Netflix's Adolescence: Women and girls will never be safe if we're not talking to men and boys

Those are just some of the women and girls who were murdered by men and teenage boys in the UK in 2024.

A woman has been killed by a man every three days on average in recent years, as reported by The Guardian.

Then there are the survivors who must bear the physical and emotional scars of sexual assault, domestic violence, harassment and stalking.

A report by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC), published in July last year, "estimates that at least one in every 12 women will be a victim of violence against women and girls (VAWG) every year". That's 2 million victims.

And "one in 20 men in England and Wales will be a perpetrator of VAWG every year". That's 2.3 million perpetrators.

Offenders are also getting younger, according to the report, which cited extreme online material as a factor.

It's a deeply concerning state of affairs, which has evidently been weighing on Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne.

They've come together to write Adolescence, a Netflix miniseries about a 13-year-old boy, Jamie Miller, who is accused of killing a girl from his school. Graham also plays the father of the accused, Eddie.

The victim, Katie Leonard, was stabbed seven times in a car park, just a few feet away from a playground, and a short walk from her school.

Her body was found with lacerations to her chest, neck, thighs and arms. It was a frenzied, deliberate attack.

But you quickly grasp that this isn't a mystery thriller; Graham and Thorne clearly had no interest in writing a whodunnit. Instead, Adolescence is a call to action. As you watch it, alarm bells should be ringing.

"One of our aims was to ask, 'What is happening to our young men these days, and what are the pressures they face from their peers, from the internet, and from social media?' Graham told Tudum.

"And the pressures that come from all of those things are as difficult for kids here as they are the world over."

The series isn't based on a single real-life case, but Graham confirmed that he was motivated to write this story after noticing a concerning trend in the UK.

"The idea came as – over the past 10 years or so – we've seen an epidemic of knife crime amongst young lads, up and down the country," he said at a Netflix event earlier this year.

"And for me, there were certain instances that really stuck out where young boys – and they are young boys, you know, they're not men – were killing young girls.

"When I mentioned it to Phil [Barantini, director], it just really hit me hard. I just thought, 'Why? What's going on? What's happening? Why is this the case?'"

Smart phones and social media play a central role in Adolescence. The words 'incel' and 'manosphere' eventually rear their heads; Andrew Tate is inevitably mentioned.

"I've heard the boys talking about him," says a teacher.

There's a whole online language – a secret emoji code – that Ashley Walters's DI Luke Bascombe, as seasoned as he is, doesn't know anything about.

He's chasing his tail until his own teenage son Adam, who also attends the same school as the victim and the accused, educates him on the hidden meaning behind seemingly innocuous comments, in turn helping him to understand why a young girl was brutally murdered by one of her peers.

With International Women's Day arriving just five days before Adolescence's release, it feels like as good a time as any to talk about the fact that women and girls are dying because so many men and boys do not have the tools to regulate and process their emotions, namely feelings of rejection, and the subsequent rage that can follow.

And if we're being completely candid, why would they?

That's not a demographic that has typically been encouraged to express how they're feeling – certainly not on a deeper level.

But while there's been a concerted push to address that during the past decade, with countless charities and campaigns geared towards encouraging men and boys to talk, the embracing of individuals such as Tate, particularly by younger generations, proves that there's still so much more work to be done – from the government, the police, schools and social media companies, who have all been criticised for not doing enough to protect women and girls.

But for parents of boys, that work begins at home.

Bascombe's son hasn't really been speaking to him of late. There hasn't been a blow-up of sorts, more of a drifting. But as he learns more about what motivated the culprit to kill, you sense a very palpable and personal concern begin to take hold.

Jamie could be anyone's son. Jamie could be his son.

Following a visit to the school in the hope of obtaining crucial insight to support his investigation, Bascombe suddenly feels compelled to spend time with Adam. It's a matter of urgency for the detective because he's seen first-hand what can happen when parents aren't looking, really looking, at their children.

He asks his son if he wants to share a portion of chips. They'll sit together and talk, properly, for the first time in weeks, about everything and nothing. No phones. No distractions. It might look inconsequential to passersby, but connection can save people from falling through the cracks.

Did Mr and Mrs Miller talk to their son – and not just to tell him to tidy his room or eat his greens?

As the investigation progresses, we learn that certain things had been weighing heavily on Jamie. Contrary to how he might have presented himself, certainly to his family, he had a lot on his mind.

But was space created for him to share those thoughts? Would things have been different if he had been encouraged to talk about how he was really feeling?

Would he have been able to make sense of his emotions? Would that have saved a young girl from dying?

It's not about condoning or excusing the inexcusable. It's about peeling back the layers to understand what could drive someone to do the unthinkable – and using that insight to prevent similar incidents.

Knowledge is power.

"I haven't done anything! You've got the wrong house, I'm telling ya!" shouts Eddie when armed police burst through his front door. He cannot fathom what's happening. He knows they're not there for him, but he also knows they can't possibly be there for his wife, or either of his children. Definitely not his daughter or his son. What could either of them possibly have done?

They are a normal family, after all. They live in a normal house on a normal residential street. They might look a lot like your family. You probably know countless families just like them. There is nothing untoward about the Millers. They are, from the outside looking in, an entirely normal family.

And yet, Eddie's 13-year-old son, who looks exactly like you'd expect a 13-year-old to look, like a child, is arrested for stabbing a teenage girl to death.

No, there is nothing normal about that.

And yet, the deaths of Louise Hunt and Bebe King would suggest otherwise. The aforementioned NPCC report also speaks to that.

Read more:

• Adolescence star Stephen Graham breaks down what it's like filming high-pressure, one-shot thriller
• Ashley Walters planned to quit acting after Top Boy – but Adolescence changed his mind

The onus has continually been placed on women and girls to keep themselves safe. There has been no shortage of guidance from people in positions of power and authority about how women and girls should move through the world if they want to remain unscathed; if they want to survive.

But ultimately, women and girls will never be safe until that onus is placed not only on men, but on boys too, before they become immersed in 'casual' sexism (can discrimination ever truly be casual?) and misogyny; before their understanding of what it means to be a man is twisted out of shape; before the male ego, or male fragility, whatever you want to call it, overrides everything in their orbit, including the happiness of others, the rights of others, the lives of others.

Only then, when men and boys are at the centre of the conversation, will women and girls truly be safe.

Adolescence will stream on Netflix from Thursday 13th March 2025. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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