Misogyny is infiltrating the lives of children and young people at an alarming pace. But what can we do about it?

This spring, journalist and author Maya Oppenheim joined Tender Patron Olivia Colman and CEO Susie McDonald at a Tender workshop to explore how our specialist programmes are challenging the narrative – and changing young lives for the better.
Words by Maya Oppenheim. Photo credit: Ali Smith.

Inside a primary school in Norfolk, children read a script from a fictitious scene which includes mind games, coercion, verbal abuse and threats. Perched on the edge of her chair in anticipation, the Oscar winner Olivia Colman listens intently as kids aged nine and ten vociferously wave red paper flags in response to the parts of the scene which feel troubling to them.

The script sees one child playing a video game while another bullies them. ‘Let me have a go now, you’re doing it wrong. You are so rubbish at this game,’ one child reads.

The pupils wave their red flags in response. ‘Is that the character you’ve created? They look stupid! They’re just like you!’ the bully taunts. Again, the students wave their red flags. ‘I can’t wait to tell everyone how bad you are at it,’ the kid adds, unleashing yet more flag waving. 

As the two pupils act out the script, others are asked to explain to the group why they are waving the flag. The children’s answers are astute, perceptive and empathetic. The kids are later given suggestions on how to respond if an equivalent situation were to arise in their own lives.

We are just outside of Norwich at a workshop for pupils at Rockland St Mary primary school, which children from nearby Surlingham Primary School are also attending. The session has been crafted by Tender: the arts charity Colman has been a patron of for over a decade. The workshops teach pupils about the importance of healthy, loving relationships in the hope of confronting the explosion of misogynistic views among young men.

When Colman discusses the rising influence of misogynist social media personalities, her eyes fill with fear. The actor tells me that young men’s worldview is being distorted by the misconception that gender equality is to blame for their problems. 

‘They are given misinformation,’ the Oscar winner warns. ‘Men have been saying it’s the rise of women which has brought down men. That hasn’t happened. Women are still very much fighting for their place and men have not been brought down by that. Equality helps everybody.’

But Colman is clear that misogyny has profoundly damaging reverberations. ‘Misogyny is hatred,’ she warns. ‘There is no place for it. I can’t think of an example where hatred has made anything better ever.’ 

The actor believes that ‘everyone should be’ concerned about the swelling influence of misogynist ideology and the social media personalities disseminating these views. ‘If a boy is feeling lost, doesn’t know where to look, there are some loud voices that go, “That is what a man is: that is having facial hair. That is being unkind to women.”  I think they are looking for leadership as all kids do.’

Tender’s Chief Executive, Susie McDonald, is seeing how this problem plays out in schools in real-time. She warns the charity is encountering boys as young as 13 parroting extreme incel views which she believes they have come across online. An incel, which stands for a combination of the words ‘involuntary’ and ‘celibate’, is a heterosexual boy or man who desperately wants to have sex with women but fails to do so and then blames women for this. There have been several deadly incidents linked to the incel movement in recent years. 

‘They are often very anti-women or talking about the idea that women have more power or are trying to claw back power from men,’ McDonald says of the young boys. ‘Comments like “women should sit down and shut up”, “they should know their place”, that “men should have more power in a relationship”. It’s like, are we still in the 1950s?’

McDonald, who has been at the helm of Tender since 2009, explains the issue which underpins violence against women – misogyny – has not changed since Colman came on board as a patron in 2013. Instead, she says the key change has been the digital world in which these attitudes draw breath. ‘The volume of toxic male influencers and the access that they have to boys and men have increased exponentially,’ she warns. 

Tender’s work has had to evolve in response. Programmes are now designed to assume some young people’s views and attitudes will have been shaped ‘by strangers online who peddle their snake oil messages,’ McDonald explains.

Colman is adamant Tender’s work can tackle misogynistic views head-on as she calls for their programmes to be rolled out to every child across the country. ‘So little kids can learn that unkindness is not the way to happiness. Equality is the way to happiness,’ she adds.

The actor argues that coming up with ‘positive and optimistic solutions to enable children to have the happy, healthy friendships and relationships they deserve has never felt more important and Tender’s role in that is absolutely vital.’

Holding sexist views has real-world consequences and there needs to be greater awareness of the link between misogyny and domestic abuse, she adds. Colman is keen for more men in the public eye to speak out against misogyny – arguing boys need positive male role models. ‘Men who come in all different shapes and sizes, who can say you can be yourself, you can be emotional, you can be strong,’ she elaborates. ‘Masculinity doesn’t mean unkindness.’

Another core solution Colman proposes to tackle the aforementioned issues is a ban on smart phones for under-16s – explaining she gave her own children ‘brick phones’ when they were travelling to school in case of an emergency. Colman also calls for children to go on laptops in the near vicinity to their parents rather than using devices in bedrooms.

Tender works across schools, youth centres, workplaces, community groups and local authorities to teach children, young people and adults about the early signs of domestic abuse and the danger of sexist views – using drama and the arts to do so. The charity has worked with more than 572,000 children and young people since it launched in 2003 – working with nearly 200 schools in the last year.

‘The work Tender does is offering a solution to the little lads who are at sea and don’t know who to look to for guidance,’ Colman reflects. ‘You don’t want boys and men to be the problem. You want to offer them the chance to be part of the solution.’

Maya Oppenheim

Maya Oppenheim is an author and freelance journalist. She is the former Women’s Correspondent at The Independent and was the first and only person to have this job title at a UK news outlet – writing news stories, features, investigations, and the occasional opinion piece, exploring UK news and global stories from a women’s angle. In her six-plus years in the role, she wrote about human rights, domestic abuse, sexual violence, abortion, health, police perpetrated abuse, childcare, the far right, sex work, the criminal justice system and more. 

Maya is the author of The Pocket Guide to the Patriarchy – a 22-chapter book which has been endorsed by Amnesty UK, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, actor Olivia Colman, among others, which explores the aforementioned issues and more.