This post was first published in Bea Magazine on 24 Feb 2013.

When my daughter started at the primary school she currently attends, I noted that not a single staff member was male. I was aware that primary teaching is an area where women dominate by numbers, but I was still slightly surprised that there were no men working there at all. During her reception year it emerged that one of the school’s class teachers was leaving, and her replacement, it later transpired, was a man. The school hadn’t especially gone looking for a man, but a good male candidate popped up, and they appointed him.

I was interested by the reaction from parents. Most of them seemed happy with the turn of events, but the most vocally pleased about it were the parents of boys, who clearly feel that having a male teacher is important for male children, in particular. I recall a conversation with a mother of boys – a lovely woman – who was especially happy with the news. She explained that her son has had some trouble settling in school, and his teachers say that he doesn’t listen, pay attention, obey. What happened next came as a real shock to me; she said: “When they tell me that, I feel like saying “well it’s no wonder, is it, with all you women nagging him all the time?’”.

I am not singling this woman out for criticism. Like I said, she’s a warm, lovely woman, very friendly, and she’s raising sweet boys that my daughter is fond of. But I can’t forget what she said. This wholesale criticism of women teachers came from the mouth of a woman, and that, to me, is indicative of just how ingrained into all of us is the tendency to denigrate women in a position of authority, and of how much more forgiving we are towards men. I suspect I might in the past have done this sort of thing myself, even.

The opinion of that mother, though not expressed quite so directly by other parents, was, I think, broadly espoused by many of them. And all of this got me thinking a great deal more about the topic of boys’ education, which I am aware has generated academic reports and myriad newspaper articles in which journalists ask questions like “ARE WE FAILING OUR BOYS?”, point out that male children aren’t generally doing as well as girls in school, and emphasise the need to do something about it. I agree that it’s a shame if boys aren’t keeping up with girls, but in my opinion, blaming women isn’t going to fix the problem.

Now I’m not saying that everyone in the world thinks that women, or the ‘feminisation’ of education is to blame, but judging by the opinions I came across reading news articles and blogs on this, it’s clear that a great many do. They say that boys need strong role models, that they need authority figures, that they can’t learn from women; that women tell them off for doing the things that come naturally to them (being naughty and boisterous is the preserve of boys only, obviously) and that this is damaging to them. Their conclusion is that we need more men teaching boys.

I think the idea that noisiness, naughtiness, and physical roughness are the natural behaviours of boys, not girls, is fallacious, and I’m also pretty suspicious of the very confident assertions of those who maintain that boys and girls learn in entirely different ways, not least because I’ve recently been reading the work of Cordelia Fine, who argues pretty convincingly against the existence of inherent differences in the male and female brain. But I’m going to put aside the fact that I disagree with the belief that boys are intrinsically different from girls for the moment (and therefore the argument that they may need to be educated differently), and I’m going to put aside all the other considerations that possibly need taking into account when considering our current problems with education of boys. Not least the one that no matter how hard a girl works and how well she does, the boys will still mostly go on to higher paid jobs. Ahem.

I’m putting all that aside to just concentrate, for a moment, at what’s leaping out at me here, from my conversations with other parents, from my reading of articles in papers like the Daily Mail, from my perusal of internet blogs written by the concerned parents of boys. When they say that boys need, and don’t have, these strong role models, these authority figures, that boys don’t do well under female educators, what they are saying is this: boys don’t respect women enough to learn from them.

Why are we accepting this status quo? Why are we just nodding our heads and agreeing that boys can’t be expected to respect and obey a female teacher? If these boys have no respect for them, surely it’s because we (their families, or society) are teaching them that it’s okay to disrespect a woman?  That it’s fine to not be afraid of upsetting her, to laugh at her when she gets cross, to think that actually, she doesn’t really know much, isn’t an expert, and clearly doesn’t know as much as a man.

I can not and will not believe that this attitude is somehow innate to small boys. I think it begins when they hear adults admonishing with phrases like “don’t be such a girl”; when their parents have one rule for them and another rule for their sisters; when they watch the television and see a preponderance of female characters created to be ridiculous, compared to a wealth of male characters created to be taken seriously; when they are encouraged only in traditionally ‘boyish’ pursuits, and persuaded to regard traditionally ‘girlish’ pursuits as demeaning. Disrespect and dislike for women pervades our society, and it would appear that boys are absorbing those messages at a very young age.

It seems to me that me that there is a choice here; we can try and persuade men to train as teachers and go and teach boys themselves. Or, we can try harder to ensure that boys respect women. To be honest, both would be nice.

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Originally published here for Bea Magazine on 24 January 2013.

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This week I’ve witnessed some things I’d rather not have witnessed, read words I’d rather not have read, and this is all because I’ve made it my business to find out what was going on with Mary Beard.

I imagine if you are reading this, you might be the sort of media-savvy type that can’t possibly have failed to have notice that something was going on in recent days, but just in case you are unaware, I will briefly explain: the Cambridge academic and ‘Meet The Romans’ presenter appeared on Question Time last week armed with some opinions, and as a result ended up at the end of an internet-storm of quite shocking abuse.

I must admit that when people appear on Question Time armed with opinions, I occasionally level a degree of abuse at the telly. However, I would argue that there’s not so much harm in letting off a bit of steam by telling a smug Tory who can’t hear you to “shut up”. I would also argue that, if you disagree with someone’s opinion, you should tell them that you disagree with their opinion and offer your own, not create web pages filled with sexist abuse and/or make death and rape threats. It would appear, however, that some think that the latter route is most definitely the way to go.

