Are UK Schools Enabling Rape Culture?

Closets have begun to tumble out, after over 8,000 schoolchildren voiced nightmarish testimonies of sexual violence and abuse on a website titled "Everyone’s Invited".

The portal was founded by Soma Sara and Meadow Walker, daughter of deceased actor Paul Walker. Incidentally, a majority of the perpetrators belong to the same social groups, as reported on BBC.

The statistics sent shockwaves across the educational system, and scores of educators took to Twitter to express their dismay. “No school - whether an independent school or state school - should ever be an environment where young people feel unsafe, let alone somewhere that sexual abuse can take place,” said Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary for England, on Twitter.

He further enthused that students who’ve been subjected to sexual abuse of any degree should raise their concerns with someone they trust and stringent actions against the perpetrators would follow. The website was launched last year to act as a safe platform for young people to open up about the abuse they endured.

Dulwich College's headteacher Joe Spence was aghast over the revelations. “The behavior described is distressing and entirely unacceptable" and "we are meeting with victims to listen to their experiences and their concerns, and we will act on them,” he added.

While a further probe into the matter is underway, one thing was certain— rape culture was a by-product of normalizing behavior that shouldn’t have been normalized in the first place. “These are stories of rape culture - so where behavior that's not normal is normalised,” said Sara told the BBC.

“Sexual harassment, groping at a Christmas party, image-based abuse, revenge porn, non-consensual sharing of intimate photos - and just general sexism and misogyny,” she added, enthusing how such incidents could create a “gateway to more extreme criminal acts, such as rape and sexual assault”.

Sara further averred that the only way forward is for youngsters to confront such attitudes, and call out condemnable behavior. "It's really important we encourage our children and teenagers to be empowered to stand up to their friends and call out this behavior because I think that's the most influential space."