The feature length Netflix series “Adolescence” has enchanted over 66 million viewers in every country on earth. It has served to generate extraordinary conversations about misogyny and violence. There’s been much critical acclaim for the series, calling it a serious contender come award season. The Mike Flanagan–produced show elaborates on the truly horrifying real-life case of a 13-year-old who murders his family. His motives stem from a misogyny that is radicalized by his life online.
Set within a high school environment where teachers double as social workers, the series explores the pervasive issue of misogynistic behavior among students. Sadly, the storyline only mirrors reality, because educators are too often put in a position of having to teach behaviors that are outside their contractual obligations. One teacher depicted in the series shares her worries about the difficulty of balancing a dual role. She emphasizes the critical importance of transformative change in our educational environments.
Escalating Concerns in Schools
In this short segment, ANU Professor Michael Salter explains the shocking trend towards sexual harassment starting as early as a prepubescent age. Unfortunately, this trend has continued for at least four decades, further highlighting the chronicity of the issue. An anonymous survey conducted by Dr. Stephanie Wescott among more than 130 South Australian teachers revealed a “heightened use of misogynistic language and behaviors by male students, some as young as five.”
Wescott emphasizes the need for specificity in language when it comes to addressing these inequities.
“Before we could even measure or record [misogynistic behaviour or gender-based violence] we would need to use accurate language to describe what is going on,” – Wescott.
She stresses that when schools do talk about misogyny and gender-based violence, they often steer clear of language like that. Rather, they opt for less loaded terms that obfuscate the reality of what’s going on.
“But calling it bullying, for example, which is one euphemism that is sometimes used, it misrepresents the gendered element,” – Wescott.
The Role of Education in Addressing Misogyny
Salter believes that education plays a key role in fighting male violence and misogyny. He supports making investments to mitigate risk factors that lead people to act this way, such as overcoming adverse childhood experiences. Treat kids like kids, not mini-adults. By refraining from imposing the full weight of adult-like characteristics to their behavior, we can go a long way towards mitigating these problems.
“Fundamentally, we need to approach children as children,” – Salter.
Dr. Wescott further elaborates that while social media figures like Andrew Tate often receive blame for exacerbating these problems, deeper societal assumptions require scrutiny.
“We’ve got some really complex challenges on our hands with boys, and I think social media and Andrew Tate have become quite a convenient way to answer that question without really challenging some of our underlying assumptions that really need challenging … I think we could cut off social media tomorrow and still have really high rates of violence committed against girls and women by teenage boys because frankly they’ve always been the group most at risk of committing gender-based violence, well before the internet.” – Wescott.
Moving Towards Change
Educators like Schulz emphasize the necessity for educational institutions to incorporate gender discourses into mainstream curricula, akin to subjects such as language and numeracy.
“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. And these kinds of [gender] discourses and learning, just like learning English language or learning numeracy, [should be] part of what everyone learns,” – Schulz.
He cautions from pushing these important conversations to the outer rings of the education sphere.
“It’s good that we’ve got this, but it’ll be shoehorned into pastoral care, or areas of the curriculum that teachers and students alike will view it as the sidelines to the main event,” – Schulz.
The conversation around “Adolescence” has already sparked demands for more far-reaching plans in schools to tackle persistent misogyny and sexism in classrooms head on.
“We may miss a conversation about what is happening every day and the very routine and sometimes even mundane ways that these expressions of misogyny and sexism are coming from young boys in schools.” – Wescott.