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, pleasantly surprised it has made it into the news. One of my friends went to one of these schools, was raped repeatedly and once at a fancy army event. She always thought it was the norm and then had a breakdown.

WineAndMassage agreed and seen it myself as the norm in the workplace. The perpetrators then apply what has been accepted at school into the workplace. The amount of NDAs out there... ask yourself why are there so few women in top corporate positions. They are culled in groups or individually following complaints (by them). It’s all the same theme.

It's exactly how things were when I was at school at a London independent in the 90s. I am disappointed that things don't appear to have improved at all but not shocked. I am shocked on the other hand that schools haven't got better at dealing with reports of rape/assault.

Not surprised no, although that doesn't make it less shocking.

This is what some boys and some men think of women and girls. We are there to be judged and owned.

And it definitely doesn't only apply to private schools.

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.

This.

I definitely don't think that this is exclusively a private school problem, but I do think that some private schools have particular issues, often exacerbated by single sex environments and a culture of entitlement.

I'm not shocked by this at all, as it merely reflects what I have observed over a period of many years.

I am not shocked.

I would also say be exceptionally careful in ascribing everything to one type of school. For example, I am willing to believe that some wealthy boys at a single sex school behave in a particular, appalling manner.

But I don't believe that boys at co-ed schools or boys from disadvantaged backgrounds and necessarily perfectly behaved. Or that all girls are incapable of being sexually abusive.

Sometimes at co-ed schools the behaviour isn't limited to parties, it happens in the very classroom.

Mind you, with 24/7 access to phones and messaging harassment can continue all the time no matter which school children attend.

What does especially alarm me is how poorly schools, parents and non-perpetrator classmates react.

@happywombles

I agree - but what IS shocking is that some of the schools have tried to cover it up!
I hear that the 'independent' chair brought in to investigate the Highgate allegations is a personal contact of the leadership there. Which is outrageous!

The other side of "not being shocked" is something like 1/3 women suffer domestic abuse, so many children will have overseen abuse at home. Most adult women have been harassed at some point. Men are often vile to school girls (grown men used to park up their cars when we walked across a road to our hockey pitch and beep horns and shout comments at us. We were 11-16 year olds). What is it people think is so magic about teenage boys that they won't have picked up on this culture?

I agree completely Morred. Increasingly I feel the whole of society is poisoned by misogyny and this is just yet another expression of that. It makes me feel hopeless.

I was at private schools in the 80s and 90s. This stuff happened. Gatecrasher balls, parties in mansions unsupervised by anyone bar ineffectual nannies, loads of drugs and booze. It was well known that coke turned most lads into arseholes.

If anything it's probably less common now that the teachers aren't actively encouraging it and are much less likely to be shagging the girls themselves, and there's much less of the gay boys trying to prove their masculinity by copying the alpha males or pretending to be them.

@Emilyontmoor

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 was talking about the constant casual sexism in schools

Not parties.

Don't know where you got that from.

But I agree, if you don't let your U16 go to a party and get drunk, then they will be a lot safer, boy or girl.

It essentially is not about schools (private or state) but completely about boy's/men's predatory entitlement fuelled by a millennia of being top dog; ingrained misogyny; pack behaviour and the prevalence of porn accessed by increasingly younger boys on unsupervised tech.

Most parents will think their boys are incapable of this behaviour but the truth is they cannot possibly know them or how they behave when with their peer group. Boys who want to call other boys out on their behaviour get ostracised and the feeling of wanting to fit in is so important. And, unfortunately, girls can perpetuate this by making other girls/women feel at fault for the behaviour aimed at them.

Women have been told to put up and shut up for ever. And society pushes that - victim blaming; behaviour changes to 'keep safe'; minimising men's behaviour as being a joke/misunderstood etc.

My DD, when she was in yr 6 aged 11, came home and told me some boys in her class had been commenting on touching some of the girls nipples. She was upset and shocked and I called the school to explain. Actually the school handled it really well and took her seriously. However the girl who was initially targeted completely minimised it (backed by her mother) and the main boy's mother gave me such a bollocking for suggesting her son was a sexual predator when it was 'all blown out of proportion' (her words). For most of the next term my daughter was ostracised by most of the boys and some of the girls 'for snitching'. What was my daughter taught? Call it out and become a social pariah. It's so fucking ingrained that I truly despair.

Any conversation on this has to be a start.

The behaviour cited is shocking - but I am not surprised that it is happening. Teenage parties used to be about drinking and snogging and sex and bad behaviour.

The fact that that has morphed into a different animal is not surprising.

When the Y10s at DD's school were asked what sexual harrassment was, they weren't really sure. They were very surprised to find out that asking repeatedly for nudes on social media counted. Because that's just what happens. They are 14.

And this is at one of the SW London school's that is supposedly better in some way than the all boys ones.....

If 14 year old kids think that's standard - then no, we cannot be surprised by what some of the 16 year olds get up to.