Teachers are being advised by the government not to discuss social media influencer Andrew Tate, the “king of toxic masculinity”, with pupils – despite schools reporting a rising tide of misogyny and sexual harassment from boys as young as nine.
One small charity, Diversify, based in Rotherham, which runs school workshops about inclusion, receives about 25 calls a week from primary and secondary schools across England who want help dealing with sexual harassment and “shocking misogynistic incidents”. Many cite the influence of Tate, who is under house arrest in Romania for suspected human trafficking and organised crime. Tate’s TikTok videos tell boys that a woman belongs to her boyfriend; girls who don’t stay at home are “hoes”; and rape victims must “bear responsibility” for their attacks.
The charity’s co-founder Sara Cunningham estimates that an average class of 30 children will have eight boys who admire Tate.
She is frustrated that officials at the Department for Education (DfE) have been advising heads who reach out for help not to encourage discussion of Tate’s views in personal, social and health education (PSHE) lessons, and are refusing to offer any training or resources.
She said: “We were in a south London primary school recently and students as young as 10 knew a lot about Tate’s arrest and [allegations of] rape. One 10-year-old boy said these women consented to sex because they went back to Tate’s house.”
A small church primary school recently called the charity in to talk to pupils after four nine-year-old boys locked a girl in a cupboard, threatened to “fuck her in the throat” and then made her watch porn video clips.
The school commissioned Diversify to run three workshops with pupils on misogyny and consent, during which a number of boys mentioned Tate and said they could not see any problem with his views. On Cunningham’s advice, the school reported the sexual abuse to their local authority child safeguarding team, but they have received no response.
The assistant head of a secondary school in south-east England asked the charity to talk to her pupils after disciplining a male student for harassing a girl by sending her a barrage of threatening and explicit sexual messages, on one occasion while standing outside her house.
The teacher said that during the harassment workshop this student frequently referenced Tate, saying: “You shouldn’t take no for an answer [from a girl] as that shows weakness.”
She said: “I was shocked by the sheer number of young, seemingly lovely boys showing the same point of view.”
The teacher phoned the DfE helpline in March asking for resources and support for staff training on tackling Tate and online misogyny. She said she was told there was currently no resource or training available and that “this is merely another example of a social media trend, which will go away as others have”.
She was appalled by this reaction. “I am concerned by the number of children in my school believing in this madman,” she said. “It’s not just clickbait. It is shaping how our children see the world.”
Cunningham said: “A few school leaders we have worked with have said the DfE’s PSHE team advised them not to discuss Andrew Tate in school. Heads have been told talking about him promotes him.”
But, she insisted, “we strongly believe that only through communication can we beat this”.
She said an added complexity for schools trying to stamp out misogyny is that many boys say their dads think Tate is great.
A male teacher at a small rural secondary school told the Observer that after he disciplined a male pupil for using explicitly misogynistic language to female classmates, and explained that the school had a zero tolerance for that sort of behaviour, the boy’s father came in to complain.
The teacher said: “The dad said, ‘Well, it’s just banter. And the girls love it.’”
Secondary schoolteacher Heather Mary James had more than a thousand responses from teachers on Twitter when she offered to share her PSHE teaching resources about Tate recently.
She said: “By not discussing this, we are leaving young people vulnerable to these vile, insidious ideas, unable to recognise them as being extreme and sharing them further.”
Although Tate’s arrest in Romania in December brought him into the media spotlight, James said boys in schools, including hers, had been following him for at least a year.
She described Tate’s ability to “groom” young boys into defending and championing him on social media as “unprecedented”.
A spokesperson for the DfE said: “All children deserve to grow up in a safe environment, and we expect schools to take immediate action against sexual misconduct or harassment.”
He added that the government would be providing “further guidance on how schools can create a culture of respectful relationships, and teach effectively about sexual harassment, sexual violence and stamping out violence against women and girls”.
Keir Starmer said last week that Labour would put lessons on treating women and girls with respect on the school curriculum, as part of a pledge to halve violence against women.