Recent research has revealed that one in 10 children in England have seen pornography by the age of nine and one in four by the age of 11!
10-year-old Daniel likes football, the game website Poki and basketball. Last year, he asked his father if he had ever heard of him Andrew Tate. “I didn’t have him,” his father admits to the “Guardian” newspaper, who, doing an investigation, was horrified by what he found.
Today, it seems almost every parent in Britain has heard of the former kickboxer and ‘toxic’ influencer on social media, whose videos have been viewed millions of times and whose recent arrest in Romania for human trafficking, rape and setting up an organized crime group to exploit women has kept him in the headlines.
Kids aren’t the only ones watching Andrew Tate’s toxic social media content, which has resulted in him being banned from most major platforms. They are also monitoring his progress through the Romanian criminal justice system, where he and his brother, Tristan, have been remanded in custody until February 27 while investigations continue. An appeal against their detention was rejected yesterday. They deny all charges.
Among those following the developments in Bucharest is 14-year-old Isaac. “I want to know what’s going to happen,” he says with some glee. Isaac seems to be an ordinary teenager. He plays a lot of soccer and goes to the gym. He likes Fortnite and goes fishing when he gets the chance. He thinks Andrew Tate is stupid, but says there are other boys at his inner-city school who admire him.
“I probably first heard about him six months ago and pretty quickly he was all over the internet. You couldn’t avoid him,” says the 14-year-old student.
36-year-old Andrew Tate, who rose to prominence when he was kicked off a popular reality show in 2016, likes to pose with a cigar in front of expensive cars and private jets and often dispenses controversial advice to young men (he once claimed that reading books is “for people with slow mind”). But it is his extreme misogyny that has made him a household name, prompting fears that boys and young men are being influenced by his views. He has said that women are partly responsible for rape and that they “belong” to men. In one video, in which he imagines a woman accusing him of infidelity, he is seen saying: “I take out the knife, hit her in the face and grab her by the throat. Shut up, bitch.”
Campaigners fear Andrew Tate’s views are even seeping into the minds of primary school children. Last month, Labor MP Alex Davies-Jones spoke in parliament about its “toxic” influence on school children. Many secondary school teachers feel they were slow to realize Tate’s influence.
Just last year they started noticing students using phrases they didn’t recognize: “What color is your Bugatti?” (a way to brag about one’s status) or “Make me a sandwich” (to belittle women and girls).
Tate’s misogynistic views didn’t come out of nowhere. Almost three years ago, Soma Sara founded the ‘Everyone’s Invited’ initiative, which began as a website for rape survivors to anonymously share their experiences and has revealed the scale of sexual violence and misogyny in schools. Since then, there have been several murders of women, while official statistics, released last month, showed a large increase in the number of young men referred to the government’s Prevent program for violent behavior against women.
“We need to focus on the issues, not the individual,” says Conroy, who spent 16 years working in secondary schools before founding Men at Work. “This is not about Andrew Tate. It’s about misogyny. These issues have always existed.” He is concerned, however, that more and more young people are being exposed to pornographic material. Recent research has revealed that one in 10 children in England have seen pornography by the age of nine and one in four by the age of 11!
Porn, according to him, is a huge accelerator of this phenomenon. May Andrew Tate be a wake-up call for parents around the world.
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
