The sexual bullying
The rising generation of baby Trumps:
A young design and technology teacher has used the TES community forums to reveal how male students used their mobiles to take “upskirt” photos while she was leaning over in class.
The 23-year-old – who said she felt “violated” and “threatened” – was concerned that the images would be shared across social media.
The incident took place as she taught more than 20 boys. “My [teaching assistant] noticed a few of my male students acting suspiciously,” the teacher said.
“It turned out, after further inspection…that the boys had been taking photos of up my skirt while I…leaned over to support students [working on] computers.”
She continued: “I’m mostly worried about keeping the authority in the class, and, to be honest, I’m feeling a little violated/threatened by the boys.”
Can we just stop? Can we just stop treating women as prey? Can boys and men just stop carrying on as if women’s bodies are something they’re entitled to steal or capture by stealth in whatever ingenious way they can think of? Can boys and men just stop all this assault and trickery and degrading p0unces, and accept that however sexually hungry they are, they don’t get to make that a woman’s problem against her will?
Unions argue that more needs to be done to tackle the sexual bullying of teachers in schools. They say:
- Space must be found in the curriculum to teach students about inappropriate behaviour;
- Teachers and school leaders should be properly trained on equal opportunities;
- Phones could be turned off in class to prevent such incidents;
- Schools should have clear policies when it comes to sexual bullying.
They fear that pupils’ frequent use of mobile phones and social media to view and share sexually explicit pictures could be exacerbating the problem by endorsing sexualised gender stereotypes.
Ya think?
Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL teaching union, said: “This is a very shocking case. It couldn’t be more serious. It’s using sexism to undermine her authority as a teacher and it’s degrading her as a woman.
“I get the sense that things are going backwards. Sexual harassment in too many places has become acceptable. These actions can ruin lives.”
Imagine teaching in that environment.
Those boys need to be SHAMED. Publicly, and vocally.
I was telling my therapist that just today. It’s not just that I’m more aware; it’s also that things really are worse.
One of the things I was thinking of doing instead of the job I’m doing now, or the job I was doing before, is teaching. I work in a very ‘masculine’ subject, so the handful of colleges/trade schools I interviewed at last time I was looking for work were (as to be expected) full of teenage boys; I just couldn’t work up a lot of enthusiasm for spending a lot of time in that environment, so have more or less given up this idea as an option. Now I’m thinking I’ve made the right decision about that.
@inklast : I’m not so sure about that.
I mean, I agree that it’s not that you’re more aware, rather the issue *is* more public now than it was before. It’s more out in the open, and “people” are talking about it more than they were, and comparing notes, and getting pissed off.
But I think that this is still progress. It’s better when people knew about it, but didn’t talk about it, or didn’t talk about it outside of a few close friends. Yeah, people might know that it wasn’t “just them” because their friends had similar stories, and they’d heard that friends-of-friends had similar stories. But I think people weren’t able to shine a light on the situation in the way that’s being done now.
Look at the people who are coming forward about having been abused by Trump 30 years ago. That abuse has been going on for *years*, and not just by Trump, but he and others like him have been able to get away with it. If one person stood up, they’d be disbelieved and demonised, or believed but dismissed. And now people are starting to stand up and call that shit out, and be recognised, and be validated by others who will do the same.
The public recognition of the problem is definitely increasing, and getting louder. I think we still have a ways to go before solving it, and yes, there will be backlash, but to me, it feels like an important step forward.
Hold the parents accountable.
Karellen, I don’t think so. It is worse. There’s a difference between something happening all the time and being unmentionable, and something happening all the time and being okay. It’s in advertising. It’s a joke in sitcoms. It’s okay in a way it never was fifty years ago.
It’s more than just acknowledgment of the problem. Then it would be seen as, well, an actual problem. People would be using the acknowledgment to shame the perps. But that’s not what’s happening. They’re using it to say it’s no big deal.
Only one thing is better: women can publish their experiences without gatekeepers. Once people start to see the massive size of the gender tax (great term, Ophelia!) and start seeing it all together, maybe that’ll push some change.
Karellen, I do have to disagree. It’s more than just the sexual bullying, it’s the complete picture. The “scientific” justifications (female brain/male brain, etc), the constant pinkification of little girls, the focus on children who don’t “fit” with their gender being trans-, and so on. None of that was the norm when I was growing up, or when I was raising my son. Yes, there was sexual bullying, yes there was a dichotomy between female and male pay, yes there was a rape culture, especially on campuses. But now, instead of rejecting all that, we’ve embraced it wholeheartedly as being “progressive” – the TERF, SWERF, inclusive of everything but women mindset, the gangs of bullies that now have a new tool and can harass hundreds of women at once without leaving their mother’s basement, the nerds shouting “neuroscience” and “Stephen Pinker” – that’s new. It’s an outgrowth of what’s always been there, but it’s intensified, it’s doubled-down, it’s on steroids.
I’m with quixote and iknklast – I think it’s a lot worse. I think “the TERF, SWERF, inclusive of everything but women mindset” all by itself is being incredibly destructive. This bullshit where suddenly we’re supposed to talk about “women and femmes” instead of women – how can that possibly be progress??
Still, that doesn’t mean there’s no improvement at all. I agree that it helps to have ways to talk in public about Trumpism and the rest of it…but then again the Trumpists have ways to talk in public about bitches and sluts, too, so…
Which boys? Did they just fall to earth in this form?
They have parents, they have pop-culture (far more intrusive than for any previous generation) they have a generation of added gender apartheid, they have ‘multicultural’ tolerance for viciously misogynist cultures, they have Religion, they have the abject worship of power and authority…
How sad is it that I’m really surprised and delighted that we do NOT have a quote from school officials suggesting she wear trousers.