Recently I addressed Year 10 girls and boys at a school in NSW. During question time at the end of my presentation, one of the young women read out a Facebook post by a male peer, filled with disparaging descriptions of the girls in his class. The girls were clearly upset. In the next session with the boys, I decided – without identifying the young man responsible – to read an extract from the Facebook post and share how distressed the girls had been by it.
That evening, after the parent session, one of the Year 10 girls approached me. She asked me if I would like to know the outcome of my time with the boys. Naturally I was interested. She said that the young man was so impacted by my message he decided to take responsibility for his actions and personally apologised to the girls he had offended, saying he would never do it again.
I am witnessing more outcomes like this. Boys, when given the opportunity to see how the culture they live in shapes and conditions them with harmful ideas about masculinity and damaging attitudes toward women and girls, can choose to reject social dictates and pressures and become young men of integrity. My new presentation for young men is designed to do just this.
I recently had the privilege of presenting to a few hundred young men from schools in Sydney’s West at The Young Men’s Health Forum, organised by the passionate team at Conviction Group. You can see the impact of the message in this graph – 90% of students saying their views changed or were enhanced by my presentation on healthy relationships.
And this is what the director of the program had to say about the session:
“We received overwhelmingly positive feedback regarding your ‘Healthy Relationships’ presentation. Teachers, students, volunteers and special guests all commented on how insightful, eye opening and authentic it was.” – Marco Capobianco, manager Director, Conviction Group.
More encouragement about the possibility of behavioural change from this teacher at The Southport School:
“I would like to say how fantastic your presentations were today. In my nine years at TSS I have never seen the boys so engaged or so empowered to act & change the culture they are operating in. I was really moved by how many of our students passionately voiced their opinions on the topic of both male and female sexual objectification. The subjects of social media, sexual expectation and body image all resonate with our boys” – Corinne Russell, teacher, The Southport School, Queensland.
To learn more about my seminars for boys, please contact me through this website.
