It’s Not Okay: Sexism and Sexual Harassment in Schools
The conference took place on the 24th September in Hinckley. There were lots of different workshops available, I chose to take part in ‘Rethinking Masculinity’, ‘Ending the Silent Treatment of the Menopause’ and ‘Intersectional Racism’.
One clear message from this conference is that ending sexism within schools is everyone’s job within a school, there should be policies in place to make it clear that change needs to happen, and then it is up to everyone within the school to implement these policies. It is imperative to realise that what pupils say is happening vs what staff know about in schools is massively different. Sexual harassment is now seen as so commonplace at school that pupils don’t even see the point in reporting it! As adults, we need to role model positive relationships and emphasise that positive relationships matter. I felt inspired to encourage my school to make a public pledge to prevent sexism and sexual harassment, something which I am still aiming to achieve. I have also created a feminist lunch club, as a space for girls to discuss the issues pertaining to them at my school, and how we can go about achieving them.
The ‘Rethinking Masculinity’ was a very powerful workshop, that focussed on the issues that boys pose and face within school, and the socialisation of boys and the impacts this has on them as young men. We as teachers can have an impact on this, be it challenging stereotypes and definitions, helping parents to navigate conversations with boys to creating a safe space for boys to begin exploring their emotions. Masculinity often draws up images of overt sexuality, dominance over women, and a focus on body image. By opening up the conversations with boys, this can help us in the step towards ending sexism in schools.
Hopefully I am quite a way off from needing to worry about the menopause and how it impacts me at work, but I do work with quite a number of women who are peri-menopausal and menopausal, and I was interest to learn how schools can help to accommodate women going through it. I left knowing that 45% of women will find the menopause hard to deal with, and 25% of women have considered leaving work due to these symptoms, which really highlights how important change is to support women in the workplace. Health and safety legislation is mainly written by men, for men, and thus doesn’t always support women in the way that it should. Many schools now are adopting a menopause policy, which has been modelled on the NEU website.
The last workshop I attended was the ‘Intersectional Nature of Racism’ workshop. Which highlighted the different treatment for black girls. Here, it was discusses that black girls aren’t seen as being as innocent as white girls by adults, which instinctively leads to less protection for black girls. I found this shocking. It was said that schools are excessively punitive in their dealings with black children, something that I hope to never witness.
Overall, the day was very insightful, inspiring but also shocking. It is astounding how much sexism and sexual harassment happens in an institution which is supposed to protect children. As society is changing, schools need to make sure they are keeping up.
