Tuesday, 30 April 2024

Gendered violence

Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (18:55): (843) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Education, and the action I seek is an urgent investigation into the prevalence of sexism, misogyny and sexual harassment in Victorian schools. The faculty of education at Monash University has recently published research proving the rise of widespread, pervasive misogyny and blatant sexual harassment in Australian schools following the influence of misogynistic content creators like, namely, Andrew Tate. His effects on the youth of this state in reinvigorating men’s dominance and presumed superiority over women cannot be ignored any longer. The behaviour in school ranges from unsolicited touching, sexualisation of female teachers, gendered slurs and lewd gestures and sounds to a litany of disrespect, misogyny and undermining and belittling of girls and women. Monash University found that numerous female teachers have recently resigned due to the unrelenting sexism and misogyny directed at them by male students. It is exactly this objectification by boys of women and young girls in every aspect of their daily lives that leads to them growing up into men who feel entitled to power and emboldened by masculinity to subordinate and violently abuse women.

We cannot go on saying boys will be boys – that it is just a joke – or teaching our daughters ‘The boy is bullying you because he likes you.’ It is all a game until one day your daughter comes home saying she was raped by her classmate or until you see on the news that a 23-year-old woman, Hannah McGuire, was found dead in a burnt-out car near Ballarat and that two young males known to her have been arrested for her murder. We have to start calling out this behaviour in schools for what it is – it is gendered violence. Schools are crucial formative sites of masculinity shaping. Their action – or inaction – directly institutionalises gender relations that students will then take out into the world. We need this investigation to have a particular focus on school leadership responses to complaints of sexism, sexual harassment and misogyny. The No More rally I attended on the weekend demonstrated that we cannot and will not accept anything less than a zero-tolerance approach. The national 10-year plan to end violence against women and children established in 2022 ironically neglects to isolate or overtly consider sexism and sexual harassment in schools. I hope the minister will respond to this omission and the rise in male supremacist ideals by issuing an urgent investigation into the prevalence of sexism and sexual harassment in Victorian schools.