If you can see it, you can be it. This concept is rightly employed to emphasize the importance of girls seeing women succeeding in a variety of roles, including ones not conventionally associated with women. The flip side of this concept similarly bears truth: If you can’t see it, you can’t be it.
One role that many boys can’t imagine themselves in, partly thanks to the bias with which we educate them, is the role of victim of intimate partner violence (also called domestic violence). The result is boys are left more vulnerable to relationship abuse than they otherwise would be, and abusive girls are less likely to get help to correct their behavior than they would otherwise be.
A textbook example of gender bias in schools is the Coaching Boys Into Men program, which is designed to be delivered by coaches of boys sports teams. Since its launch in 2008, thousands of coaches of high school boys have delivered this curriculum that fails in two ways:
- Coaching Boys Into Men hypocritically reinforces stereotypes against boys while teaching them not to reinforce stereotypes against others, and – most importantly –
- With its focus on boys as potential abusers, Coaching Boys Into Men fails to teach boys to recognize and prevent abuse of themselves by female dating partners.
Dating violence: 1 in 11 girls, 1 in 14 boys
If girls never abused their boyfriends, then the Coaching Boys Into Men curriculum would be acceptable as it is. However, surveys conducted by the Centers for Disease Control showed that approximately 1 in 11 female and 1 in 14 male high school students reported having experienced physical dating violence in the previous year. Furthermore:
- The CDC found that among high schoolers who had experienced one or more instances of physical dating violence, the proportion of boys who experienced four or more instances in the previous year was double that of girls (41.6% vs 21.6%). In other words, girls were more likely to be serial offenders of physical dating violence [CDC, Table 3].
- Similarly, among high schoolers who had experienced one or more instances of sexual dating violence, the proportion of boys who experienced four or more instances in the previous year was double that of girls (41% vs. 20.8%). In other words, girls were more likely to to be serial offenders of sexual dating violence [CDC, Table 3].
- In addition, 26% of women and 15% of men who have ever been victims of sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner first experienced it before age 18 [CDC].
Knowing these statistics, it is a mistake for high schools to implement programs like Coaching Boys Into Men that focus on preventing the victimization of only one gender. Schools should instead educate both boys and girls to recognize unhealthy relationship behaviors. Then, regardless of gender, our youth will be better prepared to not abuse and not be abused.
“Coaching Boys into Men is a comprehensive violence prevention curriculum that inspires athletic coaches to teach their young athletes that violence never equals strength and violence against women and girls is wrong. The program comes with strategies, scenarios, and resources needed to talk to boys, specifically, about healthy and respectful relationships, dating violence, sexual assault, and harassment.”
CBIM Evaluation One-Pager (Coaches Kit document #9)
Clear gender bias
Coaching Boys Into Men is a program of Futures Without Violence, a nonprofit headquartered in San Francisco that works “to end violence against women, children, and families.”
We downloaded all 15 documents in the program’s Coaches Kit and closely reviewed them. We offer these two key findings:
- The curriculum teaches boys to see themselves as potential perpetrators but leaves them blind to the reality that girls can abuse them.
- The curriculum sends mixed messages about what its purpose is. (This is similarly a problem with the Athletes as Leaders program, a curriculum meant for girls sports teams as a complement to Coaching Boys Into Men for boys teams.)
CBIM’s purpose is ambiguous
What is the purpose of the Coaching Boys Into Men program? In some places, the curriculum uses phrases that sound gender neutral and inclusive, like “building healthy relationships,” “the importance of respect,” “violence prevention,” and “preventing teen relationship abuse.”
The program repeatedly instructs boys on how they should behave toward women and girls. The main curricular document in the Coaches Kit says the words “women and girls” 24 times, making clear that the program is about:
- denouncing violence against women and girls
- preventing violence against women and girls
- showing respect toward women and girls
- treating women and girls as equals
- treating women and girls with honor
- refusing to use language that degrades women and girls
- refusing to engage in lewd or foul behavior toward women and girls
- listening and believing the experiences of women and girls
- cooperating with women and girls to promote gender equity
Coaching Boys Into Men’s purpose becomes comprehensible when one realizes that when the program says it is about “building respectful and non-violent relationships”, women and girls are the people it has in mind who need respect and non-violence. In the Athletes as Leaders program, which is designed for high school girls as a complement to the Coaching Boys Into Men program, not once does it instruct girls on how they should treat men and boys.
See related blog post: Athletes As Leaders “oppression chart” shows women as inherently disadvantaged, men advantaged
These two curriculums purport to be about gender equality and equity. They are actually specifically about protecting women and girls. Those who promote Coaching Boys Into Men and Athletes as Leaders should be transparent about this.
Coaching Boys Into Men occasionally strays away from teaching boys how they should behave in the real world and enters into the realm of ideology. At one point it emphasizes boys’ responsibility “to listen and believe the experiences of women.” Elsewhere it talks about “promoting equality” and “promoting gender equity,” thought it neglects to define those terms. (We have previously expounded on the problem with the popular one-sided notion of gender equality.)
More evidence of gender bias
There is more evidence that this program, which is purportedly about preventing teen relationship abuse, fails to equip boys with information to avoid becoming victims.
When the Centers for Disease Control funded a three-year evaluation of the effectiveness of Coaching Boys Into Men, follow-up surveys after boys went through the program asked them whether they had perpetrated any of ten abusive behaviors toward a female partner. The surveys offered no opportunity for boys to report having been on the receiving end of abusive behaviors from a female partner. Imagine the 16-year-old boy whose girlfriend hits him, who – incentivized by a $10 gift card – takes the survey. He truthfully reports perpetrating no abuse, while never being asked about the abuse he is experiencing.
Glimmers of gender neutrality
On rare occasions, the curriculum strays from its predominant framing of boys as potential abusers and girls as potential victims. The following statistic, which acknowledges the existence of male victims, appears twice among the materials in the Coaches Kit:
1 in 3 teenagers reports knowing a friend or peer who has been physically hurt by their boyfriend or girlfriend.
If the writers of Coaching Boys Into Men know that approximately 1 in 11 female and 1 in 14 male high school students reports having experienced dating violence, why do they make no effort to teach male high school students to recognize signs their girlfriend is abusing them?
The only other glimmer of gender neutrality is an occasion when the course materials say, “people…may even use violence to control their girlfriend or boyfriend.”
Remove the gender ideology, and get inclusive
The essence of the Coaching Boys Into Men program is this: Boys, you should not hurt girls.
Any curriculum that is concerned about the protection of girls and boys should teach what healthy and unhealthy relationship behaviors look like, regardless of gender. The goal should be that no youth – whether they be male or female – choose to take part in relationship abuse, whether as perpetrator or as victim.
Referring back to the beginning of this post, if boys and girls only ever see male airline pilots, how will they know that girls can become airline pilots? Similarly, if we only show adolescents male-perpetrated relationship abuse, how are boys to learn they can be victims, and how are girls to learn they can be abusers? Solving for half a problem is not a solution.
Team Up Washington, a program under the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, exists to promote the use of the Coaching Boys Into Men curriculum in Washington’s high schools. Team Up Washington also promotes the Athletes as Leaders program, a curriculum for female high school athletes that we will write about separately, as it, too, is gender biased and ideological.
See related blog post: When Schools Teach Boys They Are Oppressors