Australian Schools Are Teaching Teen Boys About Healthy Relationships & Respecting Women

Several schools in Australia have begun teaching teenage students, males in particular about healthy relationships and respecting women. Andrew Taukolo, who founded the Men4Respect program, gives boys aged 13 to 18 important lessons on sexual assault and abuse in order to break stereotypes and reshape toxic masculinity into something healthier and more balanced, The Guardian reports.

  1. Teenage boys have a seriously warped view of women. Boys in one of Taukolo’s classrooms in the state of Queensland read through a series of statements and shared whether they believed the ideas were fact or myth. “Women like to exaggerate how bad abuse is,” one statement read. Another posited: “Abuse only happens when a man is provoked by a woman.” A third stated: “If the abuse was really that bad, then the woman would leave.” Male students used to easily identify many of these as myths… but that’s beginning to change.
  2. Amber Heard is a big topic of conversation. Taukolo shared that while running five separate consent education programs at schools in Queensland, he’s noticed Heard being used to justify misogynistic views. “The young men would say things like: ‘But did you watch the Amber Heard trial? She could be just like Amber Heard, she could be a liar and just want money or just want attention'” Taukolo shared. “And quite a few of the young men would then change their minds and say: ‘You know, women do actually lie a lot. Most women do lie a lot.'”
  3. Sexual abuse is a serious problem in Australian high schools. Former Sydney private school student Chanel Contos launched the Teach Us Consent petition calling for consent education, highlighting the prevalence of sexual abuse in schools across the country. She hopes that education on sexual violence, consent, and gendered abuse will be mandatory across Australia beginning next year. “It was a wake-up call for a lot of young men. But there’s still an issue,” Taukolo said. “When we dive a bit deeper [in the class] and ask what are your actual views on consent and give them some scenarios, that’s when we’d find the alarming attitudes.”
  4. Male students do seem to be starving for more education. Man Cave, a school program promoting boys’ mental and emotional health, surveyed 500 boys and discovered that teens do understand the concepts of consent and respect and that they’re open to learning more, according to CEO Hunter Johnson. Unfortunately, the pandemic has had a negative effect on their thinking. “Due to the last two-and-a-half years, the young men are more socially and emotionally behind than their female counterparts. There’s more disrespect in the classroom, particularly towards female and non-binary classmates,” Hunter revealed.
  5. Boys are often afraid of being falsely accused. Social media has convinced men that women regularly make up lies about being assaulted, leading to fear among teen boys. “There is a lot of rhetoric around, I think from social media or media in general, that they could get falsely accused,” says Ojasvi Jyoti, co-head of curriculum at Consent abs. “Even though statistics show that only 5% of assault allegations are false.” However, he adds that there are some signs that give him hope. “I think in the past a lot of young men felt uncomfortable with these sorts of things, or didn’t really know how to be active or anti that behavior,” he says.
  6. Attitudes are slowly but surely starting to change. Overhauling toxic behavior patterns takes time, but Hayley Foster, CEO of Full Stop Australia, thinks it will happen eventually. That being said, she knows it’s an uphill battle. “When you have young people that are imbibed in an environment of misogyny, objectification of women and girls and gender roles and expectations that are supportive of violence, then [advocates] can sometimes feel as if you’re losing the battle,” she admits.
Jennifer Still is a writer and editor with more than 10 years of experience. The managing editor of Bolde, she has bylines in Vanity Fair, Business Insider, The New York Times, Glamour, Bon Appetit, and many more. You can follow her on Twitter @jenniferlstill
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