After holding previous Feminist Society events at Tormead (which focused on topics including: “What is a Feminist?”, international crises, and normalised misogyny post Everyone’s Invited), we decided to extend the invite to the Royal Grammar School and Guildford High School. Our efforts allowed us to broaden our discussion and gain a wider range of perspectives.

Prior to the event, there was close collaboration between the three student bodies to organise and publicise. Our turnout was much larger than expected, with us hosting over 80 students – luckily enough brownies were baked to go around the full auditorium!

After encouraging mixed seating, conversation flowed freely on the points of discussion brought forward by the panel. We explored the discourse surrounding Andrew Tate, a prevalent social media figure who has gained a predominantly young male following. He promotes extreme misogyny, hatred and violence against women. We evaluated the consequences of his infamy, and moved on to discuss “locker room talk”, which was highlighted to not be limited to the “locker room”, often taking place unashamedly in public settings. We concluded with assessing the actions we can take to challenge misogyny.

The eclectic audience made many valuable contributions, and we saw how the positive atmosphere enabled rich conversation to flow, uninhibited by fear of judgement. Any divisive opinions were debated maturely and allowed the audience to learn from one another.

Many of us were disappointed to leave when our time ran out – we felt as though we could have continued for hours, as there was much more to be discussed. Our feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and it has been an ongoing topic of conversation since.

We look forward to being involved in more events for further discussion between the three schools.

Ellie & Suhani, Upper Sixth