Troy Potter, The University of Melbourne and Michael Kehler, University of Calgary
International Women’s Day is an important day for everyone, regardless of gender, to raise awareness about gender inequality. This includes naming harms, celebrating gains, and recommitting to societal and institutional change.
But we should be doing this every day. Schools play a fundamental role in challenging gender inequality because they’re one of the few places where adults have regular, ongoing contact and relationships with young people. Classroom and schoolyard interactions provide an opportunity for teachers and students to develop these relationships in respectful ways.
While all teachers can contribute to this work, male teachers can play a significant role in disrupting patriarchal and misogynistic behaviours.
In a national study, Michael Kehler, one of the authors of this story, is currently hearing from male teachers from across Canada who promote gender and social justice while disrupting patriarchal masculinities in their classrooms. These teachers are reporting that, in varying degrees, they are challenging misogyny and homophobia, and disrupting damaging forms of masculinity in their classrooms and schools.
In partnership with a parallel project with Australian male teachers (led by the first author of this story, Troy Potter), our research offers emerging insights into how all teachers can challenge and respond to misogyny, sexism and homophobia in schools.
Enacting masculinity in schools
Boys often learn how to be particular kinds of boys by negotiating complex power dynamics. Bullying and harassment are used against other boys, as well as girls, to assert dominance and police traditional gender norms. Homophobic language and sexting are two examples of this.
Recent research shows that boys’ use of misogynistic language, hostility and harassment is on the rise, and is often fuelled by online “manosphere” content. Increasingly, schools are less safe for women teachers — a growing concern, especially when school leadership denies or minimizes women teachers’ experiences of sexual harassment.
Off-hand remarks like “that’s just boys” serve to excuse boys’ violence and aggression. At the same time, such responses also maintain the cultural conditions that continue to reproduce violence while ignoring the choices boys make to accept norms of masculinity.
Rather than turning a blind eye to boys’ problematic behaviour, drawing attention to it can encourage everyone to reflect on whether such behaviour is appropriate or beneficial.
Research in Australia has shown that boys are moving away from restrictive views of masculinity, believe in gender equality and are rejecting sexist behaviour. This change in boys’ attitudes can be further supported by addressing misogyny and sexism in schools at both the policy and classroom level.
Why male teachers matter
While gender justice work is often seen as women’s work, there’s a growing emphasis on the need to engage men to redress gender inequities.
The use of male role models, though, can often promote gender norms rather than changing them. Additionally, some calls for more male teachers have been based on a perceived need to re-masculinize schools and the assumption that male teachers are better disciplinarians.
And although women make up the majority of the teaching workforce in Canada, men are over-represented in school leadership positions. This is also the case for the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States. Male leaders can play a significant role in shaping equitable school cultures.
Within classrooms, it can also be dangerous for women teachers to call out misogyny. In some cases, women teachers may be labelled as “crazy” or “overreacting,” while in others, male students may use teachers’ objections as catalysts to increase harassment. Their relationships with male students may enable them to have more influence over what is seen to as appropriate masculine behaviours.
This isn’t to suggest male teachers operate from a neutral position. Male teachers live multifaceted identities, shaped by factors including gender, race, culture, ability and class. Male teachers navigate their own narratives and abilities to disrupt traditional masculinity.
But when men promote gender equality and challenge harmful forms of masculinity, they show boys that this is what men can, and should, do. They show boys that fighting for gender equality is not only women’s responsibility.
Micro‑moments matter
In Canadian schools, and those in many other countries, respectful relationships programs, such as Respectful Futures, are delivered to support students’ understanding of respectful, equal and non-violent relationships.
To be effective, however, respectful relationships programs — like all gender justice work — must move beyond isolated programs and be embedded into whole-school approaches.
In the ongoing Canadian study (Re)defining Masculinities, 20 teachers across four provinces have provided their insights and reflections. And while we are still inviting teacher participation across Canada, our preliminary findings indicate that teachers are:
- Calling out sexist jokes and asking students to explain why they’re funny
- Challenging offhand remarks, such as “You’re such a girl!”
- Unpacking power dynamics wherever they appear, whether in boys’ behaviour or in texts students view or read
- Providing boys with a language to express emotions and vulnerability.
Misogyny stems not only from explicit acts, but also from inaction. When male teachers choose not to interrupt derogatory talk, sexist jokes or sexual harassment, those attitudes and behaviours become normal.
By contrast, when male teachers speak up, they help change what other boys think is OK and provide opportunities for boys to learn alternative ways of being young men.
Our research will learn more about the various ways male teachers are already disrupting harmful masculinities to reduce misogyny. This will allow us to better support other male teachers to become change agents for gender equality.
Gender justice benefits everyone
The 2026 International Women’s Day theme #BalanceTheScales emphasizes that all women and girls deserve to be safe, respected, and free to shape their own lives, just like men and boys.
Creating gender equality is about expanding boys’ awareness and consideration of others, to support them to express care and empathy, and to reject dominant and violent behaviour. It is about seeing girls and women, and other boys and men, as worthy of respect, rather than as threats.
Disrupting and interrupting misogyny not only benefits girls and women, but boys and men, too. When gender equality advances, we create fairer and more just families, schools, communities, and societies. How can that not benefit everyone?
Troy Potter, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne, and Michael Kehler, Research Professor, Masculinities Studies, School of Education, University of Calgary
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
