Misogyny in schools is an epidemic – robust sex education will help the next generation fight back
Plus: The Lead North is up for a national journalism award for our original, in-depth, local stories.
The news that school children are to be taught how to recognise and combat misogyny as part of new guidance to overhaul sex education is welcome – and long overdue. Comprehensive sex education in schools is vital in protecting children from abuse, so it is an immense relief that the Tories’ plan to limit pupils’ knowledge under the cynical guise of ‘protecting their innocence’, will no longer go ahead.
Sex ed in the UK has been lacking for decades. I’m in my 30s, and the extent of what we were taught at school was putting a condom on a courgette and watching a graphic video of a woman giving birth (with zero context). The focus was solely on avoiding teen pregnancy and STIs, nothing on power, nothing on abuse, nothing on how to identify predators, report them, or protect yourself. The upshot of this lack of knowledge was a culture in which the sexual exploitation of young girls was rife, and we were left without the tools to identify what was normal, what was dangerous, or what was crossing a line.
Even back then, the internet was a wild west for unmonitored sexual activity, and a lot of our first encounters with sex came from trawling chatrooms at sleepovers. Now, with the ubiquity of social media, it has never been more important for young people to feel knowledgeable and confident when confronted with sex and sexual dynamics online. I would hope things have improved since the noughties, but studies from as recently as 2023 show that young people are still leaving school feeling unprepared, with not even the basics being covered.
Relationships, sex and health education [RSHE] became mandatory in 2020 – including important issues like power imbalances in relationships, grooming red flags, sexual pleasure, and accessing sexual health services – but the Sex Education Forum has reported that the quality of lessons has failed to improve since then. This may be due to a combination of factors, from the disruption of the pandemic, to the chronic staffing shortages in teaching. But these failings would only have been exacerbated by Tory plans to further limit sex education.
The Conservative government’s draft guidance, proposed just before the election, gave clear age limits on the teaching of certain topics to ensure children were not “exposed to too much too soon”. It said sex education should be taught no earlier than age nine, and that gender identity should not be taught at all. But this desperate, last-ditch attempt to weaponise culture wars narratives to appeal to the right, demonstrates nothing but the Tories’ contempt for young people and worried parents.
This was never a proposal that intended to centre the safety of children, as the Conservatives claimed, but exactly the opposite. Scaling back sex-ed does not protect young people, it disempowers them and leaves them more vulnerable. This is cynical, self-serving politics at its very worst.
It’s a welcome sea change, then, to see Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson attempt to tackle the crisis of misogyny head-on. “I want our children to be equipped to defy the malign forces that exist online,” she said. “Schools and parents alike have a vital role to play, helping children identify positive role models and resist the manipulation too often used online to groom impressionable young minds.” In its manifesto, Labour pledged to halve the rate of violence against women and girls in 10 years. This work has to begin in the classroom.
Teachers have reported a deeply concerning rise in misogyny in pupils – even in primary school age children – with the insidious influence of the likes of Andrew Tate et al infecting the attitudes of young people with largely unregulated, direct access through the algorithms.
These pervasive attitudes are manifesting as rudeness towards teachers, gender stereotyping, violence in classrooms, and harassment of female students. The problem has become so bad, teachers are even citing misogyny as a reason for leaving the profession.
As the online landscape – and the way it impacts the safety of young people – evolves, so too must the education around it. It’s right that sex education broadens its scope to include AI, deepfakes, pornography and the ‘monosphere’, particularly as tech companies continue to be evasive in implementing meaningful safeguarding measures.
It wasn’t hyperbolic of Phillipson to call the rise of misogyny an “epidemic”. The direct impact of growing contempt towards women and girls is already being felt, now is the time to turn the tide with robust sex education for all children that will equip the next generation with the tools to fight back.■
About the author: Natalie Morris is our Senior Editor here at The Lead. Elsewhere, she is a freelance writer, journalist and host covering social justice, inequality, health and community, writing in the Guardian, the Independent, Metro, Grazia, Stylist, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and more. She’s the author of Mixed/Other and co-author of Leigh-Anne Pinnock’s memoir Believe.
We’re delighted to tell you the in-depth local journalism we publish twice-a-week across the North of England is up for an award.
Press Gazette’s Future of Media Awards has seen The Lead North project shortlisted in the Best Journalism-Based Newsletters of 2025 (Specialist/Regional) category.
Launched in early 2024 the Lead North aims to go beyond the metropolises of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and dig underneath the surface of what’s happening.
We have dedicated newsletters and reporters in Blackpool, Lancashire, Southport, Teesside and Calderdale publishing directly to thousands of subscribers each week, with a growing number of paid supporters who recognise the need for rigorous local journalism in this age of false narratives and ailing accountability for those in public office.
Senior Editor for The Lead North, Luke Beardsworth, said: "Being nominated in the Future of Media Awards is recognition of the fantastic work done by our journalists in Lancashire, Blackpool, Southport, Teesside and Calderdale.
"We firmly believe that there is an audience and a market for long-form, careful and considered reporting across the North and that's what we're starting to prove .There are dozens of stories that wouldn't have been reported on without their hard work.
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The Lead North last year also published more than 200,000 free local newspapers across the North of England in the run up to the general election, fusing together our local and national coverage and going through doors in 11 key towns.
We also regularly amplify our Lead North stories - such as the revelations around the Reform branded Talbot pub in Blackpool - in our national newsletter and we also regularly feature stories from Northern correspondents such as Kevin Gopal’s recent-look at the state of funding for universities with a distinctly Northern flavour to it or how the welfare rebellion had a very Northern heart.
The awards will be announced in September and the best of luck to our fellow shortlisted newsletters Uncovered with Sam McBride by the Belfast Telegraph, Democracy for Sale, The Edinburgh Minute, Free Lunch by Financial Times and Will Hayward.
What a load of shite. Natalie, did you even read the actual guidance Labour are scrapping? You insist that the new guidance is better than the Tory draft guidance when it is virtually identical. I would advise you to do your research, or at least read something by someone who has.
It’s horrible to realise what children are going to be exposed to and what their friends are going to be exposed to these days. It’s awful but it has to be recognised and letting them meet it unprepared is unfair to them. They need age appropriate tools - knowledge and teaching - to protect and defend themselves for those occasions when their parents are not there. It would be great if no one had to think about these things but we do if we are going to care for children responsibly.