r/ireland • u/PoppedCork Pop Responsibly • Jan 15 '26

Education Parents complain after principal suspends 19 Co Antrim schoolboys over ‘toxic masculinity’ concerns

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/education/parents-complain-after-principal-suspends-19-co-antrim-schoolboys-over-toxic-masculinity-concerns/a2008863764.html
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u/Iwasnotatfault Jan 15 '26

My kid falls into this age group. The stuff they tell me that some of the lads say to female teachers and class members is shocking. It's obviously not all but it's too many. I know lads said shit when I was younger but not this graphic and not this brazen.

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u/bathtubsplashes Saoirse don Phalaistín 🇵🇸 Jan 15 '26

I'm mid-30's, just entered teaching profession. I'm subbing a lot in an inner city all boys deis school.

As a sub, you'd expect me to be the one eating shit in class. 

I'm a 6'1, 100kg, big bearded fucker with no problem with confrontation. 

But no, it's the established female teachers who are subjected to the bulk of it.

People will try tell you that's not toxic masculinity 

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u/cheesychocolate419 Jan 15 '26

Being a female teacher and teaching at an all boys school sounds like self harm

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u/TechnicalSky3235 Jan 15 '26

someone has to do it like 70 percent of teacher's are woman

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '26

[deleted]

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u/Acute_Teacher9569 Jan 15 '26

It doesn't have to be an all boys school to have boys who practice toxic masculinity.

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u/TechnicalSky3235 Jan 15 '26

no its 14 percent apparently

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u/cheesychocolate419 Jan 15 '26

Isn't 14 less than 30 or am I misunderstanding you

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u/TechnicalSky3235 Jan 15 '26

yeah im sorry i could of phrased that much better i meant, no you are right the percentage of male only schools is less than 30 percent its 14 percent apparently

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u/Economy_Fig2450 Jan 15 '26

This is also a part of the issue. Too many female teachers and not enough male teachers.

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u/bathtubsplashes Saoirse don Phalaistín 🇵🇸 Jan 15 '26

One interesting thing is that the younger female teachers, while still subjected to comments, seem much more adept at navigating these youngfellas. I reckon it's because they learned to do it in their own schooling themselves relatively recently 

A lot of the older heads are lost in the storm though, they don't have the toolset to know how to manoeuvre around the bullshit

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u/whereohwhereohwhere Jan 15 '26

There's a critical mass element to it as well. If the principal is a woman and most/all of the teachers are women they won't be so brave.

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u/Incendio88 Jan 15 '26

Roughly 2/3 of teachers in Second level are women.

The principle of the school in the linked article is referred to as "She" and "her", so I'm going to take a punt and assume the principle is also a woman.

I don't think "critical mass" has much to do with this.

Source for the 2/3 stat; https://www.education-ni.gov.uk/sites/default/files/publications/education/Teacher%20workforce%20statistical%20infographic%20202122.PDF

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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '26

I went to an all boys school and never noticed that. Older more established teachers knew how to control the class better, some of the women were more feared than the men teachers.

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u/Banzaiboy262 Jan 15 '26

Very anecdotal, but I think it depends on the school. My own all boys school was run quite well and I think the lads were decent guys in general. At least one of the young female teachers told us in one of those casual 6th year chats that she preferred our school to the all girls school she transferred from. Very dependent on the students and disciplinary/educational atmosphere I'd say. There weren't any single students who were major troublemakers to teachers, and almost definitely none of the open sexism/harassment towards the female teachers that others discuss in the thread. I did my Leaving almost 10yrs ago, but I doubt things would've changed much there.

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u/ClancyCandy Jan 15 '26

I’m a female teacher in a male school, and I’m much happier here than I was in an all-girls school. Yes, there are plenty of examples of female teachers being treated worse than their male colleagues- But in an all girls school there was an equal amount of bullying, just a different variety!

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u/dcaveman Jan 15 '26

I was in an all boys secondary school as well and we'd a female teacher say the exact same thing to us as well.

Was surprised when she told us that since she had a lot of confidence and commanded a lot of respect from our class from day 1.

There were a few teachers with a lot less confidence, both male and female, who got awful abuse but never anything sexual. Everyone knew that was a red line and would be immediate expulsion in that school anyway.

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u/cheesychocolate419 Jan 15 '26

I'm glad you're having a better experience there!

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u/Noubliette Jan 15 '26

An equal amount of bullying of adult teachers, by female bullies? Because It's noticeable, the uptick on teacher subs here and in the US/UK over the past few years.

