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All-boys schools, elite sports and sexual assault · The Morning Edition

0:04
S1: Chanel Contos is a young Sydney woman who five years
0:07
S1: ago made headlines after she collated and published the testimonies
0:12
S1: of thousands of women and girls about instances of sexual
0:16
S1: assault that they'd experienced. Many had made allegations they'd been
0:20
S1: assaulted by teenage boys who went to some of Sydney's
0:22
S1: most elite private schools. So have things changed since then?
0:28
S1: Judging by the last week or so, perhaps not. Last week,
0:32
S1: one private school confirmed two of its students face abhorrent
0:36
S1: allegations that they and a third boy raped a girl
0:40
S1: at a home in Sydney's southwest. The week before that,
0:43
S1: three students from Scots College, two aged only 14 and
0:47
S1: one just 13, were arrested and charged with the aggravated
0:51
S1: sexual assault of a 14 year old girl. And then,
0:54
S1: of course, there's the Sydney Swans sexual assault allegation. I'm
1:00
S1: Samantha Selinger Morris and you're listening to Morning Edition from
1:04
S1: The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Today, sexual consent
1:09
S1: activist and author Chanel Contos on elite schools, sports and boys.
1:15
S1: It's Monday, August 24th. Welcome, Chanel to the podcast.
1:26
S2: Thank you so much for having me.
1:28
S1: Okay. Well, can you first off, just remind our listeners
1:31
S1: about your campaign in 2021, what it was all about
1:34
S1: and then what you discovered.
1:36
S2: So in 2021, I posted an Instagram story saying, have
1:41
S2: you or has anyone close to you ever been sexually
1:44
S2: assaulted by someone who went to an all boys school
1:47
S2: in Sydney, which is very specific, but the campaign ended
1:52
S2: up getting over 7000 testimonies from schools all across the
1:58
S2: country and all different types of schools private, Catholic, public
2:02
S2: and over 5000 people signed a petition to mandate consent
2:06
S2: education in the Australian national curriculum. And we're actually successful
2:09
S2: in mandating that, which is incredible. But I think a
2:11
S2: different story for today.
2:12
S1: And so then, of course, we fast forward to the present,
2:15
S1: and we've got a police investigation into a sexual assault
2:19
S1: allegation involving the Sydney Swans Football Club. Last week, Saint
2:22
S1: Gregory's College confirmed that two of its students had been
2:25
S1: arrested after police alleged that they and a third boy
2:29
S1: raped a girl at a home in Sydney's south west.
2:32
S1: And the week before that. There was also the case
2:33
S1: of three boys, aged just 13 and 14, from Scots College.
2:38
S1: That was the same school that you uncovered. Had some
2:40
S1: of these issues in those testimonies you received. They were
2:43
S1: charged with the aggravated sexual assault of a 14 year
2:46
S1: old girl. So is the problem just getting worse rather
2:50
S1: than better?
2:51
S2: Unfortunately, in Australia, we are facing a worsening crisis of
2:57
S2: this specific type of teen on teen perpetrated sexual violence.
3:01
S2: What we know now is that teenage boys have actually
3:04
S2: overtaken adult men as the most likely perpetrator of sexual
3:09
S2: violence against an under 18 year old. And mostly that
3:14
S2: is teenage boys perpetrating against teenage girls that are their
3:20
S2: current or former partners or that are known to them.
3:23
S2: So we are definitely up against some challenges. I think
3:29
S2: there have been some structural differences in the way that
3:33
S2: youth are experiencing life these days. That may have been
3:36
S2: different five, ten years ago. There are factors such as
3:40
S2: predatory algorithms and also very widely accessible and explicit pornographic
3:45
S2: content that is acting as the main form of sex
3:47
S2: education for young people. That, I think means it's a
3:52
S2: kind of different beast that we're up against now. And
3:54
S2: it's obviously amazing and great that we have consent education
3:56
S2: in schools, but one hour of consent once a year
4:00
S2: versus multiple hours a day of propagated misogynistic content onto
4:05
S2: young boys and men's screens online. That again dehumanizes women
4:09
S2: and increases that entitlement piece, which are key drivers of
4:12
S2: sexual violence. I think need to be looked at and addressed.
