Everyone's invited - are people genuinely shocked?

[happywombles]

Lots of threads running on here about the 'revelations' - but I keep wondering are people genuinely surprised? I went to an all girl's school in SW London in the 90s and had lots of friends who went to St Paul's, Kings, Dulwich etc and went to lots of parties - clearly dodgy behaviour was absolutely rife, filming stuff and passing it around (this was back in the day when there were no mobile phones and only posh boys had such easy access to cameras), inappropriate sexual behaviour i.e coercion etc, girls being given drugs/too many drinks to make them easy prey etc - just asked DD and she confirmed things are pretty much the same nowadays plus phones etc. We never told our parents or the school but it was just standard. DD says it's basically the same today. Part of it is clearly entitled boys who keep being told they are great, special etc.....attending single-sex schools having a massive sense of entitlement when it comes to all things including girls (and boys).

But are people genuinely surprised?? Nothing that has come out is anything new. Everyone who has been through these school - or has close connections knows this. So why is everyone 'shocked'???

Not shocked at all. Most of what I've read there I have seen/heard about in the schools I was at, my siblings schools, and amongst young people in the two other countries I've lived in.

It's not a private/state or single sex/co-ed thing. It's basically some young people with rampant hormones, insecurities, low self-esteem, peer pressure, easy access to drugs/alcohol and unsupervised private space attempting to negotiate sexual relationships and failing pretty badly.

Not that that excuses any of it, but anyone thinking it's niche either has very sensible children or is living in la-la-land.

Being shocked makes news headlines....

I think this is BRILLIANT ... it means that all those named schools will start to change their cultures top down rather than thinking they are managing it by saying they have a "zero tolerance" policy - Ha Ha!

And change starts to happen.... more widely too as other schools/kids say "its here too"

Not shocked in the slightest - I was at the school that lots of rich London parents sent their DC to for sport and country air. I came from a tiny school and I was shocked beyond belief. I imagine I would find lovely like minded sporty boys as my first boyfriends, I found arrogant, thuggish boys who were either in ‘the gang’ or trying to be in ‘the gang’. The sensitive academic boys either shut up and hid away or tried to change to fit in. There was so much verbal and sexual abuse that it was a toxic place to grow up that took many of us years to stabilise again. I have met so many friends since who went to state school who had such normal experiences - dabbled in a bit of this or that, but didn’t live at an institution where you were made to feel ashamed of pretty much anything you did as a girl. I tried to message one of the boys who abused me a few years ago, to try and move on, and he didn’t even answer. Coward.

He wouldn't answer as he'll not see it as an issue

I am shocked.

I know sexual/sexist bullying happened in schools but never imagined anything like this. Maybe it’s because I went to an all girls school (not private) at secondary.
I remember one incident of boys from the next door mixed school shouting comments as we ran passed them during PE but only that one incident.

There was nothing remotely like this at my coed primary either.

DH went to a boys private secondary (not a big name) and he said there was bullying but he never saw boys bullying let alone sexually harassing or assaulting girls from other schools. However, parties were not a big thing, so may be the opportunities were just not there?

We don’t have teens or friends with teens so haven’t heard through this way either.

I mentioned on another thread how we visited Dulwich College a couple of times and spoke to innumerable parents of boys and didn’t get a whiff of anything like this. We really liked the school and would have happily sent our son there.
So, yes, shocked on many levels.

Also not shocked.

A girl reported a rape on the grounds of a state school near me in the 80s, but because the boy was under 14 he couldn’t be prosecuted. They have changed the law since then.

In the early 90s at university a girl was said to have been photographed while very drunk at one of the sports club events with a man on top of her simulating sex and then publicly shamed for it.

This stuff has been going on for a long time but if this “shocking” news makes it reduce then that’s great.

I’ve just listened to a very interesting discussion about porn on the radio. How many parents know what their boys have on their phones? How many parents can get near their boys’ phones?

The sensational news is about the private schools which feeds into all the assumptions we make about money and it’s influence. It’s easy to be shocked. The fact is, of course, that sexual predators come from all sections of society. By being shocked at private school boys is to totally brush 90% of this under the carpet. Standard schools will have boy’s like this too and they are accessing porn just like all the others. These bots have just the same opportunity and motives.

I doubt the grooming gangs of Rochdale and other places were privately educated. They were still “entitled” males. It’s extremely dangerous to think this is a private school issue. It’s an issue about lack of respect for women. It’s a problem of upbringing and a failure of parental responsibility. It’s a problem in schools because they, like everyone else, didn’t realise the extent of it. And do it goes on. But the idea sexual assault is only perpetrated by a tiny minority of boys in private schools is utterly ludicrous. We need to wake up and pay more attention to how all boys are brought up.

Not shocked. Been saying it for decades. But pleased it’s finally getting some attention and proud of the girl who started it.

Ever since its stratospheric resurgence in the 90s I’ve always said porn is a scourge and was told to calm down.

Fucking minimising of a deeply conservative society.

Not shocked. Used to work in investment banking...Seen the vile behaviour steaming from entitlement and arrogance in abundance... try going to HR..they will get rid of you promptly..

