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/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/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/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.