4:16
S2: So yeah, I'm really sorry to say, but I think
4:18
S2: it is getting worse. And we are seeing rising numbers
4:22
S2: of violence, but actually at the same time lower likelihood
4:26
S2: to report. So we're also having more cases go unreported.
4:30
S2: It's not as if people feel more confident to speak
4:32
S2: up now. And that's why we have, you know, a
4:35
S2: more of a correction in the official numbers.
4:39
S1: And I wanted to ask you a question about how,
4:41
S1: you know, people are speaking about this sort of issue now,
4:43
S1: because there's been a lot of commentary about the way
4:45
S1: that the Sydney Swans sexual assault allegation has been reported
4:49
S1: in the media, and also how the club has spoken
4:51
S1: about it, because we've seen that Swans CEO Matthew Pavelich,
4:54
S1: he was criticized early on for saying that the players, quote,
4:57
S1: found themselves, unquote, in this situation. So what's been your
5:01
S1: reaction to the way that's been spoken about.
5:03
S2: Language does matter. And I have seen that criticism, and
5:05
S2: I appreciate it, because if this alleged event occurred, it
5:09
S2: was a series of intentions that led to it happening.
5:11
S2: It didn't happen accidentally. However, I think that we've seen
5:16
S2: the club react stronger than we've seen other clubs react
5:21
S2: previously by suspending all five players for the allegation until
5:25
S2: the end of the season. And you know, that's an
5:28
S2: ongoing case and I'm not going to comment explicitly on it.
5:32
S2: But I do think it shows how much the response
5:35
S2: of these clubs that are really significant cultural centers in
5:40
S2: Australia matter to the public, and how much sway and
5:45
S2: change they can have by how seriously they take allegations
5:48
S2: and how they approach them from the very first instance.
5:51
S1: Well, let's get into this issue of a particular culture
5:54
S1: and whether it may or may not, I guess, foster
5:56
S1: certain attitudes against women. And I wanted to ask you generally,
5:59
S1: I guess, about elite, all male environments in particular, whether
6:02
S1: they be at school or in sport, because there have
6:05
S1: been a couple of studies overseas of college campuses that
6:08
S1: have found that male athletes or men who sort of
6:11
S1: exist in all male environments, such as fraternities or team
6:14
S1: sports like basketball, that they are overrepresented in reported acts
6:18
S1: of sexual assault and domestic violence compared to the general
6:21
S1: student body. So can you walk us through, if you can,
6:24
S1: what is it about these environments that perhaps leads to that?
6:29
S2: I think these institutions matter to everyone because boys and
6:34
S2: men who are socialized in them disproportionately go on to
6:37
S2: hold positions of power in our country and in our economy.
6:40
S2: And that means the way that they're socialized, whether that's
6:42
S2: with apathy or empathy towards certain groups, will dictate how
6:47
S2: our country runs, how our businesses run, what our parental
6:50
S2: leave policies are, the culture of institutions, our politicians like
6:55
S2: all of these things. You know, we've had three prime
6:58
S2: ministers attend Sydney Grammar and only one female prime minister.
7:02
S2: So just to kind of show, again, the concentration of
7:05
S2: power in like a select few schools in our country.
7:09
S2: But I think what happens in all male environments is
7:11
S2: that boys and men can often be socially rewarded from
7:15
S2: their peers by three key things, the first being physical ability,
7:19
S2: which is a spectrum all the way up until, you know,
7:23
S2: boys getting in fights on the weekend is the extreme.
