Rising misogynistic ideas and attitudes are being reflected not only across society but in the classroom—and it’s an emergency.
The threatening scale of violence against women and girls (VAWG) is continually prolific under capitalism. As reported by the Office for National Statistics, violence against women and girls makes up roughly 20 percent of all recorded crime in England and Wales.
A woman is murdered by a man roughly every three days, and whilst there were 816,493 reported instances of domestic abuse to the police in 2025, the estimation of cases that include those unreported comes to almost 4 million.
So, what is the Labour Government offering to tackle this? In December Jess Phillips announced that education on misogyny and “anti-misogyny courses” will be rolled out to schools. This is part of the government’s strategy to halve all incidents of violence against women and girls in the next 10 years.
Kemi Badenoch’s response to Labour’s proposal was to divert the blame of VAWG towards refugees and migrants, further pouring fuel on the flames of the despicable racism that Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson and his fascist following are inciting.
There is no evidence to suggest any connection between ethnicity, culture and violence against women and girls in this country. In London, 53 percent of sexual violence crimes against women are committed by white nationals, who are around 36 percent of the London’s population.
Whilst VAWG is already an epidemic in need of serious prevention. The online and AI revolutions have further furnaced misogynistic ideology by recruiting boys and men into their structures of “inceldom” and “pick-up artistry” through the manosphere.
Laura Bates explains, “The manosphere subverts the narrative of the privileged and the victim altogether. It tells men that they are suffering, and it blames women.”
The truth of the message disseminated by the manosphere is that men are genuinely suffering. The lie is that it is women’s fault, instead of the neoliberal capitalist system that is really to blame.
Certainly, education and conversation around misogyny is vital, however it is not possible to talk to young boys in school about the issues of misogyny without addressing the issues that are causing them to come to those conclusions.
The Netflix show Adolescence was a great catalyst to open the conversation around misogyny in school, especially in the context of how radicalisation can be so hidden through the channel of the internet.
However, is the current conversation aimed towards boys and young men, effective in its’ intention to prevent harm towards women and girls? The message in Adolescence spread it’s urgency to a wide audience but it’s meaning was subverted—the result ended in an increased drive to extremist incel forums.
Alex Blower from Boys’ Impact emphasises that we must be careful about the language we use towards boys when discussing VAWG, raising issue with the language of “targeting” boys to tackle misogyny as “perpetrators of violence in waiting” being counterproductive.
Blower believes we need a much more empathetic, supportive approach to education around male behaviour from school age as a method of prevention, instead prioritising education on consent, relationships, and encouragement to engage boys with their emotions.
So, where can we draw conclusions on this on the left? Well, misogyny is not inherently built into the bones of boys and men.
Is education important as a method of awareness? Yes. But it is not going to solve the problem of violence against women without changing the sexist, patriarchal, capitalist system that trickles these ideas down to the working class.
The real prevention we need now is affordable housing, humane living wages, an NHS that supports mental health and to take on the tech giants that allow breeding grounds for the ideologies that perpetuate violence against women. Ultimately, what we need is a socialist revolution.
Socialist Worker
Archive [January 27 2026]