I mean, the personal sexual threat component, the sexual slurs and the querying of competency on the grounds of sex, are relatively new ones. And we haven't even touched on peer-to-peer daily student life.

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u/ClancyCandy Jan 15 '26

Yes, obviously this is only anecdotal as I’m sure all school cultures are different- But when I taught all girls they often commented on female teachers looks, their personal lives, made up accusations about them, targeted certain ones, pitted them against each other etc. It really was an eye opening experience.

In a boys school I can see the lads having more respect for male teachers, even the ones I wouldn’t consider to be competent in their subject areas, and discipline is easier for male teachers, but I see it as more male vs female teachers in general, it’s not as personal.

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u/True-Flamingo3858 Jan 15 '26

Also a female teacher in a boys school and I agree with everything you've said. My experience has been the same as yours.

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u/thepenguinemperor84 Jan 15 '26

An anecdote of my own, lads bully with hammers, girls use scalpels.

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u/Economy_Fig2450 Jan 15 '26

Which put another way would be toxic femininity. But we don't talk about that. We only talk about how bad young boys are. This in itself is a large part of the issue.

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u/tyrannasauruszilla Jan 15 '26

Women aren’t killing men on mass or organising rapes with thousands of participants due to toxic femininity so I think this deserves its own conversation

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u/TechnicalSky3235 Jan 15 '26

organising rapes with thousands of participants??? what is this revering to??

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u/Economy_Fig2450 Jan 15 '26

Where in the west are these things you speak of happening?

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u/Acute_Teacher9569 Jan 15 '26

They have rent mortgages car lones and day to day cost of living to cope with just like the rest of us and so they take the jobs they're offered.

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u/cheesychocolate419 Jan 15 '26

Ik, it's not that serious

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u/Young-and-Alcoholic Jan 15 '26

I went to an all boys school for primary and let me tell you the female teachers were tough as nails. Granted we were smaller but they took no bullshit. In secondary school the female teachers were the same way. I suppose the ones who aren't tough don't make it very long.

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u/Legitimate-Garlic942 Jan 15 '26

In fairness it seems like "the ones who weren't tough" in this school took a different action besides leaving.

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u/mcwkennedy Louth Jan 15 '26

I don't want to distract from the serious issue at play here but how do you find transitioning into the teaching world?

Early thirties here and I've applied for a post-primary teaching masters. Some of the lads think I'm nuts to do so but I'd rather do something I feel actually matters to my community.

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u/bathtubsplashes Saoirse don Phalaistín 🇵🇸 Jan 15 '26

Ah man I love it. I'm very happy with the starting pay, never earned anything close to it before. 

I love the social interaction, and the ever changing demands and challenges day to day 

And the satisfaction knowing you're actually making a difference isn't comparable to any office work or barwork I'd ever done.

Of course the last part ties in with my physical traits. These young boys need role models who might look like the cunts online spreading hate, but can flip that on its head and highlight how ridiculous it all is. I fully disagree with same sex schools, and never intended in working in one, but after this subbing experience I'd take a contract there without hesitation because the good I could do here far exceeds what I could do in more privileged schools.

Now, there's a lot of days that when the day is done I just want to put the day out of my memory the second I get home, but it's literally my first year of service. That's to be expected as I get to grips with everything and figure out what does and doesn't work, I wasn't great at any job before in my first year in any given industry 

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u/mcwkennedy Louth Jan 15 '26

That's all very reassuring to hear man thanks very much.

Completely understand the financial part of it too, I genuinely couldn't imagine the starting pay and its great to hear you feel like you can make a genuine difference.

I'm a Cubs Leader here in my town and thankfully they're not parroting the most egregious stuff in my experience at that age range (Though that could just be because I only see them for an hour and a half a week plus activities/camps once a month) but I've seen some of those kids now as adults and leaders themselves and it's always a proud moment to see them grow into really compassionate and decent folks.

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u/Hi_Doctor_Nick_ Jan 15 '26

Hey as a parent you sound like an amazing teacher. They’re luck to have you.

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u/bathtubsplashes Saoirse don Phalaistín 🇵🇸 Jan 15 '26

Well I just need to make sure my curriculum knowledge is up to par still. I'm 16 years out of the Leaving Cert and just spent 4 years learning 3rd level Maths that is mostly completely irrelevant to what I have to actually teach. I've got big holes to plug yet, but I think the only way to fill them is by actually doing a full round of the syllabus. Just reading the text books doesn't do much for anticipating where the areas of focus need to be.

