UK Schools to give boys anti-misogyny lessons to stop toxic masculinity in wake of Netflix hit Adolescence

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Schools are set to give students anti-misogyny lessons in the wake of hit Netflix TV show Adolescence about a teen boy who murders a female classmate.

The classes form part of the government's new relationships, health and sex education (RHSE) guidance, which will be introduced before the end of the academic year.

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer revealed at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday that he was watching the mini-series with his two teenagers - and that he backs the show creators' calls for it to be shown in parliament and schools.

The four-episode programme follows the Miller family, whose lives are torn apart when their 13-year-old son Jamie is arrested for stabbing a female classmate to death after being influenced by online misogyny.

The drama, released ten days ago, was the most-watched show on Netflix worldwide last weekend, gripping audiences with its sobering portrayal of how social media and misogynistic influencers can impact young boys.

Though Labour's classroom guidance is still being developed, it is understood to include content to 'support healthy relationships', to 'enable schools to tackle harmful behaviour and ensure that misogyny is stamped out and not allowed to proliferate', an insider source said, the Times reported.

From as early as primary school, children will be encouraged to 'express and understand boundaries, handle disappointment and pay attention to the needs and preferences of oneself and others', with content modified for older children to reflect the 'real-life complexities of romantic and sexual relationships', the source added.

The development comes as a win for the Netflix show's co-writers, Jack Thorne and actor Stephen Graham - who stars as the teen boy's father - who have said they wanted Adolescence to be a programme that 'causes discussion and makes change'.

The new guidance will encourage students to 'think about what healthy sexual relationships involve' - including 'consent', along with 'kindness, attention and care'.

As children progress to secondary school, classroom content will start to include the 'communication and ethics' needed for healthy romantic and sexual relationships.

Topics covered will range from dynamics of power and vulnerability, to tools to manage 'difficult emotions', like disappointment and anger, that can affect relationships.

The effects of misogynistic online content and pornography on both young people's sexual behaviour and their views of relationship norms will also be discussed.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has faced pressure to overturn RSHE guidance drafted by the previous Conservative government - which included bans on sex education for children under nine and discussions of gender identity.

Adolescence was praised last week by the parents of a survivor of the Southport stabbings for drawing attention to the 'terrifying' impacts of online misogynistic content on young men.

Axel Rudakubana, then 17, stabbed their daughter - known as Child A - more than 30 times during his brutal attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July last year. He killed three young girls - and was jailed for life in January.

The parents, in a statement read out by their MP during a debate on knife crime in the House of Commons on Thursday, said influencers like Andrew Tate are having a 'terrifying' impact on teen boys, who needed to be protected from this content.

Rudakubana cleared most of his online search history before the murders - so it is not known whether he viewed any content associated with Tate.

Triple murderer Kyle Clifford - who shot his ex-girlfriend Louise Hunt and her sister Hannah with a crossbow and stabbed their mother Carol - is known to have viewed Tate's videos before making his ferocious attacks.

Teachers were told in government guidance released last year to look out for signs of misogyny and 'incel culture' in students aged 14 and over, which could lead to sexual abuse, violence and suicide.

The education secretary warned teachers to watch out for teen boys who had been indoctrinated by 'manosphere' influencers into 'hating women'.

Last week, former England football manager Sir Gareth Southgate blasted 'callous, manipulative and toxic influencers' for leading young men towards misogyny.

At the BBC's annual Richard Dimbleby lecture, he said the 'sole drive' of these pernicious online creators is their 'own gain': 'They willingly trick young men into believing that success is measured by money or dominance, that strength means never showing emotion, and that the world, including women, is against them.'

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The strength of the programme is actually in how little it explains about Jamie's motivations. It's not even clear Jamie himself consumes this specific content beyond being generally aware of it. It is never clarified at all how Jamie gets from getting a knockback from Katie at some point to at some later point deciding to arm himself and murder her. The overwhelming majority of discussion about this series is coming from people who haven't watched it.
 
Christ alive, but it worked as well. Nearly everyone I know was repeating ideas from it rote, or all-but-demanding everyone who hasn't seen it yet go watch it. Even the other rona jab refusenik in the family was all-on on praising this shit. I'm scared to look at it, in case there's some whacko nutjob-style hidden signal in it that will scramble my brain...
A lot of people really do match the concept of 'nigger cattle' sadly.
 
I'm quite amazed, maybe it is a cultural thing and I don't pick up on the nuances but where is the threshold for this countries citizens to actually start going French Revolution? I'm starting to think they have no threshold.
There was a long period prior to the revolution, characterised by increased criminality, low-level violence, and sporadic riots that were brutally suppressed by the state. A better comparison is the Irish independence movement, which was also preceded by a prolonged period of increasingly violent protests that were also brutally suppressed by the Crown, before exploding quite suddenly into a full-blown revolutionary war. The UK as a whole is in a similar period right now. There are petty conflicts between natives and the police fairly often, but they aren't reported.
 
Rudakubana cleared most of his online search history before the murders - so it is not known whether he viewed any content associated with Tate.
Just wanted to address this weasel bullshit
We know exactly what the killer was looking at, he was searching for “mar mari emmanuel stabbing” where an islamist stabbed a bishop, that was his inspiration and motivation
so there's actually even more layers of lies to this than I could even express
 
I sort of assumed the point of that show was demonstrating how the breakdown of society is failing our children. Yes, it makes an observation about the manosphere, but it also touches on things like social media bullying, parents not parenting their children, schools having gone to shit, some teachers just being there for the paycheck and not caring about their students, other teachers just yelling at kids (because the kids are feral), the other teachers being caring but unable to control their students or are loving mumsy types that the boys don't respect etc etc.

