A succession of alleged sexual assaults by private schoolboys in Sydney has raised renewed shock about the scale of sexism among boys.
Three students from elite Scots College, one 13-year-old and two 14-year-olds, were arrested in August for raping a 13-year-old girl in an alleyway. In a separate incident two students from St Gregory’s College in southwest Sydney and a third from nearby Elderslie High allegedly gang raped a 17-year-old girl the same month.
Chanel Contos’ Teach Us Consent campaign in 2021 exposed the scale of sexual abuse among school-aged kids and saw revised consent education in introduced in schools three years ago.
NSW Education Minister Prue Car has blamed misogyny on social media, saying schools “do everything possible inside the school gate”.
She said, “Too many of our young boys, when they walk outside of school and get onto their phones, are actually subject to some pretty horrific, hateful stuff online.”
However, it’s not only the manosphere and social media that are to blame. We live in a society that is saturated in sexism.
Five Sydney Swans players are also facing sexual assault allegations after one of them hired topless waitresses to join a late-night party following a game in Melbourne. This has once again exposed the sexist culture that exists in men’s sports.
Swans CEO Matthew Pavlich responded by saying he was “shocked and disappointed” that the players “found themselves in this situation”, as if they stumbled into it without bearing any responsibility.
Others, such as former player and Channel Seven commentator Kane Cornes, suggested the main tragedy was that it had ruined the Swans’ season.
Louise Clegg, conservative lawyer and wife of Angus Taylor, similarly wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald that the rape by Scots College boys was the “foreseeable consequence” of parents permitting “teenagers to drink themselves senseless on weekends at unsupervised parties”.
These elite private schools, especially male-only schools like Scots College that have repeatedly found themselves at the centre of sexist scandals, are merely the most extreme symbol of the sexist rot across the whole system.
Sexism is structured into the family relationships that we are brought up in, with women still bearing the main responsibility for bringing up children and caring roles, while men are expected to provide for the family and remain tough.
This is also reflected in the workforce, with women concentrated in care industries like teaching, nursing and childcare. And sexist stereotypes abound in entertainment, the film and music industries.
No amount of consent education or controls on social media are going to counter the sexism that pervades our society. We must fight sexism wherever it exists, and the capitalist system that perpetuates it.
