When I was 10, some of the boys in my primary school class tried to show me porn on a school computer, before I even knew what porn was. When I joined a new secondary school aged 12, comments about my appearance – particularly my chest – followed me in not-so-soft whispers as I tried to find my way around. When I reached 14 years old I would walk down the corridor and get groped by the same boys on a pretty much daily basis, sometimes accompanied by remarks about the 'firmness' of my bum or comments on some other body part.
For the rest of my time at high school, there was a constant backdrop of slut-shaming and victim-blaming perpetuated by pupils of all genders – and sometimes the teachers too, who would police skirt length, and once told a friend she was a smart girl but 'didn’t dress like one'. Stories of what I now recognise to be sexual assault abounded, but there was little understanding – or even recognition – of consent. I remember sitting at the back of a class when I was nearing the end of my school career and a boy I knew fairly well casually calling me a slut. The insult stung, but I was unsure whether to put the hurt I felt down to embarrassment or fury.
Broken down and written like this, these incidents will most likely strike many as disturbing at best and downright horrifying at worst, but at the time they were very much the norm for me and my peer group. To write my experience off as extreme or unusual would be easy, but this was not a problem that was or is particular to any of the schools I attended, but is absolutely endemic. Last week experts advised a commons select committee that sexism, harassment and sexual bullying are a ‘ticking time bomb’ in British schools. Teachers, parents – indeed, all of us – need to face up to the fact that schools are not immune to gender- and sexuality-based bullying and violence. The uncomfortable truth is that these things are happening to the young people you know and are perpetuated by the young people you know.
The solution to this problem must start in the schools themselves with a programme of mandatory sex education, and its implementation is a matter of urgency. The girls who are slut-shamed, sexualised and even assaulted daily cannot wait. Equally boys desperately need to understand that they do not have to conform to stereotypical notions of 'manliness', if future generations are to stand any chance of breaking away from restrictive gender roles and their implications for sex and relationships. Much as the boys who objectified me wreaked havoc on my self-esteem and view of what it meant to be a woman, I recognise now that they too were extremely young and faced a lot of pressure to play up to aspects of toxic masculinity.
Children and teenagers of all genders need help to navigate sex, consent and pleasure in a world that is constantly lambasting them with sexist messages, many of which are derived from porn. Whilst gender-based violence remains entrenched in society at large, schools can be a bastion of good practice and play a crucial role in cultural change. Consent need not be something that is difficult and fraught – as it is frequently painted by the media, certain judges, and misogynists of all stripes – so long as it is instilled as a value at a young age, alongside a recognition of the personhood and value of women and girls.
I loved school, but it has taken years for me to recognise the sheer extent of the misogyny I experienced during my formative years, not to mention the homophobia and transphobia that were just as present but did not affect me. Feminism has since given me a language to understand and articulate this, and I can honestly say it has saved my life, transforming me from a suicidal, self-loathing teenager to the confident and happy young woman I am today. Positive, pleasure-focused mandatory sex education could give so many young people the same tools to explore their gender and sexuality without having to go through the pain I did to acquire them. Rape culture, heteronormativity and misogyny start early – the response needs to as well.
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Guest post: "The backdrop to my school years was slut-shaming and victim-blaming"
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MumsnetGuestPosts · 14/06/2016 16:40
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