Myths, Memes, and Misogyny, oh my!

Wise Up aims to educate young people about relationship abuse and misogyny. We do this through face to face workshops both in schools and with community groups, and through our social media campaign via instagram and tiktok.

The Wise Up project is co-ordinated by intersectional feminist, activist, and professional youth and community worker Kerri Todd, who develops, co-ordinates, and facilitates the workshops, social media, engagement, and resources for the project. Belfast and Lisburn Women’s Aid has facilitated preventive education work for over 20 years, and the Wise Up Project very much stands on the shoulders of this.

The workshops are inclusive, LGBTQIA+ affirming, and focus on the young people getting to consider and discuss their own thoughts, feelings, belief systems, and behaviours, as well as the impact that we can and do have on the people around us. The content includes exploration and education around; gender stereotypes, power and influence, social media, masculinity, misogyny, red/green flags, relationship with self, and wellbeing. It is integral to the workshop that the approach be non judgemental, that everyone present feels included, and that the very things we are educating about eg boundaries, consent, and respect, are modelled by facilitators in real time.

We know that we have a very high rate of femicide here in the North, we know that 28 women have been murdered since 2020, and we also know this doesn’t just happen out of nowhere – we know physical violence starts with attitudes and beliefs, be it influenced by home, school, peers, or online, of gender stereotypes, sexism and misogyny, transphobia and homophobia, racism and ablelism, the more we allow or laugh off or ignore in our day to day, the more space we give for escalation into degradation, into removal of autonomy, and then physical violence. - normalised sexism leads to gender based violence. (informed by Uni of alberta & raise your voice ni)

It is with this knowledge and understanding that we work with young people, to challenge the ‘everyday sexism’, to interrupt the harmful rhetoric perpetuated by the ‘manosphere’ and red pill thinking, to dispell the plethora of myths that seek to deflect blame from the real perpetrators, to encourage critical thinking online and IRL, and to empower young people to treat every person in their life with respect, dignity, and kindness, even if you disagree with one another, and even if no one else around them does so.

We think it’s time to Wise Up, don’t you? - if you work with young people and would like to chat further or arrange a workshop, email kerri.todd@belfastwomensaid.org.uk

By Kerri Todd – Wise Up Project Co-ordinator, Belfast and Lisburn Women’s Aid