TLDR Provided by ChatGPT
The author of the blog post expresses concerns about the Conservative Party’s rules enforcing political neutrality in UK schools. The author argues that presenting a “neutral” viewpoint on systematic sexism that counters the experiences of women with facts such as women getting more degrees than men can justify the mistreatment they receive. The author suggests that political neutrality is not neutral and that such a stance could lead to the indoctrination of young people into alt-right ways of thinking. The blog post concludes by stating that Gavin Williamson’s policy on political impartiality is just the politics that the alt-right uses to indoctrinate impressionable minds.
The Conservative party’s rules enforcing political neutrality only aims to make it easier to red pill impressionable teens.
This week, I have received some disturbing news in regards to a “social justice” assembly that my headteacher gave. According to inside sources, he was addressing women’s issues and problems with systematic racism and then countering those points with the “opposite” such as facts like women get more degrees than men or the women in the FTSE 100 are more successful etc.
Now, I do understand that from a “neutral” perspective, this may seem to be the best way to present a “neutral” viewpoint, but this sort of comparison allows the two issues to be comparable, so let me break it down.
In regards to systematic sexism, women have spent their whole lives being disadvantaged by both conscious and unconscious sexism, harassment and abuse in the workplace. They get paid statistically less than their male counterparts and have always had to face this disparity from school age. Although I can’t back it up, I don’t think it is unreasonable to assume that a group who is forced to work harder to achieve the same as their male counterparts will go further in academic achievement because that work ethic has to be developed at a much younger age. My point here is that you cannot measure systematic issues with statistics presented without any context to children and then directly compare it with the violence and harassment that women face daily as if they’re comparable issues because it will end up justifying the treatment that they receive, especially if these comparisons are presented to them from a person in authority.
Children deserve to know how it is, not how the centre-right see things. Systematic sexism is a common belief across all political opinions. The difference between left and right is that the right try and justify it whilst the left actively fight against it, so the neutral position here is not balancing, but trying to accurately teach children about the systematic challenges against women.
Now, I don’t want to spend time taking the voice away from women here, I am simply trying to point to the stupidity in this perceived “neutrality” because political neutrality in this form isn’t in fact neutral. It’s funny because the people who try and spend time deconstructing feminist arguments (in this way) aren’t the far right because to them, systematic sexism is a good thing. The only people who attempt to approach systematic issues from a “neutral” standpoint are the centre and centre-right, neither of which are neutral positions. However, I know what you’re thinking, “Io! My favourite charismatic right-wing pundit tries to deconstruct the idea of systematic sexism all the time and he is never centre-right” – to which I would agree, but alt-right individuals use this argument as propaganda to red pill the centre to listen to their Nazi influenced rhetoric.
This is what concerned me about the news about an assembly like this within my own school because my first thought was – why is there all of a sudden a space for alt-right politics in my (fairly liberal) school?
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just an openly right-wing headteacher because the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has stressed the need for teachers to be politically neutral, after releasing his legislation against the expression of “extreme political stances” in the classroom. In other words, he ruled against the correct learning of “extreme” opinions such as the systematic sexism facing women. He said, “Political impartiality in our education system is … not just a matter of opinion, it’s also a matter of law. We must give pupils the context for them to be able to learn and form their own opinions. They should not be influenced improperly.”
The problem here is that Williamsons’ perception of “impartiality” is actually just the politics that the alt-right use to indoctrinate impressionable minds through pundits such as Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson. He wants teachers to use the “facts and logic” argument rather than actually addressing issues from a neutral perspective. The way schools are now addressing this is by presenting both sides of the argument on whether systematic issues against women exist, rather than accepting that they exist (which they do) and then presenting the different opinions on how we should deal with it eg. the left say we should implement systematic change to eradicate unfair treatment of any minority and the right say we should embrace it and go further but the moderates on both sides agree that small changes like equality quotas (liberals) or token women on boards within companies (self-labelled libertarians on the right). That way we don’t constantly disavow the experiences of women by saying, “yeah, but women get more degrees than men”.
Under Williamson’s current policy, schools are forced to use alt-right rhetoric presented as the neutral perspective on systematic issues rather than actually presenting a neutral argument that only aims to undermine oppressed groups like women because it teaches children that the “neutral” approach is just rattling off where women do well rather than actually being able to decide where they stand. In other words, Williamson is using schools in the same way that Ben Shapiro is using Daily Wire, to red pill impressionable teenagers into alt-right ways of thinking.
