Boys who reacted in a resistant way at the beginning of a session usually did so because they were embarrassed, they thought the whole thing was a bit of a joke, or they worried that the word sexism meant they were going to be told off. We’d discuss the many ways in which gender stereotypes affect men and boys and talk about mental health and male role models, and as the boys came to realize that this was not an attack on them, they’d participate more and more fully in the conversation. This phenomenon was most clearly illustrated when I visited an all-girls school where pupils from the
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