@PresentingPercy

I completely agree with you. Time for the UK to wake up. My DD starts high school in September. I'm pretty anxious.

"It’s extremely dangerous to think this is a private school issue. It’s an issue about lack of respect for women. It’s a problem of upbringing and a failure of parental responsibility. It’s a problem in schools because they, like everyone else, didn’t realise the extent of it. And do it goes on. But the idea sexual assault is only perpetrated by a tiny minority of boys in private schools is utterly ludicrous. We need to wake up and pay more attention to how all boys are brought up. "

I dont think that this is just about private schools - however, a lot of parents/society seem to assume that private schools are somehow exempt. i.e. nice boys dont do that, not wanting to send their nice boys to state schools because of gangs, violence etc....

In addition, and this is my personal experience - the sense of entitlement, privilege and arrogance was much greater for me and DD when it came to boys from private over comprehensive schools. Personally, my experience of Oxford and other universities was also that Oxford was much worse than elsewhere.But that's my personal experience. Misogyny is alive and kicking everywhere - though power plus misoginy can be quite a bad combination

Can you search it by school name ?

No you can't@en0la - and the site organisers have said that from 23 March no schools will be named for new testimonies.

I think the class/money/entitlement thing is relevant. I remember at university a number of boys who had been to some of the named schools (and others) thinking girls should be flattered by their "attention". This was especially true of girls lower down the social pecking order. That attention was usually some level of sexual assault. I think it's a particular type of sexually predatory behaviour. Not the only type though.

I think most people choose private schools for breadth of education. I think a few want to avoid a culture they don’t like. Some people have been educated privately for generations. I think new purchasers are more likely to think their DC is avoiding others they might not like but for many it’s just what you do. For others the local comp is what you do!

Again, this is down to parenting. No one has been to every university in this country to know whether Oxford is worse than Durham of whether LSE is better than UEA. We simply don’t know.

Boys are left m, by parents, in their bedrooms with computers and possibly porn. Parents on MN boast that they never see their boys - they stay in their bedrooms. Their parents don’t know what they are doing or thinking. They don’t see their phones. Or their computers. This isn’t just a private school issue. It’s about respect of women and how bots are parented.

I honestly blame the explosion of online porn messing up brains

I went to a private school in the 90s. This stuff just didn’t happen. Not like this.

This is not (just) a private school thing. I remember when I was at university the warnings I had about certain societies and groups in Freshers week

@Roonerspismed

I honestly blame the explosion of online porn messing up brains

I went to a private school in the 90s. This stuff just didn’t happen. Not like this.

I was at university in the 1990s - and there was definitely a culture then around "getting women drunk"

I’m also not shocked. I went to a state single sex school that was in the process of merging with the boys school. It was awful, and deeply sexist and predatory. The combination of them not being around girls often and the school being underfunded and under performing (hence the merge) meant that we had a terrible time around them. The girls used to get blamed and told we couldn’t look at the boys so as to not provoke them. That really helped.

I agree sprongles but it was nothing like the stories i am hearing. Even when I worked in a ghastly mysogynistic office in my first job.

It’s the “cool” kids isn’t it? They set exclusive norms. I know boys who went to DC and other state and private schools who would never have behaved in this way and thought the boys who did were prats. I also know boys who were so keen to be part of the “cool” crowd that they conformed to the exclusive norms, and in some cases one on one in private those were not their values.

The exclusive norms for the “cool” girls’ are also destructive, focused on appearance, size and success, notoriety even, with boys.

Some parents seem willing to be permissive of the unsupervised parties, drinking on the commons etc where these assaults take place because they want their children to be “popular” whether it is naivety or as I have heard, teenagers will be teenagers, it’s a phase.

Perhaps now being “cool” won’t be quite so cool now

I was saying this to dh last night.

I can remember threads on here over the years about the casual sexism in schools (not private, all schools) and the casual sexual assault, and how that was tolerated by schools, and how it was painted as 'boys will be boys'

There have been many accounts where girls report more serious assault/rape and either the boy is too young, or the school says it is a police matter and the police says it is a school matter and neither will deal with it as both are 'kids' and it is one word against another.
etc etc etc.

It is common and rife and no-one has taken any notice for YEARS.

It is common and rife and no-one has taken any notice for YEARS.

Well some parents do still set boundaries on their teens behaviour. It really should be obvious that an U16, girl or boy is too vulnerable to go to unsupervised parties and binge drinking in the park, likewise with online activity. The schools are very clear that parents should be supervising online activity but many parents don’t.

I'm shocked because there were only two instances when anything remotely dodgy happened at my school (80s) and both times the perpetrators were expelled. No messing around, no second chances, suspended following morning and booted out by the end of the week.

Also, where are the parents? Unsupervised parties happened very seldom. Parents were always somewhere on the premises although normally keeping a low profile. If the parents weren't around, we weren't allowed to go along.

But I grew up in a pub. I'd seen enough drunks by the time I was teenage to already regard them with contempt, and to know when a parent/doctor was needed.