I Need To Clear Something Up About PSHE

Today I listened to The Women and Equalities Committee investigation on Relationships & Sex Education (RSE) for PSHE. An investigation very much needed as the PSHE organisations sector is unregulated and I have seen some very concerning resources being used. Frankly i have seen resources that belong in child grooming investigations rather than in schools. While listening, the chair MP Kate Osborne said something I found extraordinary:

“Is there a risk of reviewing RSE in particular rolling back on gender in particular, we’re repeating the failings of Section 28”

MP Kate Osborne

The harm of gender stereotypes is in the compulsory PSHE curriculum. The HARM of gender. I know this because I helped put it there personally.

Over the last couple of years I have seen the absolute mess and misrepresentation of my work on the PSHE curriculum has turned into. But today I’ve had enough. It’s time to set the record straight.

In 2013 my sister Sasha Marden was murdered. When this happened I understandably wanted to find out why it happened so that we could change it. I did this to save other girls. After a few university courses, volunteering and presenting my research I found that gender stereotypes is the answer.

In 2016 gender meant gender stereotypes. It meant pink and blue, pretty and strong, dominant and submissive – it meant object and subject. Those same gender stereotypes were in pornography which was what young people were looking to for their sex education. In 2016 myself, other experts and cross party politicians decided to change that with a compulsory PSHE curriculum.

This meant that as child sexual abuse and exploitation perpetrators were most likely to be family members or family friends, that kids where domestic abuse was in the home or kids who were in care could have a safe adult to learn about this stuff. About healthy relationships with themselves and others. The harm of gender stereotypes was vital to that.

The high suicide rates in men, the high perpetrators of crime rates in men, eating issues, mental health issues, rape, domestic abuse, child on child abuse, sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, some homicides and paedocriminality all start with gender stereotypes. All of them.

So teaching children about the harm of gender stereotypes – that boys can cry and ask for help because it’s not weak – that a girls self worth is not based on how she looks because she’s a person and not a decoration – that respect and consent and safety is important for any relationships you have. If we teach them that then all of the stuff on that horrible list reduces massively. My sister would still be here if gender stereotypes were not.

And so the harm of gender stereotypes was in the curriculum along with consent, healthy relationships, where to get help if you need it and more. But the harm of gender stereotypes at the root because it was the root cause.

Now gender is said to be progressive. Gender is said to define sex. And gender, I am told is in the PSHE curriculum. Now the meaning of gender is used differently since 2016 and certainly more frequently. I have seen so many resources reinforcing gender stereotypes. That men are strong and tough and not emotional – that women are pretty and sexy and caring. When I have questioned why they are being used I am told that I am wrong about what is in the curriculum. That I have misunderstood it.

I can’t summarise over 10 years of work and study of gender stereotypes so I will tell you this. For over 10 years I’ve done an exercise with boys and men and asked them for words to describe what it means to be a man. Every time these words appear:

• Strong
• Dominant
• In control
• Violent/Protector
• Not emotional/logical
• Entitled to respect
• Have any women he wants

I see this list, this man boys think they should be…. everywhere. Then I ask if I had to make a list of traits or attitudes a domestic abuser would need, what would be different about that list?

Nothing.

We tell our boys this is what they must be and we tell our girls just as damaging things through gender stereotypes. They are not progressive. They are limiting at best and harmful at worst. They are in media, in religion, in pornography, in the low rape/stalking/domestic abuse convictions, in CAHMS waiting lists, they are everything Andrew Tate stands for.

The harm of gender stereotypes is not attacking people like Section 28 did. It is not going backwards. It is a vital tool to prevent violence against women and girls, to the emotional regulation development of boys and mental health of men.



Your misunderstanding is not an excuse to fail boys and girls alike – or to diminish and misrepresent my work.