Rape Culture & Consent Education (Pt. 1)
Written By Felix Spirason
Edited by margaret licup
Many outsiders consider Uni High as an inner-city school to be ‘progressive’ or ‘ahead’ of other comparable schools. However, if you scratch a little below the surface, big problems start to emerge. Namely, our sex-ed program.
Of University High School students surveyed, only around 24% say that the sex-ed program taught them anything useful with only 9.5% saying they retained it well compared to other media like the internet. When you’re taught about something like consent; something that is so, so important; for only one lesson in a twenty lesson unit, is it really any surprise that only 33% of people say that they’d be confident enough to report harassment or rape?
It’s nowhere near enough. Let’s back up a bit, that’s a lot of statistics.
An anonymous student, currently in Year 12, had a lot to say. ‘The lack of consent education is such a huge problem,’ she said. ‘Especially in this kind of climate, what with the allegations in Parliament and the protests of late - now seems to be the opportune time for a revision of the curriculum.’ Later in our chat, she mentioned that there wouldn’t be anybody that wouldn’t benefit from some kind of update of our teaching method and curriculum.
‘That video about tea isn’t enough. I think that using a metaphor is not enough, and the program we do in Year 11—Love Bites—is too little too late.’
The ‘Tea Video’ is a short animated video shown to students to illustrate the idea of consent. However, it dances around the real issues, a cup of tea as a metaphor for sex. And for those unfamiliar, the Love Bites program is a ‘respectful relationships’ class for ‘15-17-year-olds’, but at Uni High, it’s only implemented in Year 11—too late. The lessons on consent are just as informationally lacking as other years too. Using the tea metaphor they brush over situations in which someone is unaware of the nature of what they’re being made to do or being under the influence et cetera - too little.
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We ended up having a conversation about the conservative way that schools often don’t like to acknowledge women's pleasure or any kind of queer education, and that kind of explains the lack of consent education because once kids know that sex isn’t purely for procreation ‘they’ (the government/conservatives/parents, etc) are scared that kids will be having sex younger and more; a position which doesn’t have any real basis in reality.
‘It’s so frustrating because nothing gets done. The safe schools thing is a great example of that kind of bullshit.’ The safe schools situation happened a couple of years ago, after a pro-LGBTIQ+ program that would teach about all kinds of relationships to create a safe space in schools.
However, in NSW a One Nation MP passed a bill for ‘parent’s rights’ - code for outlawing gender fluidity education in schools. An article I found on a blatantly conservative news website ‘Family Voice’ called it ‘Neo-Marxist propaganda’ saying that it was marginalising parents and their ability to instil their children with their own ideals. Posed as an unbiased ‘Guide to current affairs, life and society’ it is easy to see through the not-so-subtle conservative coding.
This is the type of thing suburban parents eat up with their closeted LGBT child in the other room. When your parents won’t tell you about these very real issues, won’t educate you about very real things, then where is a child meant to go to learn if not from school?
The same thing applies to consent education, because conservative parents believe that if kids get taught at school that sex can be for pleasure between two consenting people, they’ll start having sex all the time. They believe it the same way they believe that somehow if their kid is taught about homosexuality they’ll instantly become gay. Keeping good quality standardised education from kids just isn’t right.
Every journey has to start with a single step, and I think that revision of the education program is a giant leap forward.
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Editor’s Note: Turns out this article has spread far and wide, right to our very own principal’s, Ms Foster, ears. Aside from thoroughly enjoying this series, she hopes that students of Uni High know they are being listened to, and that the school is making a conscious effort into improving our community. Here’s what she said.
The UHS leadership team is very keen to have students involved in improving our Consent Education. The team has been working directly with students to design a whole-school survey to understand students’ experiences, concerns and priorities. This will be implemented at the same time as the annual Student Attitudes to School Survey later in Term 3. I strongly encourage all students to participate in both surveys.
The Student Attitudes to School Survey is an evidence-based, statewide survey of all public school students each year. This is an important process: we use the results of these surveys to inform planning, programs and strategic priorities. In this survey in 2019-20, 71-75% of UHS students responded positively (‘Agree’ or ‘Strongly Agree’) to the statement “I feel safe at this school”, with the majority of remaining responses in the neutral (‘Neither Agree nor Disagree’) category. UHS performance in the overall ‘Safety at School’ category in the Attitudes to School survey is equivalent to similar schools, network and state measures. This does not mean that there is not room for improvement: this is a complex area with many factors and we are deeply committed to working with staff and students on continuing to improve these outcomes.
- Ciar Foster, Principal.
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