The scary thing is that this “I’m going to look at this neutrally with facts and logic” approach has been used by the alt-right to indoctrinate people for as long as there has been significant opposition to their cause and it works. When Hitler presented stereotypical differences between white Germans and Jews and said that those differences made white people superior, but from a neutral perspective, it was successful in red pilling people into his antisemitism. When the media made cisgender men play most if not all trans women in film, it successfully red-pilled a large number of people into thinking that trans women are just men performing womanhood – more like drag queens than actual women. When Mussolini used evolution to show that gay people are inferior even though animals have been observed to have homosexual tendencies for generations, he successfully red-pilled a generation of people into believing in right-wing evolutionary superiority. These are the same techniques being used by Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and other right-wing pundits and now, by extension and law, every school in the UK.
Neutrality- to be truly neutral – has to come from a place that assumes the true experiences of minority groups, rather than assuming that they face no systematic issues because “they have more university degrees”. For example, if my school started saying – “trans people deserve the right to be listened to and treated as their correct gender, but they shouldn’t go into the correct toilet because cisgender men will abuse that right by saying that they’re women” – then I’d obviously have a massive issue with that, because if there were criminals in toilets (women’s and men’s alike) then I’d hope our legal system would be good enough to deal with them appropriately. That argument is either saying that men would get off easily for predatory behaviour or that trans people are treated unfairly by the criminal justice system and either way that sounds like a systematic issue where cis men are treated disproportionately well.
Schools aren’t telling the full story of these issues and then expecting students to fill in the blanks to stay neutral, but in the process, they are allowing the alt-right propaganda project now instilled in our schools to go even further than it did before.
Hypothetically, let’s say that the stereotype that blonde people are less intelligent has been the defining factor for generations. Blonde people hadn’t been able to vote without restriction for even 100 years, had been forced by the education system into custodial roles and not taught STEM or other “academic” subjects, unlike their brunette counterparts. Then about 50 years ago, they were starting to get taught science, but their brunette science teachers couldn’t understand why they were teaching physics to blonde people and that now in the modern-day all legal restrictions had been removed on blonde people’s ability to participate in education. Now they were treated (legally) as equal to brunette people, but ginger people were still considered to be defective and people who change their hair delusional. Now, considering all that, blonde people start outperforming brunettes in academic subjects, do you think that that symbolises the end of any hierarchy of hair colour? Are blondes and brunettes equal now, despite the generations of brunette people who still have reaped the benefits of systematic disadvantages facing blonde people and wish to maintain those disadvantages? What about across the board, are people who dye their hair blonde treated as blondes, or do people just see them as brunettes pretending to be blonde and vice versa? I guess I’m asking, just because all legal and structural policy doesn’t outright disadvantage blondes anymore, does that make them equal? The correct answer is no, it doesn’t.
However, the government in this scenario has just mandated that schools present both sides of the argument in the name of impartiality, so rather than being able to accurately teach about the systematic hardships blonde people have faced, they are forced to say “yes blonde people have faced systematic disadvantages, but they are now outperforming brunette people in academic circumstances,” which teaches those brunette kids to question the true level of hardship that blonde people have faced, moving them away from a progressive policy that makes it easier to overcome the remnants of an actively oppressive system. This is how women’s issues are being treated by the Conservative Party right now, in this country.
In fact, this is how they are mandating schools to teach students about political issues. Rather than enforcing true neutrality, they are compelling schools on a legal basis to teach the side that says “there are systematic issues against minority groups” versus the side that says there aren’t. This is alt-right red pilling because it makes systematic issues seem like an equally valid opinion to thinking they don’t exist – painting liberal (not to mention left-wing) politics as “extreme.”
What can be done?
Other than lobbying the government to change the policy and gritting your teeth whilst you vote for the leading opposition in your constituency we need to lobby schools. Even small acts like sending this blog to heads in your school or talking about politics with teachers can help them understand how to be effectively neutral rather than regressively neutral as the current policy suggests. I would also recommend that you commend any teacher that accurately portrays the struggles of minority groups despite the legislation because that sort of activism is more powerful than you think. I would also watch and listen to the creators that I have listed on my website, which will allow a better, more well-rounded perspective of politics rather than just an alt-right view. On top of that, encourage your friends to do the same so that they too don’t fall for this indoctrination technique. We need to stay positive, vocal and on the right side of history because if we let the Conservative Party win over our peers, it will cause irreparable damage for years to come.
To find my socials go to iocutmore.com. On my website, you can also find LGBTQ+ support links as well as a list of brilliant (mostly LGBTQ+) creators to who you should go and show some support. I hope you farewell until next time,
-Io
Io Cutmore 