A teacher is being investigated after suggesting to her pupils that rape victims “are partly to blame” if they wear skimpy clothes.
Students claim the teacher at a school in New South Wales told a class: “All men have to fight their urges every day not to sexually assault or abuse (women)”.
Teens at Swansea High have now held protests calling for the unnamed teacher to be sacked over her shocking remarks, reports news.com.
Dozens of pupils staged a demonstration at the school on Monday morning – accusing the teacher of “victim-blaming” and calling for the school to get rid of her.
They brandished a hand-made banner which read ‘Not all men have the urge to rape. Women have the right to wear what they want.’
A video of the outrageous discussion has not surprisingly drew public outrage after being posted on Facebook.
Students claimed they were learning about the 1950s and comparing how fashion had changed when the teacher brought up the story of a girl who was recently raped and was blamed for what she was wearing.
“Right after this my teacher proceeded to say how she needed to be held accountable for what she was wearing that night,” one student said.2
Dozens of pupils staged a demonstration at the school on Monday morning
“She got incredibly angry, said my generation knows nothing, that I needed to learn, and that rape victims cannot 100 per cent victim themselves.”
In the video one of the students tells the teacher: “It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing, there was a lack of consent regardless … she said no.”
“Yeah, it does, no it does, it does make a difference and that’s why your generation doesn’t understand,” the teacher can then be heard saying.
Students interject in the heated classroom debate before the teacher again says, “It does matter — I’m not saying you need to dress to suit what other people want …”, before the video cuts off.
More than 50 people gathered outside the school gates yesterday to call for the teacher to be fired and to push back against rape culture.
One of the organisers, said they were not protesting to attack the school, but rather push back against this kind of harmful rhetoric.
“She didn’t really know the people in her class. She didn’t know what they had been through or if anyone had been raped or abused as a child and it wasn’t right of her to say.
“Our goal is to stop rape culture being taught. We want to start with utterly removing it from schools with young impressionable minds.
“We want to make sure that no one has to feel the way that my peers and myself did that day.”
The video was posted to Facebook on Wednesday and has since received more than 900 comments and been shared 1,200 times.
Students in the class claimed they were threatened with suspension after the video was shared online.