Women's Fightback 38, Autumn 2026 — UK childcare costs are killer | Demands & much more

Misogyny in Secondary Schools by Natalia Cassidy In the past decade or so, the level of sexism and misogyny in UK secondary schools has been on the rise.

I've been working in education for the past eight years as a teaching assistant and then as a teacher.

I've had female colleagues leave the profession because of sexism from male pupils and I've had a teacher who has been teaching for decades tell me a few years ago that she had never seen it as bad as it is now and she started a career at the tail end of the women's liberation movement.

What is behind this uptick in misogyny will give you a slew of answers dependent on who you ask.

Some will tell you it is the unfettered access to online spaces that boys have from an early age leading them down a rabbit hole of the so-called manosphere.

Others that it's never went away but boys have been emboldened by the current cultural moments in the context of the rise of the far right.

No doubt there are also those who would seek to explain this rise as part of a natural backlash to correct a perceived overstep by feminism of becoming about hating men.

The exact reasoning is beyond the scope of this article of an article like this and would be the topic of some quite extensive social research.

All of these to lesser and greater extents are worth our attention and are worth examining.

The government has taken some action in reducing access to adult content for under 18s in the UK with restrictions on who can access pornographic and other graphic content.

There is however very little discussion on this consumption of algorithmic content.

Who is it that controls these algorithms and what content do they push? These algorithms do not care about the health or well-being of the person consuming the content.

What they are designed to do is to generate profits by keeping people watching.

There is no oversight of how these algorithms work to ensure the common good is maintained.

It is of course true that we are living in a moment where increasingly extreme right-wing views are shifting towards the mainstream.

The rise of reform and the adoption of their rhetoric by the Labour Party on migration is just one such example.

These views and the romanticisation of the lost past by the right so often go hand in hand with a view that masculinity has fallen from its once rightful place at the top of the social order and this must be reclaimed.

Lastly, the idea of feminism as man-hating.

This is easy to dismiss out of hand as it is so often used as a caricature to dismiss feminist causes by reducing it to a means through which to belittle men.

I think the legitimacy of most people's criticisms of feminism are however secondary in this case to people's perceptions.

I've had boys ask me if I hate men and even ask if I support kill all men.

So how do schools deal with this? Schools I've worked in have tried to deal with this through their PSHE programmes, though this does have obvious limitations insofar as in a lesson environment young people will know what you are wanting them to say and will have no problem uh nodding along without internalizing any of the content this is particularly true of all boys settings i have worked in i do not have a program of how this can be solved nor do i think it could come around by being imposed by any um one person it does seem to me that the approach we take should be one of dialogue where all young people are able to feel they have an opportunity to have their voice heard overcoming misogyny cannot be nor should be uh nor should it be the sole job of women rather all people must play a part and feel they have a stake in the process pages three and four editorial socialist feminist transitional demands at our most recent conference of the alliance of workers liberty we committed ourselves to the work of developing and then by working alongside others expanding and refining a set of feminist transitional demands compared to a minimum program those political demands for immediate reforms that will improve our lives until the collapse of capitalism and patriarchy and a maximum program a set of political demands that will achieve socialism and socialist feminist feminism to replace patriarchy transitional demands are those demands that can bridge the gap addressing the immediate vital needs that will mobilize the masses while connecting to and furthering the ultimate goal of achieving socialism and socialist feminism so as to win immediate improvements to our lives without getting stuck in a reformist rut that fails to progress the struggle developing demands women's fight back regularly makes demands of our movement here are some of the demands taken from this issue a cut in the working week for all workers for parents the working day should align with the school day free good quality flexible child care with a highly paid workforce that need not mean as it does now that children are in child care for long hours but that child care fits around the needs of parents and children alike free to use well-funded publicly owned community spaces not just children's centers and libraries although absolutely these but neighborhood canteens sports facilities art venues and more an overhaul of policing including the abolition of asbos stop and search and other police powers that target minorities that make public spaces unsafe in particular for young people work that is flexible for all workers the right to change hours and shift patterns to take special paid leave for all caring responsibilities and to take sabbaticals abortion for anyone who wants one as early as possible and as late as necessary ensure trans people can access the full range of gender affirming health care they require through the nhs without enduring year years long wait lists open borders free movements and decriminalization of sex work these demands are not all innately transitional for example a reduction in working hours can be realized without fundamentally undermining capitalism or patriarchy but many of these demands can be expanded into a wider struggle to dismantle these systems as we make demands we should look beyond the immediate benefits they offer and towards the system of oppression they can be used to undermine a framework for transitional demands we are still in the process of developing immediate demands further developments of these would be crucial for formulating our transitional demands and we should continue to make clear demands that address our immediate issues and improve our current conditions but beyond simply formulating demands we should begin to identify the structures of oppression that our demands are designed to undermine the following list is an attempt to start that thinking although it will likely require significant expansion and refinement social transitional demands demands that expand into the wider struggle to replace capitalism with socialism capitalism is a core component of women's oppression although socialism will not automatically dismantle patriarchy without a simultaneous movement for socialist feminism and so replacing capitalism with socialism is essential socialism socialization of domestic labor and social reproduction demands to bring domestic labor which fill which falls disproportionately on women from the realm of personal responsibility to the responsibility of society the socialization of this work transforms personal issues into workers struggles putting the equitable distribution of this labor onto the table bodily autonomy demands for the freedom that's um freedom and means to have our have control over our own bodies the more control we have over our bodies the more we undermine the biological constraints used to justify women's oppression and patriarchy Freedom from gendered roles and expectations.

