Mr John Southon, Principal of Trundle Central School in NSW, argues schools must hold open, guilt-free conversations about domestic violence, rejecting harmful stereotypes that distort masculinity and leave young men struggling to form identity.
Few topics are more controversial and career limiting for an educator than encouraging open debate about domestic violence and the way men are portrayed in the media.
Yet the effects of this hideous crime and an unrealistic definition of masculinity some young men have are clearly seen in every school in Australia. Location, socio economic status, or religious affiliation does not protect our students from the crime of domestic violence – but informed debate and education can.
In 2024, I wrote in my school newsletter ‘the media labelling all men as violent is causing many beautiful young men to struggle with identity formation’. I also wrote, ‘It is very difficult as an educator to inform young men about coercive control if a definition understandable to the teenage brain is not available.’
These statements were developed from 33 years of educating young people in mainstream, special education, behaviour and juvenile justice settings. It was not a reaction to an isolated case or a knee-jerk reaction from a bad day on the chalk face.
Surprisingly, mainstream media were ringing my phone at 5:00am to gain a statement to defend my controversial position. My concern then, and still now, is that saturation of young men with the message that being male is to be violent is causing young men identity confusion during a very vulnerable time in their life.
I see young men everyday who are afraid to identify with their concept of masculinity because it may offend, or they be labelled uncaring or even worse, condoning violence. This can lead to boys isolating themselves and in extreme cases developing a real fear of the world they should be interacting with and contributing too.
These are not violent people; just young men with a different concept of being a male than the politically correct sanitised version. More modality of language would not sell the story as well but simple words such as ‘some’ or ‘more’ in the statement men are committing violence against women would make such a difference in the identity formation of vulnerable young men.
Coercive control is a hideous crime and the laws on the face of it are well overdue. However, my question is: how do we explain these laws to the adolescent brain? Trained legal minds were at the time struggling to understand how the law would be interpreted by the courts. How then can educators within the complex environments that are schools hope to effectively answer the multitude of questions coming from the people who need to be informed the most – our young men?
Many young men still cannot accurately define what constitutes a sexual assault let alone identify if their behaviour constitutes coercive control. Common questions I have fielded from young men are, Can women be charged with sexual assault? How do I know if a girl wants me to touch her? Some are so confused they no longer put themselves forward for a relationship.
This issue will be constantly placed in the too-hard-basket until we have a debate free from guilt and all types of domestic violence are discussed. The narrowing of the issue to only physical violence against women marginalises the debate and restricts our ability to bring about genuine change.
In my 34-year career I have never worked in a time where debate is more sanitised and controlled. All education systems develop and reward educators that are politically correct compliant clones, rather than conduits that encourage students to think beyond a concrete level to look at all aspects of an issue. The result is a generation of young people that seek guidance from social media and a society that wants to silo and group people under labels rather than actually debate and develop alternative viewpoints on controversial issues.
If educators, the front line of identity formation, continue to be marginalised and silenced because of the fear our comments and actions will be weaponised against us by the system we work within or the popular media, our young men will continue to suffer in a sea of confusion and fail to develop a positive concept of self. I passionately argue this era of extreme political correctness is the most dangerous to be male in our schools. Perhaps the academic results and attendance of male students are proof of this fact.