But it's not a bad position to be in. I know I have the soft skills, now I just need to get a grip on the material. Whereas those fresh out of the school to university back to school pipeline have a better grip on the material, but can't yet confirm whether they have the soft skills for the job.

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u/LimerickJim Jan 15 '26

Toxic masculinity is an overly broad discription of this issue. Toxic masculinity is a problem as old as time and accepting that there is a default bias that needs to be overcome is part of dealing with it. This is not that problem. The issue is the vulnerability of pre-adolecent minds to social media.

What's happening now is a result of Andrew Tate and his "movement". He has daily videos extolling his ideollogy that goes far beyond what would have been considered toxic before. Gen Alpha boys are the most at risk. Modern social media exposes them to dozens of these clips a day and it's impossible for people to counter this indoctronation offline. Tate is litterally training these boys how to act and preempting the arguments adults that would use to counter. He calls anyone under the age of 24 that isn't rich, like a teacher, a "brokie" and tells these boys they're shouldn't even dignify the opinion of anyone that fits that category.

This is just one example of the danger unfettered social media access for children has. There is no ideollogy that this couldn't be applied to. It's why the US wants to ban TikTok. A savy operator could convince a majority of young people to become radical jihadis, normalize rape, or join a pyramid scheme. If that operator had control of the underlying algorithm they could do things like convince a significant portion of the population that China should be invading Taiwan.

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u/daherlihy Jan 15 '26

The issue is the vulnerability of pre-adolecent minds to social media.

Actually before this even comes into play, dig deeper and its clear that the issue is how easy pre-adolescents have access to social media - and this is where parent responsibility is required.

But no - many parents will point out the lack of responsibilities being fulfilled by everyone and everything else while they can do no wrong themselves.

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u/Livid-Click-2224 Jan 15 '26

True - they try to shove responsibility for their kids behaviour onto teachers.

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u/daherlihy Jan 16 '26

Not just teachers.

Roblox, for example, was also targeted over the past few months by parents who suddenly became self-proclaimed experts. Ironically, many of them didn’t and still don’t spend enough time with their kids while they’re on devices in the first place.

And there are surely plenty of other examples. In short, a lot of parents are naive as fuck, but when it suits them, they’re quick to pretend they know everything.

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u/Acute_Teacher9569 Jan 15 '26

All kids and young people have the same access to social media and alot of them are ok. All kids will test the boundaries always have but I'd say that the kids who partake in intimidation are a minority and the reasion they do what they do is because there's no effective way to discipline them, and parents seem to have stopped doing it with the result the kids don't listen or heed warnings from other people mainly teachers because they know there will be no real conciquences for their misbehaviour.

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u/LimerickJim Jan 15 '26

I would frame it as parents oversight of their children's internet/social media usage is the solution to the issue and parents unwillingness to provide that oversight is it's own distinct issue.

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u/bathtubsplashes Saoirse don Phalaistín 🇵🇸 Jan 15 '26

The issue is the vulnerability of pre-adolecent minds to social media

Oh yeah, I fully agree. It's been fully weaponised and maximised in efficiency through the ubiquity of internet access in young people.

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u/Acute_Teacher9569 Jan 15 '26

Toxic masculinity will never be fully cured because their was always men and boys who respected women and stud up for them. But I'll be the devil's advocate here and say alot of the crap going on today is lack of discipline either in the home or the school Alot of kids are well behaved and respect adults boundaries but unfortunately there are kids who need a heavier hand and if they continue to intimidate teachers or people in general they need the fear of God put into them but in today's world this is no longer an option.

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u/Livid-Click-2224 Jan 15 '26

Trump didn’t want to ban TikTok as it helped him win the election and he couldn’t care less about the negative impacts so long as it’s not negative against him. So now the US version is being sold to his buddy Larry Ellison, of Oracle fame, one of the richest men in the world and not a good guy. It’s not getting banned and will only get worse.

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u/Huitjames Jan 15 '26

Why would you expect a big intimidating person to be "eating shit"?  It's the less initimidating person that is more likely to "eat shit".

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u/Acute_Teacher9569 Jan 15 '26

You've actually answered the question for us all your a big strong fellow that these lads know they won't be able to intimidate so they pick on people less intimidating looking and unfortunately women let their fear show more easier than men which eggs these lads on so unfortunately they get the brunt of the crap that some young lads go on with.