Demand to end discrimination on the basis of subverting gendered expectations, including ending the misogynistic standards applied to women, e.g. policing femininity or expecting women to take on the majority of domestic or emotional labor, and men, e.g. the ideals of hypermasculinity pushed by manosphere influences, an end to homophobia and transphobia, freedom to define the forms of family, um, accepted and supported by society, and the removal of legal institutions and cultural pressures that reinforce these gendered roles and expectations.

Transitional demands.

The following is an attempt to demonstrate how we might begin to formulate the demands that we have already made into a, a more transitional form.

Misogyny in Secondary Schools by Natalia Cassidy In the past decade or so, the level of sexism and misogyny in UK secondary schools has been on the rise.

I've been working in education for the past eight years as a teaching assistant and then as a teacher.

I've had female colleagues leave the profession because of sexism from male pupils and I've had a teacher who has been teaching for decades tell me a few years ago that she had never seen it as bad as it is now and she started a career at the tail end of the women's liberation movement.

What is behind this uptick in misogyny will give you a slew of answers dependent on who you ask.

Some will tell you it is the unfettered access to online spaces that boys have from an early age leading them down a rabbit hole of the so-called manosphere.

Others that it's never went away but boys have been emboldened by the current cultural moments in the context of the rise of the far right.

No doubt there are also those who would seek to explain this rise as part of a natural backlash to correct a perceived overstep by feminism of becoming about hating men.

The exact reasoning is beyond the scope of this article of an article like this and would be the topic of some quite extensive social research.

All of these to lesser and greater extents are worth our attention and are worth examining.

The government has taken some action in reducing access to adult content for under 18s in the UK with restrictions on who can access pornographic and other graphic content.

There is however very little discussion on this consumption of algorithmic content.

Who is it that controls these algorithms and what content do they push? These algorithms do not care about the health or well-being of the person consuming the content.

What they are designed to do is to generate profits by keeping people watching.

There is no oversight of how these algorithms work to ensure the common good is maintained.

It is of course true that we are living in a moment where increasingly extreme right-wing views are shifting towards the mainstream.

The rise of reform and the adoption of their rhetoric by the Labour Party on migration is just one such example.

These views and the romanticisation of the lost past by the right so often go hand in hand with a view that masculinity has fallen from its once rightful place at the top of the social order and this must be reclaimed.

Lastly, the idea of feminism as man-hating.

This is easy to dismiss out of hand as it is so often used as a caricature to dismiss feminist causes by reducing it to a means through which to belittle men.

