An organization called Team Up Washington exists to promote the implementation of the Coaching Boys Into Men and Athletes as Leaders programs in high schools around Washington state. Coaching Boys Into Men is implemented with high school boys sports teams, and Athletes as Leaders is intended as a complement for high school girls sports teams.
We have published three previous articles that address the various forms of gender bias, prejudice, and unequal regard for the safety of boys and girls embedded in these curriculums. (View those articles here, here, and here.)
In this post, we share several graphics that we hope make clear why these programs are wrong for Washington’s youth. If implementers of these programs want to continue implementing them, they should supplement the curriculums with information that corrects the gender bias.
1. Ignoring girls’ abuse of boys
Explanation: Team Up Washington frequently describes Coaching Boys Into Men as an evidence-based violence prevention program. However, the formal evaluation of the program carried out back in 2012 (on which the ‘evidence-based’ label is based) only asked boys if they were abusing girls. Bizarrely, it did not also ask the boys whether they were experiencing abuse.
Ending in 2012, CBIM underwent a rigorous three-year evaluation in Sacramento, California funded by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and conducted by Dr. Elizabeth Miller, now of the University of Pittsburgh.
CBIM Evaluation One-Pager
2. Concerned only about how girls are treated
Explanation: Coaching Boys Into Men and Athletes as Leaders are promoted as complementary programs, with CBIM being for boys and AAL being for girls. Collectively, the curriculums have a great deal to say about how boys should treat women and girls. They say nothing about how girls should treat men and boys, yet they purport to be about equity and equality.
3. Unequal concern for boys and girls’ safety
Explanation: The CDC’s webpage on preventing teen dating violence cites a study that found 1 in 11 high school girls and 1 in 14 high school boys had experienced physical dating violence in the previous year. The Coaching Boys Into Men and Athletes as Leaders curriculums have no fewer than 24 mentions of appropriate conduct toward women and girls, but zero mentions of appropriate conduct toward men and boys. Team Up Washington is not telling the whole story when it says these programs are about “violence prevention” or “preventing teen dating abuse.” In fact, protection of women and girls is their objective.
4. Protection for women and girls, rather than for everyone
Explanation: One of the criticisms of Coaching Boys Into Men and Athletes as Leaders that we have written about in previous articles is their lack of transparency. The way Team Up Washington and others promote these programs fails to make clear that the problem they are designed to solve is this: mistreatment of girls. That is certainly a problem worth solving. But it is not enough. Why is it not enough? Fairness. Justice. Equality. Equity. Inclusiveness. Civil Rights. The other half of the population. Washington State’s Equal Rights Amendment of 1972. We could go on.
5. Biased, backward-looking, and outdated
Explanation: This one speaks for itself, and we think our previous articles about CBIM and AAL make the case convincingly.
6. Most Seattle high schools are involved, and many schools elsewhere
Explanation: Out of the 11 Seattle Public Schools high schools that have athletic programs, at least 8 of them have recently, are currently, or may soon implement the Coaching Boys Into Men and/or Athletes as Leaders curriculums with their sports teams. Schools elsewhere are carrying out these programs with their 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders, including schools in Bellevue and Spokane. CBIM and AAL are implemented in schools in many other states too.
7. Prominent supporters and sponsors
Explanation: As of 1/26/22, Team Up Washington lists on their website several prominent organizations that they call team members, sponsors, or supporters.