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Youth group hosts workshops after Adolescence drama

Amy Holmes
Political Reporter
Reporting fromBerkhamsted
Amy Holmes/BBC A picture of three teenagers, one boy and two girls, who are sat down. The boy has blond curly hair, a brown T-shirt and is wearing glasses. The girl in the middle has long brown hair and is wearing blue jeans, with a black cardigan and a white top. The third girl has shoulder length brown hair, is wearing glasses, and has a dark blue jumper on with white stripes. They are all smiling at the camera and sitting on a beige sofa.Amy Holmes/BBC
Adam, Suri and Megan said they have experienced incidents similar to that featured on Adolescence in their lives

A youth group plans to hold workshops to tackle issues around social media and misogynist influencers after they were highlighted on the Netflix show Adolescence.

The Swan Youth Project in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, has supported 12 to 18-year-olds in the area for about 30 years.

Project manager Parul Dix said one young person recently told her "quite boastfully" that they "had told a teacher they were going to rape them".

She said the incident prompted her to focus on educating "boys and girls about what is acceptable, so they are not growing up into some of the influencers that we are seeing".

Adolescence tells the story of a 13-year-old boy who is charged with the killing of a female classmate.

The show has led to a national conversation about the impact of social media and "manosphere" influencers on children.

Ms Dix said the series showed "all the complexities that young people today are seeing online, having to decipher what is real and and what is not and what they should and should not be".

The workshops, which are for 13 to 16-year-olds and will be funded by the Hertfordshire Community Foundation, will also teach teenagers about healthy relationships and how to recognise coercive behaviour.

Amy Holmes/BBC Parul Dix smiles at the camera as she is sat down on a grey sofa. She has black/grey hair that is pushed back by her glasses, which are on the top of her head. She is wearing a black blouse with a black jacket.Amy Holmes/BBC
Parul Dix says she wants to educate teens about healthy relationships and coercive behaviour

The BBC spoke to three young people who regularly attended the youth project.

Adam, 17, said teenage boys were under "a lot of pressure" to behave in a certain way and felt "toxic masculinity played a huge part in that".

He said he has heard young people speak about "women in a derogatory way" and labelled it "disgusting" but "normalised".

He added "there is an expectation to be a bit of a player and be confident when it comes to girls, which is not realistic".

Suri, 16, said that the expectations for younger people, especially men, has changed from the "lean look" in the nineties to "going to the gym three or four times a week".

She added that she thought there was pressure for girls to "act, particularly feminine" and that girls were judged if they acted "a bit more stereotypically masculine", such as if they sign up to play what she described as "less graceful sports".

She wanted to highlight violence against women because she felt that if it was "normalised for the next generation, then we have got serious problems".

Megan, 16, said toxic behaviour had become so common that "when she has a guy that is a friend who is really, really nice, that does not seem normal anymore".

She added that when she was "11 or 12 she had been exposed to horrible things online, on really sensitive topics about self harm and stuff like that".

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