media.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Anyway, yeah, okay, So parents need to
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  Speaker 1: be aware of it.
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  Speaker 3: First.
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  Speaker 1: What the catch is seeing in their feed is not
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  Speaker 1: what Mum and dad are seeing in their feed.
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  Speaker 3: No. I think it would be very interesting if parents
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  Speaker 3: would have a look at what is coming up in
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  Speaker 3: their children's algorithms on TikTok, especially on YouTube, and just
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  Speaker 3: see what these social media companies think a thirteen or
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  Speaker 3: fourteen year old boy is interested in and whether that
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  Speaker 3: reflects the person that they know. And I'm going to
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  Speaker 3: assume that it doesn't, because algorithms assume very limited and
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  Speaker 3: very narrow things about people in age and gender categories.
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  Speaker 3: So the first thing is to be aware of that
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  Speaker 3: and monitor it as much as you can. I know
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  Speaker 3: that's really tricky. I know that there's tension around parents
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  Speaker 3: and mobile phones, but we do need to take this
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  Speaker 3: really seriously. So I would suggest that our other recommendations
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  Speaker 3: are around conversation.
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  Speaker 2: So asking your kids, hey, do you know about this
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  Speaker 2: guy Andrew Tate? What are your thought thought?
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  Speaker 3: Well, tell me about what you're seeing online? Is there
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  Speaker 3: anything you've got questions about? Is there anything I can
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  Speaker 3: explain to you or help you understand without judgment, without
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  Speaker 3: reprimand with curiosity, and allow an.
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  Speaker 2: Open space for those conversations to happen.
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  Speaker 3: Because we really believe that boys who are seeing this
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  Speaker 3: sort of dangers stuff online really need this content to
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  Speaker 3: be encountered by adults and pushed back on and criticized
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  Speaker 3: a little bit.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I fundamentally believe that parenting is a it's a
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  Speaker 1: moral endeavor. Right when you're raising kids, when you're socializing them,
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  Speaker 1: what you're really doing is you're taking them the morality
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  Speaker 1: that's necessary to navigate the world in a healthy way.
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  Speaker 1: And when I hear you say that about conversations, my
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  Speaker 1: mind immediately goes to the idea that silence is the
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  Speaker 1: equivalent of complicity. And that might be an overly harsh
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  Speaker 1: thing to say. It could come across a little bit
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  Speaker 1: shaming or judge. But if we don't have the conversations,
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  Speaker 1: then our kids are not going to get the information
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  Speaker 1: that they need from us. I'm glad you so that
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  Speaker 1: you said there was a third thing.
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  Speaker 2: The third thing is what we can do in schools.
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  Speaker 3: And so we've already got respect for relationships education and
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  Speaker 3: that's fantastic and is intended to respond to these sorts
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  Speaker 3: of issues really well. But we need that to be
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  Speaker 3: implemented more comprehensively in schools and in schools all around Australia.
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  Speaker 3: At the moment, it's only mandatory in Victoria and in
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  Speaker 3: government schools in Victoria. The other thing that we're really
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  Speaker 3: pushing for is for the government to acknowledge that we've
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  Speaker 3: got an issue here with what's happening in schools, particularly
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  Speaker 3: around violence towards women and girls. So we want really
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  Speaker 3: firm language around that and a really firm acknowledgment that
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  Speaker 3: there's a zero tolerance approach to this sort of behavior
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  Speaker 3: in schools, and that protects both boys and girls. It
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  Speaker 3: allows boys to have better relationships with girls and women
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  Speaker 3: and to learn how to have really meaningful connections with them,
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  Speaker 3: and it protects girls from experiencing this kind of behavior
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  Speaker 3: but also from expecting it from the men and boys
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  Speaker 3: in their life.
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  Speaker 1: Autonomy is one of those things that I'm hearing more
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  Speaker 1: and more is from parents who were saying, I want
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  Speaker 1: my children to be able to make choices, but they
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  Speaker 1: also need guidelines. They need to know where the parameters are.
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  Speaker 1: You can make choices in this space, but you can't
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  Speaker 1: step out of it, and that's a perfect example of
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  Speaker 1: why that matters. Stephanie. Really appreciate your time, Thank you
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  Speaker 1: for joining me on the podcast. Good luck with your research,
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  Speaker 1: and hopefully this moves the needle and makes a noise
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  Speaker 1: in the areas where it needs to most.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having.
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  Speaker 1: Me doctor Stephanie Westcott is a lecturer in the School
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  Speaker 1: of Education, Culture and Society at Monash University. We will
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  Speaker 1: link to her article on the Conversation so you can
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  Speaker 1: read more about her research in our show notes. The
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  Speaker 1: Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and if you'd like
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: more information about how you can make your family happy,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: we'd love for you to check out our resources at
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: happyfamilies dot com, dot a yu
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  Speaker 3: Just