Will Knowland taught English at £42,500-a-year Berkshire school for nine years
- Mr Knowland said he was dismissed over a lesson titled ‘The Patriarchy Paradox’
- The class was for Perspectives module, where pupils critique subjects of debate
- It was made as a virtual lecture to be put on the intranet – but it was never aired
View comments: An Eton College master has been sacked after preparing a lecture which questioned ‘current radical feminist orthodoxy’.
Will Knowland, who taught English at the £42,500-a-year school in Berkshire for nine years, said he was dismissed over a lesson titled ‘The Patriarchy Paradox’.
He said he was appealing the gross misconduct claim and will go to a employment tribunal if it is unsuccessful.
It was made as a virtual lecture to be put on the college’s intranet due to the coronavirus crisis, but it was never aired.
Eton has been accused of ‘prioritising emotional safety over intellectual challenge’ after banning the lesson.
Mr Knowland told the Telegraph: ‘The head master felt that some of the ideas put forward in my lecture – such as the view that men and women differ psychologically and not all of those differences are socially constructed – were too dangerous for the boys to be exposed to.
‘I explained to the head master that I wasn’t endorsing all the ideas in my lecture, but I wanted the boys to be made aware of a different point of view to the current radical feminist orthodoxy, which insists that there’s something fundamentally toxic about masculinity.
‘In my lecture, I pointed out that, historically, masculine qualities like strength, courage and tenacity have often been as beneficial to women as they have been to men.’