Sports cars, cigars in your mouth and sunglasses: a little research on Andrew Tate is enough to understand the aura of the character. A former kickboxing champion who has since converted to influence and coaching, the self-proclaimed “king of toxic masculinity” has been officiating online for several years. Between two misogynistic videos or tweets indicating that women “have their responsibility” in the event of sexual assault, “the top G” asks his army of subscribers to flood social networks with his videos and his messages. Andrew Tate is everywhere, even as all of his social media accounts were banned in August 2022. The influencer has since been arrested in Romania along with his brother, charged with human trafficking and rape, and is still in detention.
However, its online influence is not waning, quite the contrary. So much so that Andrew Tate’s misogynistic theories have invaded schoolyards and classrooms, as many English-language media report, such as the New York Times, The Guardian Or The Independent. All report the concern of parents and teachers in the face of young teenagers who see in Tate a symbol of social and financial success, but also a model of masculinity. So, to fight against the influence of the masculinist, teachers have decided to center certain courses around the thought of Andrew Tate, with the aim of debunking certain theories.
British teens know more about Andrew Tate than their Prime Minister
Andrew Tate’s name is one of the most searched on Google in 2022. Online, especially on some teen-oriented networks, like Tik Tok, his videos abound, shared and re-shared by anonymous accounts or other masculinists . The name Andrew Tate is known to all British teenagers, but not to their parents or their teachers. In the articles cited above, many teachers and parents claim to have discovered the existence of the influencer and his remarks following alerts or misogynistic speeches from students aged 10 to 17.
According to a survey conducted by the British association HOPE not Hate and published in mid-February, boys aged 16 to 17 knew more about Andrew Tate than about Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister. In this same survey, we learn that 45% of teenagers questioned have a positive opinion of the influencer… This is enough to worry education professionals and parents, who often do not know the nature of the content consumed by teenagers online. . Especially since faced with the black boxes that are the algorithms of the social networks frequented by teenagers, it is difficult to counter hundreds of thousands of viral videos.
Tackling gender stereotypes from an early age
For English teachers, a priority: tackling gender stereotypes and debunking masculinist theories, one discussion after another. Victoria Howard-Andrews, a teacher in an English school, explains to Subway UK that “it’s a deeper issue, but what we can do as teachers is that young boys feel empowered to speak out against sexism and racism in their peers”. On the program: courses on what masculinity means, discussions on the emotions felt by the youngest vis-à-vis this content, but also digital education. Other establishments call on external associations, such as Men At Work or Bold Voices, which aim to promote greater equality between girls and boys.
Concern over Andrew Tate’s power over younger people has carried over to the British Parliament. Labor MP Alex Davies-Jones delivered a speech on the subject, alerting parliamentarians to the need to combat misogynistic speech from an early age. Because if it is compulsory for British schools to integrate courses dealing with girl/boy relationships and affective and sexual life, the emergence of Andrew Tate’s theories in the words of pupils obliges teachers and associations to deepen their workshops. For now, it is only across the Channel that education professionals seem to focus on masculinist discourse. Due to a lack of time, means, or knowledge of the phenomenon, the popularity of masculinist theories is difficult to confront.