Adolescence: How the serial hit triggered a discussion about hatred of women

"We look at 'adolescence' with our children. I have a 16-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter and I think it's a very good documentation." Great Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a speech in the British Parliament. It is rather rare that series tips are given there. But that shows how explosive the new oneNetflix-Serie „Adolescence“is. The two authors of the series wanted to open a discussion. They hope for a real change. The plan could open.

The mini series was called up more than 24 million times in the first week, and in 71 countries it reached number 1 on the Netflix charts. Last week, Netflix then reported almost 100 million calls, which means "Adolescence" on the best way to one of the most successful Netflix series ever. Some schools even want to include “adolescence” in the curriculum. And especially in the UK, the country of origin of the series, she has started a long overdue discussion about a growing problem: hatred of women.

The series begins with the 13-year-old Jamie be arrested. It can be demonstrated that he has murdered his classmate. The only question is: why? After all, he is not a monster at first glance, but a clever, sensitive boy. His favorite school subject is history, he likes to play video games and depends on his friends-actually like every 13-year-old. But in the course of the series it turns out that Jamie was bullied at school.

To escape the whole, he withdraws on the Internet. In the "Manosphere" and with influencers like Andrew Tate, he finds strength. And so he gets into a whirlpool of toxic masculinity and misogynem extremism. He develops a deeply seated hatred of women, no longer begins to see his mother and sister as equivalent and learns that women have to be deceived, controlled and dominated by men.

Jamie's story is fictional, but in real cases. Because, like him, many boys and young men from women's hatred are influenced on the Internet, while algorithms continue to push misogynistic content on social media. Like Jamie, more and more young victims of Incel culture (Incels stand for "Involuntary Celibate Men", i.e. involuntarily living men living in celibacy).

The series raises many questions, for example: How do we manage to raise boys in such a way that they respect women? Because the idea that a generation of men is growing up, which is given their image of women of toxic men on the Internet, is terrifying. In Germany, the number of misogynistic crimes on women and girls is already increasing. In 2023, 360 women were victims of a female, that is, a woman or a girl from women's hatred was killed almost every day. In the same year, 17,193 women and girls were victims of digital violence such as cyberbullying, but also threats and exposure to social media.

Hopefully the series is a wax call so that we can finally take this huge problem seriously, which is slumbering under the surface of our society. Hopefully she will show how important it is that we give children an understanding of consensus and empathy - whether at home or in educational lessons. And that we teach boys to allow and express their feelings and emotions. We have to show them what "masculinity" means and how they become men that women do not have to fear. At least in Great Britain, thanks to “adolescence”, you are particularly doing such thoughts: the government wants to introduce new guidelines on relationship, health and sex education in schools- lessons against misogynia should also be part of this.