Children show 'ingrained misogyny', teacher warns

Abusive behaviour witnessed by children at home is manifesting itself in the classroom, a teacher has said

"Ingrained misogyny" in the home is leading to violent and hate-fuelled attitudes towards women in school children, a teacher has warned.

Karen Derbyshire said the behaviour some children witness manifests itself in appalling words and actions in the classroom.

Ms Derbyshire, who is also a Lancashire councillor, was speaking during a Chorley Council meeting.

A motion to make tackling abuse against women and girls a priority was raised.

Ms Derbyshire, a teacher for 25 years, said some incidents had "horrified" her.

She told the meeting about a six-year-old boy who regularly tried to kick and hit female teachers and abused them with a range of highly abusive terms.

But she described how the pupil was considered a "mate" by his father and how the pair would play "misogynistic" computer games together.

'Endemic abuse'

Ms Derbyshire also told councillors of a seven-year-old stealing his father's credit card and accessing a pornography website at school.

She added: "[There is] ingrained misogyny in some homes. We need to stop it at source, we need to make sure people are aware of it."

Fellow councillor Julia Berry said harassment and violence towards women in general was "endemic".

The meeting also heard highly sexualised language was regarded as "the norm" by a growing number of teenagers, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The motion, which won cross-party support, also called for Lancashire Police to continue to record harassment of women as a hate crime beyond a current nationwide pilot.

Chorley Council pledged to set up a task force to listen to Chorley women's experiences and committed to doing everything in its power to "build a borough free of misogyny and violence against women and girls".

Conservative opposition group leader Martin Boardman said dealing with domestic abuse and sexual violence against women was already in the top five priorities for the police.

Referring to an email from Police and Crime Commissioner Andrew Snowden, Mr Boardman said £2.5m had been invested in the victims' services contract to enable face-to-face support for domestic abuse and sexual assault survivors.

Council leader Alistair Bradley said while the police and crime commissioner had pledged to tackle the problem, the council needed to ensure the promises came to fruition.

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