Teachers Experience Internet Charged Misogyny

Teachers’ experiences of sexism and misogyny incidents in the classroom are common.

Much of it is from boys who have aligned with the attitudes of the online manosphere and feel emboldened to display some fairly extreme attitudes.

Professor Steven Roberts, School of Social Sciences, Monash University Faculty of Arts says, “Teachers describe a clear shift since around 2022. Misogyny in schools has become more explicit, more aggressive and marked by a growing sense of entitlement and impunity among some boys.

“What was once contained to online manosphere spaces is now being acted out in classrooms, often with little fear of consequences and a confidence that authority will not be enforced."

These behaviours function as ‘manhood acts’:  performances through which boys assert superiority over girls and women, and gain status by showing they can defy or humiliate authority.

“Women teachers report not just disrespect, but a deliberate testing of power. Students are acting as though they are untouchable, and that women’s authority does not need to be taken seriously.”

Humour is used strategically, not to soften harm, but to deny accountability. ‘Just joking’ becomes a way to assert dominance while sidestepping consequences.

“Even when figures like Andrew Tate are no longer named, the legacy is unmistakable. The sense of male superiority and immunity from sanction he popularised continues to shape how some boys behave in schools.”

Schools have clear, rehearsed responses when violence is seen as serious, but when the threat is gendered, sexualised or directed at women, it is routinely minimised, delayed or managed away.

Dr Stephanie Wescott, School of Education, Culture & Society, Monash University Faculty of Education says, “Misogyny in schools is not a ‘behaviour issue’ or a matter of resilience - it is a safety issue. When threats, harassment and intimidation of women are treated as low-level, harm is effectively sanctioned.

“This isn’t simply poor behaviour, it’s a culture where some boys feel entitled to dominate, disrupt and demean, confident that the system will absorb the harm rather than stop it.”