7:27
S2: And then the non extreme. And the most celebrated by
7:30
S2: our society is their physical sporting ability. But the other
7:35
S2: two things are wealth and sexual conquest. So you can
7:37
S2: understand how those would interact in these environments. When you
7:42
S2: kind of get social status from being wealthy or from
7:45
S2: sexual activity with other girls or women and on the
7:50
S2: elite athlete thing, again, remembering that like physical activity and
7:54
S2: that kind of like, you know, we, we all know the, the,
7:59
S2: the movie that shows the cool guy being the sporty guy,
8:02
S2: but there is also emerging research that shows that elite
8:06
S2: athletes tend to engage in sexual violence at disproportionately higher
8:10
S2: rates than the general population. So all of these studies
8:13
S2: are out of America, not Australia. I will say there's
8:16
S2: one American study that's found that on college campuses, male
8:19
S2: athletes were overrepresented by a factor of ten among the
8:23
S2: men who committed sexual acts of sexual assault and domestic violence.
8:27
S2: There's another US study that found that gang rapes that
8:29
S2: have been documented over a ten year period on college
8:32
S2: campuses mostly involved men who existed in all male environments,
8:36
S2: such as fraternities, or were part of a sports team,
8:38
S2: very specifically basketball or football in the US. And there
8:42
S2: is like a it's really crazy. If you look at
8:44
S2: the mapping of where sexual violence occurs in the US,
8:47
S2: it's so highly concentrated in fraternities, in those all male
8:51
S2: environments at college. And these kind of behavior patterns are
8:55
S2: usually attributed to the idea of group loyalty that you
8:58
S2: find and foster in these small male groups, like a
9:01
S2: living condition, a school, a sporting club and in this
9:05
S2: place is basically group mentality is at risk of overriding
9:10
S2: personal integrity. And kind of everyone falls victim of it
9:13
S2: and everyone can lose out to the culture.
9:24
S1: After the break.
9:25
S2: How many more times do we have to have this
9:27
S2: conversation for everyone to snap into, you know, an alleged
9:32
S2: gear for a period of time to say they're going
9:34
S2: to address the culture and the foundational aspects that allow
9:37
S2: this to happen. And then we're back at it again.
9:51
S3: And I'm just wondering, have.
9:52
S1: You ever witnessed anything like that because you went to
9:55
S1: an all girls school in Sydney. So did you have
9:57
S1: any interactions with the boys school that was related to
10:00
S1: the school that you went to that that gave you
10:02
S1: an insight into any of this, or is this something
10:04
S1: you've never actually seen personally?
10:06
S2: We socialize with many different boys schools when we were younger,
10:10
S2: but I've. Seen more sexual assaults than I could count
10:12
S2: and not understood what those were.
10:15
S1: And what sort of age are you talking that you
10:16
S1: would have witnessed these sorts of things?
10:18
S2: To be honest, I feel like it happened more when
10:20
S2: we were younger because we received consent education when we
10:23
S2: were in year ten. I feel like that really changed
10:25
S2: a lot for our grade in the way that we
10:27
S2: understood things. I know it's obviously more important to give
10:30
S2: men this sort of education, but I think that it
10:32
S2: was really empowering for us as girls to have it
10:36
S2: and to understand and to be better friends, and to
10:38
S2: have language and identify things as wrong. But if I
10:42
S2: had to think about it, I would say the worst
10:44
S2: years were kind of end of year eight to kind
10:47
S2: of beginning of year ten was when I feel like
10:50
S2: the most persistent stuff was happening. But all through high school,
10:54
S2: there was definitely never a time where it wasn't in
10:58
S2: a periphery in some way.
11:00
S1: Wow. And you wrote a piece for our mastheads recently
11:03
S1: and you said, you know, when you would walk by
11:05
S1: a school, there'd be a chorus of schoolboys who would
11:08
S1: scream out and call you names. So what sort of
11:10
S1: things were they calling you? And I guess, how did
11:12
S1: it make you feel at the time?
11:14
S2: Oh, yeah. Um. Mole. Mole. Yeah. Me and my friends
11:19
S2: were laughing, but not laughing about that. When I was
11:22
S2: writing that. Talking about the kind of final touches to
11:25
S2: that op ed, because we all had the same experience.
