The Scandal of Rape Culture in British Private Schools Exposed
Is the old chestnut of “boys will be boys” going to be rolled out again?
Trigger Warning: this article contains descriptions of sexual harassment and abuse that may not be suitable for all readers. Fearless community, please read with care.
Boys and young men are allowed and enabled to get away with harassment and abuse on a daily basis. Girls are sent home from school for wearing “provocative clothing” but what have we been doing to tackle the problem of the boys who are behaving inappropriately in schools? A big fat nothing.
Until now.
Britain’s elite schools are now at the centre of a major Whitehall investigation involving police chiefs and government officials over their handling of the emerging “rape culture” scandal among pupils.
“…a Lord of the Flies culture has engulfed respected private education institutions and spread to some state schools…Countless stories have emerged of female pupils being objectified, harassed and sexually assaulted. Websites set up by these students have highlighted “a rape culture”.
— Robert Halfon, the chairman of the Commons education select committee
What is rape culture?
Rape culture is when the prevailing thoughts, behaviors and attitudes in society have the effect of normalizing and trivializing sexual violence.
When misogynistic comments, sexual harassment and the non-consensual sharing of intimate photos are normalized, the harrowing and criminal acts of sexual assault and rape are what follows.
Soma Sara, a 22-year-old former private schoolgirl and sexual abuse survivor set up the Everyone’s Invited website in 2020 and also hosts a 36,000 follower-strong Instagram page as a platform for claims of sexual harassment. She is now working closely with police to help investigate claims and work towards change.
Chief Constable Simon Bailey, the National Police Chiefs Council’s lead for child abuse and investigation, has stated that “thousands of children and young people have come forward to report allegations of sexual offences within schools” as a result of the work of Everyone’s Invited.
Another abuse survivor who attended an all-girls school, whose girls hung out with the all-boys school students, found that “It was apparent that the all-boys schools had horrendous problems with misogyny and boys who went there, at least the ones I encountered, didn’t treat girls like humans; we were decorative objects to be publicly discussed and evaluated”.
“There were so many incidents of harassment. I remember being at a party and some creepy guys trying to separate me from my friends. They spiked my drink and I blacked out and still don’t know what really happened. I now struggle to relate to guys in a friendly way as I am always second guessing their true intentions.”
— Chloe*, 24, private school abuse survivor (*name changed)
Who do we blame?
If we are doing a finger-pointing exercise, then the dark shadow of pornography has to be one of the targets. Porn is not reality, it’s a distorted fantasy world and it is presenting sex and relationships in a really unhealthy way to impressionable, vulnerable and inexperienced young people.
“Among adolescents, several investigations document associations between exposure to pornography and other sexually explicit media and TDV…a recent literature review found that youth exposed to sexually violent media report attitudes accepting of TDV [Teen Dating Violence] and sexual violence, particularly boys.” — Rodenhizer & Edwards, 2017
The fact that we put a misogynist in the White House sent out a really bad message. What were we saying to young men and women by allowing that to happen? There is no excuse, in any context for “locker room talk” that reduces young women to pieces of meat or objects for sexual gratification rather than real people with rights and feelings. When are we going to get that through some men’s stubborn, entitled heads?
Questioning the role of parents, Mr Halfon said: “Why is it that some boys — from mostly privileged homes — are arriving at these famous private schools, not seeing girls as equal or fellow pupils to be treated with dignity, as should be expected?” — extract from article linked here
Boys are not socialized into practising empathy and discussing their emotions to the same extent that girls are. There is also easy access in most homes to media with misogynistic messages or undertones. The gaming community is notorious for its misogyny. Toxic masculinity is positively encouraged online.
“By far the worst thing we do to males — by making them feel they have to be hard — is that we leave them with very fragile egos”. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Fragile male egos might well be partly to blame for this entitled, misogynistic behavior, but they certainly don’t validate or justify it. Men are running out of excuses for their bad behavior and women are done tolerating it.
What can we do?
The instagram page @everyonesinvited has practical advice and steps that parents, individuals and society can take to tackle rape culture and to eradicate it from our lives.
We need to take this seriously, see it for what it is and tackle it head on.
We need to stop using the passive voice in saying young women are being assaulted and harassed. We need to talk about the young men who are the active perpetrators of this behavior.
“We talk about how many women were raped last year, not about how many men raped women. We talk about how many girls in a school district were harassed last year, not about how many boys harassed girls.”
“So you can see how the use of the passive voice has a political effect. [It] shifts the focus off of men and boys and onto women.” — Jackson Katz
It is clear that something needs to be done urgently to step up our response to such harassment and abuse of women and Enbys.
We need to see changes in the way that young men perceive young women. And that requires a change in all areas of our lives. In all sections of society. It makes a lot of sense to start this in schools.
Sex education in schools needs to present a realistic model of healthy relationships with healthy boundaries and a firm grasp of consent. And all aspects of education should have an emphasis on empathy for all. Nobody should be considered “other”. We are all human, we are all equal, we are all equally deserving of respect.
The media has a massive responsibility to stop slut-shaming and blaming women. The language used to describe sexual abuse, rape and harassment victims needs to change. The online gaming industry needs to change. Social media needs to change.
Twitch is one online platform that has taken a stand against misogynistic behavior but others need to follow.
We can’t keep our children offline but we can police what they are coming into contact with. And encourage them to report anything that makes them uncomfortable.
Respect for women and non-binary young people needs to be paramount, and drilled into students. For too long inappropriate and oversexualized behavior and harassment has been dismissed by the coverall phrase “boys will be boys”. They’re not boys being boys, they are boys being offensive, rape-y and abusive. Is that how we expect boys to behave? We need to stop blaming young women and start teaching young men.
On the Everyone’s Invited Instagram page, there are also suggestions for curriculum change in schools. We all need to work together to bring about real change in every facet of society. The first hurdle is acknowledging the problem. If enough of us shout loudly enough and in harmony, we will be heard.
Young women have had enough. The revolution has begun.
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