beware the new sexism in our schools
My school recently send round a link to kooth.com, recommending it as a place students can go to learn about mental health issues and potentially get counselling.Apparently lots of schools recommend it. I took a quick look at the website.It had some dreadful material, straight out of the 19th century in terms of the level of sexism and gender stereotyping.There was a section that suggests that girls who prefer to dress in a masculine way or cut their hair short may well not be proper girls at all.And another section that suggests that girls who like football, especially if this persists, may well also not be proper girls at all. Goodness knows what they’d have said about my grandmother (b. 1906), who used to play darts.What awful messages to send to young women. And it has a link to mermaids, which is a charity which promotes these kinds of sexist ideas. Not only is this all dreadfully sexist, but it’s against clear government guidelines, which say that schools must not promote sexist ideas like this, or recommend organisations that promote these kinds of sexist ideas based on out of date stereotypes. I’ve contacted the school. They say the website was recommended by the NHS, and they’ve been recommending this website to kids for years. They clearly hadn’t reviewed the information. I’ve contacted kooth.com. Ironically, it was a women with a job who responded. Why isn’t she at home cooking and cleaning? (that’s a joke, alright). Credit to them though, they have responded quickly, and say they are removing all the sexist material and are not going to link to mermaids any more. I don’t think they knew what was on their website. Maybe mermaids wrote it for them. What Kooth’s counsellors say to girls who like wearing trousers, and boys who like cooking, I dread to think. We need some undercover teenagers to find out for us. I’ve contacted the NHS, who pay kooth.com to produce this material. I don’t think they knew about the government guidelines, and I don't think they had reviewed the material they recommend to schools. They say they are going to look into it and get back to me.My warning to any parents out there: it’s well worth trying to be aware of what materials, websites and organisations schools are recommending. There is this new wave of sexist ideology, under the guise of trans rights, and it’s made a lot of headway, infiltrating the NHS and schools. The government is trying to stop it, and has produced very clear guidelines for schools (see below), but everyone’s too busy nowadays to check anything, and also sometimes too scared to speak up, and the radicals are using that as a chance to push their ideas.Another website with similar problems is itgetsbetter.org, which again mentions clothing and haircuts as indicators that girls may not be proper girls, and boys may not be proper boys. My daughter's school has agreed not to recommend it anymore.Here's the government guidance, which you can use to force your school to stop promoting these ideas, and to stop recommending the organisations that are pushing them (and to get some leverage, you can threaten to report the school to Ofsted for breaching the guidelines):“We are aware that topics involving gender and biological sex can be complex and sensitive matters to navigate. You should not reinforce harmful stereotypes, for instance by suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests or the clothes they prefer to wear. Resources used in teaching about this topic must always be age-appropriate and evidence based. Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and you should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material. While teachers should not suggest to a child that their non-compliance with gender stereotypes means that either their personality or their body is wrong and in need of changing, teachers should always seek to treat individual students with sympathy and support.”“Schools should not under any circumstances work with external agencies that take or promote extreme positions or use materials produced by such agencies.”https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum#using-external-agencies
Simon Pedley ● 1918d6 Comments