Against the background of serious concerns about sexual violence and abuse in schools and Ofsted’s announcement of a review, New Visions Group Council Member, Professor Kate Myers reflects on her own experience of tackling the issues nearly 40 years ago in 1983 and calls for the work done then to be revived.
Kate Myers is Emeritus Professor, University of Keele. This article was first published in abbreviated form in The Times (UK) on 5th April 2021.
It’s shocking but not surprising to read about the allegations of sexual harassment suffered by female pupils at several prestigious public and state schools. Sadly this is not news for many of us.
Long before Me too, and Black Lives Matter many feminist educators were trying to raise the issues of many (but not all) boys behaving badly in mixed sex settings. Co-ed schools were often schools for boys where girls were at best tolerated but often treated as unwelcome guests.(1)
Nearly forty years ago a group of us organised a conference called ‘Equal Opportunities: What’s in it for boys?’ Having taught for 13 years in a comprehensive school in the Inner London Education Authority I had been seconded to the Schools Council’s Sex Differentiation in Education Project. The Equal Pay Act 1970 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 were both in place. Following the legislation, many of us worked hard in our schools attempting to raise the aspirations of our female students. In particular we were concerned about girls’ underachievement and under-representation in significant subject areas. Increasingly we started to feel that it was equally important to address the quality of their life in mixed schools.(2)
It was evident that focusing on girls was not enough. Hence the conference which was funded by the Equal Opportunities Commission and supported by the Schools Council(3) and Inner London Education Authority. Our premise was that it was not fair on the girls to try to change their behaviours and attitudes unless we also worked with the boys who would grow up to be the men they would work with and some of them, live with. We deliberately did not demonise men and boys. Often they had not been exposed to the issues nor encouraged to reflect on the girls’ perspective. We wanted to encourage them to change their behaviour for their own sakes as well as for the sakes of the girls they interacted with. We worked alongside male colleagues who were as passionate as we were about these issues.
As well as keynote speeches there were several workshops led by both women and men. Topics included looking at sexuality and health education, working with boys in boys’ schools and working with boys in mixed schools. We came up with a list of suggestions including developing whole school policies, instigating self- evaluation by schools, producing teaching resources, and staff training.
The pack of teaching materials(4) which we produced following the conference was essentially practical. Looking at these materials now there is a big omission. We did not cover the intersectionality of equality issues. Then we did not have to deal with the consequences of social media and online porn, both of which have exacerbated the impact of the issues. Nevertheless, much of the content is still relevant. We covered topics such as looking at what boys and men have to gain from equality: such as better health, a greater emotional range, better personal relations, more time with the family, a better working life. We produced questions for teachers to ask about their schools such as: Do (more…)