The Government have introduced plans to teach boys from age 11 how to relate to girls and women, to counter misoginy violence and abuse.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition has dismissed the proposals.
I disagree with Mrs Badenoch. I think she badly misses the point here. To be sure, the law needs to be strengthened as do the police in order to deal with domestic abuse and violence better. Indeed, we need a better rounded understanding of the causes of domestic abuse and why sadly many women end up trapped in violent and degrading relationships unable to seek help and unseen by society and sadly even churches around them.
Whilst it is easy to see the speck in the eye of other cultures, we risk missing the log in our own eye of a long history of women and girls experiencing everything from sexist comments and discrimination in the workplace through to violence including sexual violence.
The roots of this go back early in life to what is witnessed in childhood and by the age that the proposals kick in boys will already be exposed to the kind of attitudes originating from the likes of Andrew Tate on line. Just ask any female secondary school teacher of the kinds of things they experience in the classroom.
Meanwhile Graham Nicholls of Affinity UK, a grouping of conservative Evangelical organisations responded in his weekly video commentary on the news here .
Mr Nicholls acknowledges that the sins of such teaching are positive but then goes to put a more sinister spin on things suggesting that this is the State interfering into an area of life where it has no business, that it is for the church and family to teach these things.
I don’t know if Nicholls has noticed but firstly, the majority of 11 year olds are not in church and surely how they are meant to relate to others is a matter of common grace.
Secondly issues concerning how men treat women and girls are matters for the state. That’s why we have both criminal and civil law in these areas.
Thirdly as observed above ,some children are picking up on these attitudes either from direct experience in the home or because there is a failure within the family to protect them from online influences. Meanwhile, the many families who have a healthy concern for how to raise their children well appreciate a positive relationship with school. This desire is reciprocated in many schools across the country.
The last point is important because I increasingly detect a negative attitude towards schools and teachers from conservative evangelical contexts that is unfair and inaccurate in its assessment.
These as representative responses from politically and theologically conservative commentators are disappointing. These proposals seem to me a positive development and to be welcomed.
Most of all, if we are serious about the part that churches and families have to play in this (and I think we do have a part), then we need to resource families and churches for this. A good starting point would be the book Worthy by Schumacher and Fitzpatrick. A few years back I recommended that dads should read this with their daughters. Perhaps they should also read it with their sons.
Faithroots 