No teenager will listen to their 50-year-old maths teacher talking about Snapchat and consent. It’s not just about what’s on the curriculum it’s about who’s delivering the lessons. What else needs to change? Well, teachers must be better supported in addressing harassment, assault and misogyny among students, and we need to seriously think about reforming sex education. It’s empowering that so many young women are now challenging boys’ negative behaviour, but we also have to teach boys what healthy sexual relationships look like.
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When I spoke with a group of sixth-form lads, they were totally confused about how to approach girls and consent. The impact of unfiltered porn on boys is massive. The government needs to step up and start holding porn websites to account so children can’t access violent sexual content online in three clicks. Yet the global conglomerates that own sites like Pornhub refuse to bring in age-verification processes, and their algorithms seem designed to push viewers towards graphic, violent content. There’s an obvious link between porn and the sexual expectations and behaviour of young people, especially boys. Semina’s story broke my heart, but what makes me angry is learning about the lack of accountability for porn websites. Sara has been key in pushing this problem up the political agenda. It found 79% of current female students said sexual assault happened “sometimes” or “a lot” between people their age. After Everyone’s Invited went viral this spring (it’s now named 2,700 educational institutions where rape culture is allegedly present), Ofsted launched an urgent review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges. I met with Soma Sara, the founder of Everyone’s Invited – an online platform sharing anonymous testimonies of misogyny or sexual abuse at UK schools and universities.
I also wanted to investigate where this behaviour stems from and what can be done to challenge it. I wanted to talk with young people about the culture of sexism and sexual violence that exists in schools and colleges around the UK today – including the girls and women who are raising awareness of the problem. So, for my next documentary, Zara Uncovers: Rape Culture, I went back to school. The UK’s education system often allows boys’ sexually entitled behaviour to continue unchecked, and our criminal justice system mostly fails to hold adult perpetrators of serious sexual assault to account (just 1.4% of rape cases recorded by police currently result in charges or a summons, let alone a conviction).