I'm still finishing it so I don't know the denoument. But while Andrew Tate is namechecked, that's only one tiny aspect that's mostly brought up to explain why he was getting bullied for being an incel. If you watch this show and think "if only Andrew Tate didn't make videos", you've missed the point. The issue isn't how we convince kids who watch Andrew Tate that he's wrong, the issue is why are they turning to Andrew Tate in the first place? Failing to address that and hectoring them is only going to make them more into the manosphere

That's before unpacking the number of kids whose parents come from highly misogynistic cultures and are actively embedding those values into their children.
 
The strength of the programme is actually in how little it explains about Jamie's motivations. It's not even clear Jamie himself consumes this specific content beyond being generally aware of it. It is never clarified at all how Jamie gets from getting a knockback from Katie at some point to at some later point deciding to arm himself and murder her. The overwhelming majority of discussion about this series is coming from people who haven't watched it.
Did we watch the same show? The show repeatedly pushes the message that he killed her because he was angry she rejected him. He asked her out, she responded with, "I'm not that desperate", and then he stabbed her to death.

In the episode where the detective is interviewing teachers and students at the school, Andrew Tate, the "manosphere", "incels", and "the red pill" are brought up and are not dismissed. In the episode where the psychologist is interviewing Jamie, he tries to control and dominate the situation in such a way that we're supposed to interpret it as him trying to dominate her because she's a woman. In the last episode, the father says he thought his son was "safe in his room" because he was spending his time alone on the computer.

You're familiar with the literary concept of Chekov's Gun, right? You don't include something in a narrative unless it's in some way relevant to the story. There's a reason why these lines of dialogue were included. You're absolutely supposed to watch it and take away from it that the boy was influenced by things he saw on the Internet. The show is open-ended in suggesting what the solution to the 'issue' might be, but it is extremely direct and laser-focused on what it believes the issue is.
 
@Otterly looks like your nudge speculation was true. They're immediately rolling out policies to capitalise on the discussion about this show.

Christ alive, but it worked as well. Nearly everyone I know was repeating ideas from it rote, or all-but-demanding everyone who hasn't seen it yet go watch it. Even the other rona jab refusenik in the family was all-on on praising this shit. I'm scared to look at it, in case there's some whacko nutjob-style hidden signal in it that will scramble my brain...
Quel surprise. This was an obvious behavioural insights job, with a planned ‘response’ chain, and policies ready to roll.
What else gets piggy backed on it, let’s see….

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has faced pressure to overturn RSHE guidance drafted by the previous Conservative government - which included bans on sex education for children under nine and discussions of gender identity
Ahhhh there we go! Gotta get the grooming in as well. That’ll help the misogyny I’m sure.
Adolescence was praised last week by the parents of a survivor of the Southport stabbings for drawing attention to the 'terrifying' impacts of online misogynistic content on young men
This makes me feel ill. Your little girl was almost killed not because of Andrew sodding Tate but because of our insane immigration policy, terrible mental health support and kier bloody starmer allowing his RPF fighter father in the country for some unknown reason
 
I’m sure he has a range of talking points ready to go for the talk show circuit.
I'm quite amazed, maybe it is a cultural thing and I don't pick up on the nuances but where is the threshold for this countries citizens to actually start going French Revolution? I'm starting to think they have no threshold.
I genuinely don’t know. When the last water vole has choked on a discarded vape canister and the last meadow has been tarmacced over for barrat homes and the workhouses are full to bursting with the poor who are left after the invasion, maybe they will dare to whisper about it, before being shamed back into silence. I fucking despair.
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again and I'll keep saying it. There are a lot of people in the world who unironically cannot distinguish between fiction and reality. Like their brains just cannot comprehend the things they read or see on tv are not real. They really, truly and honestly believe the things they see are real. Even if they're consciously aware it's not real their subconscious brains treat it like it is and their decisions are influenced by that. It's really scary when you start to pay attention and notice just how many people's realities are defined by tv and movie logic.
Spend ten minutes on Reddit for a confirmation. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone pose a hypothetical, with the top response being "see [fiction movie] for your answer". They either can't tell that movies aren't real, or they think that Hollywood is full of prophets who can accurately predict the future. Either way I unironically believe that they shouldn't be able to vote or own property.
 
Spend ten minutes on Reddit for a confirmation. I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone pose a hypothetical, with the top response being "see [fiction movie] for your answer". They either can't tell that movies aren't real, or they think that Hollywood is full of prophets who can accurately predict the future. Either way I unironically believe that they shouldn't be able to vote or own property.
It can be a lot more subtle too. The biggest one I tend to notice is distorted views on how long things take or simplified views of complicated processes. There's a lot of people out there who get impatient at how long things actually take in the real world when it's something portrayed in movies as happening relatively quickly or instantly. Then there's stuff like court cases or computer hacking. Look how many stupid pop culture lists exist that need to explain to people 'akshually those things don't really work like that at all.'
 
I think it's more embarrasing that politicians are admitting to getting their strategies from what they watched on netflix.

This

Propagandizing kids based on propaganda that was produced as a lie specifically to stop them being angry about the specific things you are doing to harm them
How many layers of dystopia is the caliphate on?

Yup.. And the way they so openly talk about it. They lump everyone feminists and prog soys don't like into the worst of it. Not believing all women, well that's a misogyny, a boy noticing the double standards, that's a misogyny, not believing you or your female partner should cheat, that's a misogyny, expressing views about men having rights.. you better believe that's a dangerous misogyny!
 
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