16 year old girls empowered and proud feminists who decide to give up talking about machismo in class, fed up with the aggressive reaction of their peers, always with the argument of the ‘manosphere’ (the misogynistic internet) ready. “It is to bring up the subject and now they jump that if the false accusationswhat if Irene Montero’s contract to fuck… and, honestly, it’s already tiring”. The phrase is from a second-year high school student from an institute in Barcelona, but it could be thousands of other girls of her generation. It is a question on which there is no debate. Teachers and students from Catalan institutes from different backgrounds agree: macho denialism is growing worryingly among adolescents. It is a phenomenon perfectly identified and recognized by the Verge ‘department’ itself, which has caught on strongly during this course and has become one of the great challenges to be addressed from September on.
This summer, training courses for teachers on how to manage machismo in the classroom have been launched
The studies and data are there. For example, a report from the FAD Foundation points out that the percentage of young people who deny gender violence or downplay it It has gone from 12% in 2019 to 20% in 2021. A survey by the Mutua Madrileña Foundation indicates that 16.9% of boys between the ages of 18 and 21 say they hitting a partner is not gender violence. And the latest research from the Reina Sofía Center reveals that in the last five years we have been experiencing an increase in anti-feminism among adolescents because they consider that “feminism has imposed a unique thought”. A report in this newspaper already gave an account of the phenomenon months ago: “Many of us experience it as an attack and that generates confrontation. We feel that they are being given something that we can’t have,” said one boy. “They always point at us. Men end up thinking that we are to blame for everything that happens in the world. We don’t see it as an egalitarian thing,” added a colleague.
at the foot of the classroom, Martha Caño, director of Maria Espinalt Institute of Barcelona, he affirms emphatically that “the rebound effect of boys is widespread”. It’s been a couple of years since they detected the problem, which has led to the center, a reference in co-education, to make changes to “address the issue of boys”.
in the hours of affective-sexual education -at Maria Espinalt this is not only a matter of the curriculum, but is part of their schedule-, “the boys are the ones who complain the most, but at the same time they are those who have the most voice”. “That has led us, this course, to separate them; we have come to the conclusion that they need a space in which not to lecture thembut hear how they are living it“, Explain Spout.
Reference institutes try new measures and avoid raising the issue with moral lessons or as a war between boys and girls
“They tell you things like now it’s easier to be a girl, and I answer that we have not come to talk about girls, but about men; it’s about creating a space where they can be displayed in other ways, in which they are asked other questions, from emotion -continues Spout-; Being vulnerable is a possibility that they do not contemplate, they cover themselves with that layer of ‘I don’t care’, when in reality it is not true, and sometimes feel ‘invalidated’ by feminism”.
Teachers warn that information about feminism reaches kids from social networks, where macho discourses that they repeat are propagated
In these years working on feminism day by day in the classroom, Caño has come to the conclusion that feminism cannot be considered as a war, since “the patriarchy splashes us all”. “You are questioning the identity of kids in their teens, it is normal for them to get defensive,” she concludes, aware that her titanic effort to reach the boys, for Look for references with whom you can identifyarrives where it arrives, because in the war against the algorithm of TikTok and YouTube They are David against Goliath.
The disconnection of the girls
“Is a long road that we have not yet started as a society, and now we find ourselves with the fruits of not having done it, and the difference in steps taken between girls and boys is huge. That’s why they tell you that they’re done arguing with them. They are so tired that they already disconnect; They have come a long way,” he ditch.
But not all institutes have the sensitivity and the gaze set on the subject as the Maria Espinalt. In fact, they are very, very, few. How is the issue handled in the rest of the centers? And with the boys who study FP, where coeducation is not even part of the curriculum?
What surprises me the most is the force with which the far-right discourse on ‘feminazis’ has entered, both in boys and girls
Jordi Trullols, professor of Graphic Arts at FP
“What surprises me the most is how the discourse of ‘feminazis’ has entered with force, in both boys and girls. Many say ‘I’m a feminist, but not a feminazi, eh?’, this far-right story has gone a long way,” he points out. Jordi Trullols, Professor of Graphic Arts in FP, who claims a change in the professional training curricula to include the gender perspective, now absent. “At these ages, from 16 to 18 years old, continues to dominate the figure of the ‘bro’, muscles in the gym, and I think that as teachers we lack tools to include the gender perspective in the classroom on a daily basis, beyond a specific one-day workshop; but that requires training“says the teacher.
In the same vein it is pronounced Hassan El Halloufi, FP teacher at the Pompeu Fabra Institute in Badalona. “In cycles like Automotive or Metal there are a large number of students and not female students, and by not having a qualified person to explain what feminism is and why it is important, The information is only received from social networkswhere they only get sexist speeches that they repeat –describes El Halloufi. In class the voice of the students who say that feminism is bullshit is heard more than that of those who could defend it, who sometimes do not dare to say it”,
When a child says ‘shut up, you fucking fagot’, they are telling you that this group needs to know more about homosexuality
Ainhoa Roca, trainer at Fil a l’agulla
The two starting premises seem contradictory, but they are not. The complexity of the times. On the one hand, how can there not be machismo in high schools if society is deeply macho? On the other, and in parallel, the essence of adolescence is in questioning the ‘status quo’ and now that feminist awareness is much more present in teaching teams, in which the majority are women, they feel that to question the ‘status quo’ is to question feminism. This is how he exposes it Ainhoa Roca, member of the cooperative Fil a l’agullaentity that this summer will offer a course designed for female teachers on how to manage machismo in the classroom.
“Safe Spaces”
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“To work with adolescents it is important get out of the dynamics of good and bad; machismo is bad and it is the man. It’s a mistake to only focus on that you, boy, are the problem, and not that you, boy, are part of the solution.”stands out Rock, who points out that the challenge for the educational community is not to stop having machismo -that is not within their reach-, but “offer safe spaces in which to listen to all voices and experiences to see how they impact us and to be able to take care of ourselves” (the tactic they have opted for in the maria espinalt). “We are telling the boys, no, like that, no; but a space is missing in which to teach them another way of being men”, he adds.
“Are our schools safe places to hear each other, and not just the loudest voices heard? The fastest? You have to walk towards a kinder school“, argues the professional, knowing that in the current context of teacher work overload that’s even harder to do. “When a child says ‘shut up, fucking fagot’ in reality it is acting as a loudspeaker, as an antenna; he is saying that this group needs to know more about homosexuality”assures. Learn to react and manage that situation without jumping is the great challenge; accompany that creature, always keeping in mind, underlines, the restorative look, “not only who receives the damage and who causes it, but to the whole community“, he concludes.