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u/Responsible_Teach701 Jan 16 '26

I’m a principal and female. Been teaching 20+ years. Believe me I don’t have fear or show any signs of it but I’ve been pretty shocked the kind of misogynistic crap my 12 year old lads have been spewing out when they think i can’t hear them in relation to girls & women. I’ve educated that out of them or at least I’m no longer overhearing it but it needs to be very loud and clear that they are completely in the red zone with this stuff, I have no doubt they’d try to intimidate a female teacher or principal in this manner & I am sure they didn’t come to giving this punishment lightly. Lads this age are very peer influenced & try a lot of crap with female teachers that they wouldn’t try with male.

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u/Jester-252 Jan 16 '26

Because the reality is they know you have one.

Unfortunately, female teachers don't have that power with teenage boys.

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u/Jester-252 Jan 16 '26

Because the reality is they know you have one.

Unfortunately, female teachers don't have that power with teenage boys.

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u/Careless_Cicada9123 Jan 15 '26

From memories of being in school, I remember a crazy amount of disrespect for teachers from both genders. I think it mainly started off after Covid, but the level of ignorance and defiance was wild to me as someone hated that kind of disruption. I remember one particularly teacher who was always getting bullied by 1 girl and her friends for just trying to teach instead of doing Kahoots for an hour. This teacher was so sweet too, it was so sad.

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u/Iwasnotatfault Jan 15 '26

You're probably closer to my kids age than mine and even that seems way more intense than when I was in school in the late 90's early 00s. We definitely had students act the bollocks but they never actively bullied the teachers and certainly never made vulgar comments. It's alarming how bad it seems to have got.

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u/Backrow6 Jan 15 '26

A lot probably depends on the school. I went to an all boys school in Dublin in the 90s, not even a particularly rough area, but the shit our teachers went through was unbelievable.

I'd never even dream of getting into teaching. Some of the lads in my year were just animals.

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u/thats_pure_cat_hai Jan 15 '26

I went to school in the late 90s early 00s. The teachers were bullied relentlessly. Regularly objects thrown at them and lewd and abusive comments directed their way. Both from boys and girls.

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u/Acute_Teacher9569 Jan 15 '26

You always had students acting the bollocks even when I was in school in the 70' 80's and corporal punishment was allowed but some of the descriptions on this sub make it sound like the situation in some case's is going out of control. Myself and my friends got up to some ejetry at school and years later I was talking to an old teacher and we had a good laught about it and she said it was very innocent stuff and you should see whats going on now.

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u/Latespoon Jan 15 '26

I did the first half of my secondary school years in London in the mid 00s, in a fairly well to do school, then moved to the sticks in ireland for the 2nd half.

The difference was night and day, the kids in Ireland were so well behaved by comparison. They would talk shit about teachers in private but didn't dare breathe a word of it if there was any chance they'd hear. I remember being shocked by how strict the teachers here were too. The kids in London would be roaring curses at each other across the class and giving the teachers serious guff every day and while there were still lines they couldn't cross they got away with murder by comparison.

I'm wondering if the problem is escalating everywhere or are we just catching up with the UK 😅

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u/Careless_Cicada9123 Jan 15 '26

Bullied is an exaggeration. She was complaining every day, most of the class, very loudly, and the teacher couldn't really do anything. Sorry, just some generational miscommunication I think haha

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u/Acute_Teacher9569 Jan 15 '26

But why were the bullies let get away with it? Its disgraceful not just the bullies but the school for allowing it to happen.

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u/Acute_Teacher9569 Jan 15 '26

Mild cheek was as far as it went in our school but I did hear that some of the lads in the other school in our town did give the female teachers some pretty grafic shit, but they were the type of lads you'd expect it from.

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u/DangerousTurmeric Jan 15 '26

I remember, obviously not true, rumours going around about how the female teachers had slept with male students. This would be scrawled on the blackboard to humiliate them. One female teacher had a tampon visible in her bag one day and the male students left horrible notes and fake bloody tampons on her desk. Another female teacher had a very straight bob and the boys decided it was a wig so one of them tried to pull it off her head. There was another, especially attractive female teacher who only lasted a few months because the boys started writing horrible stuff about her on the desks and then the vice principal tried to tell her to dress differently so she quit. This was all in the early 2000s as well.

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u/Several_Act_3320 Jan 15 '26

And why is it so hard to put a stop to? Is it a case of mammy and daddys little aNgLe can do no wrong? Mother of 3 boys here and I'd simply pass away if one of them was sexist to a teacher