11:28
S2: I mean, sexism and misogyny definitely happened on school grounds. However,
11:32
S2: I guess aggravated sexual assault was much less likely to
11:35
S2: occur on school grounds, but it would be very common
11:38
S2: on weekends at football matches for the girls to kind
11:43
S2: of be yelled out, degrading comments. Kind of the idea that,
11:48
S2: I don't know, you were there for an agenda or
11:50
S2: a reason and that would happen. And I guess the
11:54
S2: teachers would say it, and probably the parents must have
11:56
S2: seen it too. Sometimes, I don't know, but it would
11:58
S2: happen a lot. It was a very, um, universal experience
12:03
S2: and I'm unsure if it's still the case, but I
12:07
S2: did ask someone who was about three years younger than
12:09
S2: me and she had the exact same experience.
12:11
S1: And in the in the piece that you wrote for us,
12:13
S1: you also talked about sexual conquests. You know that boys
12:16
S1: and men who have frequently have sex with different women,
12:19
S1: they were seen as cool, especially when they were teenagers.
12:22
S1: So do you think this is then equating, as they've
12:25
S1: gotten older to pressure that they're placing on women? Or
12:28
S1: what sort of connection, I guess, do you think there
12:30
S1: might be 100%?
12:32
S2: I think the social expectations for boys and men to
12:34
S2: be sexually active, young and frequently and with multiple girls
12:38
S2: is something that's really difficult for them as well if
12:42
S2: they don't feel ready. And something I noticed in teen
12:45
S2: years a lot, it would be very common for someone to,
12:48
S2: you know, quote unquote, lose their virginity, have sex for
12:51
S2: the first time, whatever, and then not engage in sexual
12:56
S2: acts for quite a long time afterwards because it was
12:58
S2: kind of like everyone left them alone and they had
13:00
S2: to tick that box. And I've just kind of noticed
13:04
S2: that in hindsight, like reflecting on the way that these
13:07
S2: behaviors used to go. Because I think that the young
13:10
S2: boys weren't particularly ready either. But I do think that
13:14
S2: this is a key way that young boys and men
13:16
S2: can kind of transfer the pressure that they're feeling to
13:20
S2: be sexually active. And then you combine that with widespread
13:23
S2: access to free mainstream pornography, which commonly depicts violence against
13:28
S2: women and currently acts as most young people's form of
13:30
S2: sex education. And it's very clear how that sexual entitlement
13:34
S2: is kind of amplified and emerging.
13:36
S1: And I just wanted to wrap up by asking you,
13:39
S1: I guess, about how the Sydney Swans allegations, how they're
13:42
S1: impacting a lot of women, I guess, because there's been
13:43
S1: numerous female fans who've expressed sort of shock and sadness.
13:48
S1: You know, we've seen the former TV presenter Brooke Boney.
13:51
S1: She said that, you know, these allegations are especially painful
13:54
S1: because so many women have either experienced sexual violence or
13:56
S1: they've watched those they love experience it. And the statistics,
14:00
S1: of course, here, they're horrible. 1 in 5 women has
14:03
S1: experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. So do
14:07
S1: you think this discussion, this horror that people are feeling now,
14:10
S1: do you think is it something that could make a dent,
14:11
S1: I guess, in helping to overhaul the troubling cultures that
14:15
S1: we've got here?
14:16
S2: Like, I'd love to say yes, but how many times
14:18
S2: have we been in this position, like Samantha, when you
14:22
S2: called me the other day to chat through coming on
14:24
S2: this podcast and you were like, Chanel, you sound really tired. Actually,
14:28
S2: I can't remember, but it was, um, it was more
14:31
S2: than tired. And I was like, yeah, like, how many
14:35
S2: more times do we have to have this conversation for
14:37
S2: everyone to snap into, you know, an alleged gear for
14:41
S2: a period of time to say they're going to address
14:43
S2: the culture and the foundational aspects that allow this to happen.