Like many out there, I believe that Mary Beard received this level of abuse, this type of abuse, because she is a woman, and not because of what she said. A man might get called out on his opinions following an appearance on such a programme, he might even be called an idiot (or perhaps stronger epithets conveying the same), but I seriously doubt critics would be dwelling on his appearance, mocking his teeth, making unpleasant comments about the condition of his genitalia, and certainly not threatening to rape him. Society, it would seem, doesn’t like women who step out of line, who dare to speak their minds, who clearly aren’t worrying about whether they look attractive to men.

Bullying fuelled by misogyny is clearly widespread, and I fear that the modern plethora of ways to interact can only make the situation worse; but at the risk of derailing myself (for I really do believe that sexist abuse is a very unpleasant facet of a very serious wider problem) I do think we need to begin by tackling the issue of bullying in general – the bullying of anyone – and I don’t mean by going into schools and telling children not to do it; it’s pointless when so many of the messages they – and their parents – receive from the media and society at large give them permission to do it.

I am not sure it was always like this. I feel as though the first series of Big Brother probably ushered in a TV era stuffed to the gills with reality programmes that give everyone the chance to laugh and point at someone else. Later versions of the show have seemed pretty much predicated on bullying: put a crowd of people in a house, set them against each other, and set the nation against the whole lot of them. Since then we’ve had shows in which people are forced to do really nasty things (I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here), shows in which people are encouraged to give their all so that a man with a doubtful track record can pour abuse on them (anything with Simon Cowell in it), and shows in which people are encouraged to believe that they look so bloody awful that they need to be completely fixed (Ten Years Younger), to point to just a few.

Or, perhaps it’s not Big Brother’s fault. Perhaps we should lay the blame squarely at the door of the gossip magazines, which relentlessly build up minor celebrities, before knocking them down as hard as they can with all the weapons in their arsenal – pictures of said celebrities displaying cellulite, for example, or wearing – heaven forbid – a frock that doesn’t suit them very well. It’s not just the gossip magazines contributing to this culture, of course; the daily newspapers, the tabloids especially, have for years made it their business to lay into those in the public eye – remember The Sun calling on the populace to evict Jade Goody from the BB house with the words “vote out the pig”?

Meanwhile, the anonymity of the internet, it seems, encourages many to believe that it is okay to use abusive language on message boards, to threaten violence and rape, and to use the world wide web to stalk people, set them up, and mock them. It’s a state of affairs that many of us contribute to, by watching these programmes, reading these magazines, by standing by and watching bullying unfold on Facebook and on Twitter, but also by idly commenting – in front of our children perhaps – on just how ugly or ridiculous such and such a person is.

I’m fairly sure that we can never completely eradicate bullying, and that there will always be people who will step over the line. I’m also one hundred percent sure that I don’t have the answer to this problem. But I do think we could all start by not consuming the media that bully, by not making throwaway judgements, by being careful with what we say, and by setting the example, for our peers and our children, of not ever being mean for the sake of it.

Originally published here for Bea Magazine on 24 December 2012

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Now, you may scoff, but I believe in the magic of this season. And I may be quite old, and have children of my own now, but I honestly do still believe in Father Christmas; though as I’ve got older, he’s transformed from a jolly fat man to the aforementioned spirit, that brings with it a sense of well-being and goodwill, a genuinely transforming… well, something.

To me, Christmas is an important thing, because it gets us through the winter. The promise it holds helps us to bear the dark and damp days of November; the festivities lighten up December, and the gifts we receive – not to mention the leftover sweeties and booze – sustain us through January and February, and revive fond memories of what a lovely time we had…

I rather resent it if I’m made to feel (and I have been) as though, as an atheist, I ought not be quite so gung-ho about it; that, if I’m not completely focusing my festive activity on the birth of Jesus, then I am not really entitled to this celebration, and that by bringing too much alcohol, pie and too many presents and fairy lights into it, I’m not really getting the meaning of Christmas.

The first thing I will say is that I do acknowledge that the birth of Jesus is celebrated at this time of year and don’t mind complying with the trend; I am happy for my daughter (who appears each year in a nativity play at her primary school) to focus on the Christian story at this time of year, along with her peers. I enjoy a crib scene, always choose religiously themed advent calendars, and absolutely love a good carol service. Oh, and to be honest, I’m quite a big fan of Jesus, despite not believing in God; I am very, very down with his instruction to love your fellow man.

But let’s be honest, such winter festivities existed in pagan societies, didn’t they? In the UK, we use the word ‘Yule’ as pretty much interchangeable with ‘Christmas’, but before the word made it over here, in around the year 900, what it pertained to was a midwinter festival, celebrated by Germanic people, and it wasn’t the only winter festival afoot in Europe before the influence of Christianity hit. I’m not saying it’s what I’d want to go back to (I’m happy not to revive the sacrifices, thanks), but I think the preponderance of excuses for seasonal feasting and drinking, even pre-JC, prove that there’s a reason why we do this. We need to cheer ourselves up. Plus, it’s the pagan element that gave us all that holly and ivy and Christmas trees, isn’t it? Where would we be without those?

So, in conclusion, this: I’m not all for the commercialisation of Christmas (especially if it leads to panic buying and a raft of sexist supermarket ads) but I am very, very keen on doing everything I can to lighten the wintry mood. Don’t be mean with yourself; be generous to your family, if you can, and if they’ll appreciate it. You should indulge a bit, enjoy some presents, push the boat out. It’s wet, cold and dark out there. Make things as comfortable as you can, and have some fun.

And Happy Chris… well, happy whichever festival you celebrate. I hope it’s a good one.