I think the legitimacy of most people's criticisms of feminism are however secondary in this case to people's perceptions.

I've had boys ask me if I hate men and even ask if I support kill all men.

So how do schools deal with this? Schools I've worked in have tried to deal with this through their PSHE programmes, though this does have obvious limitations insofar as in a lesson environment young people will know what you are wanting them to say and will have no problem uh nodding along without internalizing any of the content this is particularly true of all boys settings i have worked in i do not have a program of how this can be solved nor do i think it could come around by being imposed by any um one person it does seem to me that the approach we take should be one of dialogue where all young people are able to feel they have an opportunity to have their voice heard overcoming misogyny cannot be nor should be uh nor should it be the sole job of women rather all people must play a part and feel they have a stake in the process pages three and four editorial socialist feminist transitional demands at our most recent conference of the alliance of workers liberty we committed ourselves to the work of developing and then by working alongside others expanding and refining a set of feminist transitional demands compared to a minimum program those political demands for immediate reforms that will improve our lives until the collapse of capitalism and patriarchy and a maximum program a set of political demands that will achieve socialism and socialist feminist feminism to replace patriarchy transitional demands are those demands that can bridge the gap addressing the immediate vital needs that will mobilize the masses while connecting to and furthering the ultimate goal of achieving socialism and socialist feminism so as to win immediate improvements to our lives without getting stuck in a reformist rut that fails to progress the struggle developing demands women's fight back regularly makes demands of our movement here are some of the demands taken from this issue a cut in the working week for all workers for parents the working day should align with the school day free good quality flexible child care with a highly paid workforce that need not mean as it does now that children are in child care for long hours but that child care fits around the needs of parents and children alike free to use well-funded publicly owned community spaces not just children's centers and libraries although absolutely these but neighborhood canteens sports facilities art venues and more an overhaul of policing including the abolition of asbos stop and search and other police powers that target minorities that make public spaces unsafe in particular for young people work that is flexible for all workers the right to change hours and shift patterns to take special paid leave for all caring responsibilities and to take sabbaticals abortion for anyone who wants one as early as possible and as late as necessary ensure trans people can access the full range of gender affirming health care they require through the nhs without enduring year years long wait lists open borders free movements and decriminalization of sex work these demands are not all innately transitional for example a reduction in working hours can be realized without fundamentally undermining capitalism or patriarchy but many of these demands can be expanded into a wider struggle to dismantle these systems as we make demands we should look beyond the immediate benefits they offer and towards the system of oppression they can be used to undermine a framework for transitional demands we are still in the process of developing immediate demands further developments of these would be crucial for formulating our transitional demands and we should continue to make clear demands that address our immediate issues and improve our current conditions but beyond simply formulating demands we should begin to identify the structures of oppression that our demands are designed to undermine the following list is an attempt to start that thinking although it will likely require significant expansion and refinement social transitional demands demands that expand into the wider struggle to replace capitalism with socialism capitalism is a core component of women's oppression although socialism will not automatically dismantle patriarchy without a simultaneous movement for socialist feminism and so replacing capitalism with socialism is essential socialism socialization of domestic labor and social reproduction demands to bring domestic labor which fill which falls disproportionately on women from the realm of personal responsibility to the responsibility of society the socialization of this work transforms personal issues into workers struggles putting the equitable distribution of this labor onto the table bodily autonomy demands for the freedom that's um freedom and means to have our have control over our own bodies the more control we have over our bodies the more we undermine the biological constraints used to justify women's oppression and patriarchy Freedom from gendered roles and expectations.

Demand to end discrimination on the basis of subverting gendered expectations, including ending the misogynistic standards applied to women, e.g. policing femininity or expecting women to take on the majority of domestic or emotional labor, and men, e.g. the ideals of hypermasculinity pushed by manosphere influences, an end to homophobia and transphobia, freedom to define the forms of family, um, accepted and supported by society, and the removal of legal institutions and cultural pressures that reinforce these gendered roles and expectations.

Transitional demands.

The following is an attempt to demonstrate how we might begin to formulate the demands that we have already made into a, a more transitional form.