14:47
S2: And then we're back at it again. You know, this
14:50
S2: this obviously happens every single day, every single postcode in Australia, sexual,
14:56
S2: family and domestic violence. But, you know, there's always a
14:59
S2: every six months, one year, two years, there's a series
15:03
S2: of high profile events that cause a lot of headlines
15:06
S2: and then we're talking about it again. So I don't
15:09
S2: know what we need to do. Like it's, it's frustrating
15:12
S2: at this point because it's not as simple as one solution.
15:16
S2: There are so many things that need to be done
15:17
S2: from the government, from parents, from teachers, from individuals, from
15:21
S2: sporting clubs. It is everyone's responsibility to be part of
15:24
S2: combating this culture, because if you're being complacent in it,
15:27
S2: it kind of makes you complicit in it. However, there
15:30
S2: are hot spots and that is schools, that is sporting clubs,
15:35
S2: that is institutions that serve alcohol. Places where gambling occurs
15:41
S2: or sporting events where gambling occurs. And we really just
15:45
S2: need to intervene on a structural level on these things.
15:49
S2: And again, there's there's always been these issues facing society
15:54
S2: and young people. But now we also have that intersection
15:56
S2: of explicit and constant access to pornography, plus algorithms that
16:01
S2: radicalize young boys into misogyny and ideals that dehumanize the
16:09
S2: girls and women around them. And it's going to kind
16:12
S2: of take everyone. But it it can't just be another
16:15
S2: media cycle.
16:16
S1: And Chanel, can you just tell us about the campaign
16:18
S1: that you're currently focusing on that you hope will help
16:21
S1: in this space?
16:22
S2: So Teachers Concern has been running a campaign called Fix
16:25
S2: Our Feeds. This has gotten wide support from across the
16:28
S2: political spectrum, including from two former prime ministers, Julia Gillard
16:32
S2: and Malcolm Turnbull and over 10,000 Australians and lots of
16:37
S2: high profile people. And we're basically asking to make it
16:42
S2: so that as individuals, we get the choice to turn
16:46
S2: our algorithms on or off, and that we actually agree
16:48
S2: to enter the algorithm and bring that kind of informed
16:52
S2: consent to it. And the reason we've done this is
16:56
S2: a violence prevention organisation is because we've seen a sudden
16:58
S2: resurgence in misogynistic attitudes in young boys and men that
17:02
S2: were highly concerned with. And we're seeing these attitudes play
17:04
S2: out in real world behaviors that are harmful, unfortunately. But
17:09
S2: since launching this campaign, we've had support from people who
17:12
S2: are concerned with disordered eating content or democracy or men's
17:16
S2: mental health. Like so many different cross sections of society,
17:19
S2: see this as something that is relevant to them. And
17:23
S2: we actually conducted polling that found that 71% of Australians
17:27
S2: agree with this policy change, which is really exciting. And
17:30
S2: the best thing about it is that it's content neutral.
17:33
S2: So it's not saying like this content isn't okay, and
17:36
S2: this is it's all about individual choice to say, do
17:39
S2: I want to be involved in an algorithm that's sending
17:41
S2: me content for the purpose of keeping me online for
17:43
S2: longer and to, you know, play on my dopamine receptors
17:47
S2: to get me addicted and stay online? Or do I
17:50
S2: want to have a follower only chronological feed, just like
17:54
S2: social media was back in the good old days, the
17:57
S2: 2010 to 2015 era. And we do think that this
18:02
S2: could help because we know that young boys and men
18:04
S2: are not seeking misogynistic Content. It is being sent to them,
18:09
S2: and they're being used to fill the pockets of big
18:15
S2: tech by sending them content that makes them curious, or
18:18
S2: makes them outraged, or makes them scared, or makes them
18:21
S2: insecure or desire things. And this is, of course, the
18:24
S2: algorithm is gendered, but everyone feels these sorts of things
18:27
S2: in different ways.
18:31
S1: Well, thank you so much for your time.
18:33
S2: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
18:46
S1: Today's episode was produced by Josh towers. Our executive producer
18:50
S1: is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa
18:54
S1: Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow
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