School

Annie

| 22nd December 2020

When my two daughters were at primary school, about 8 years ago, a trainee teacher took them for a P E lesson.They were playing catch the male teacher -after my daughter failed to catch a ball said : you probably don’t like this game because the ball isn’t pink and fluffy:The deputy head, also male, gave a speech at assembly on why girls don’t persue science at secondary school- because the find it hard!In the same assembly he declared that women are thinkers and men are doers -his wife found it hard to chose an outfit in the morning whereas he was bish bosh out the door. My daughter wrote to the head teacher, with stats on girls a level results in science being higher than boys, and he was made to apologise.My daughter achieved 3 A* stars in Maths,Physics and chemistry at A level.

Anon

| 22nd December 2020

When I was 14 I went on a school trip and my best (and only) friend was also there and I had no one else and was very introverted so I basically stuck to her side the whole time. She was very pretty and confident and I was shy, awkward, ugly and hated talking to anyone, especially the boys who loved to try and get close to my friend because she was “fit”. Anyway some of the boys approached my one day and asked if I was a “Faggot” and wouldn’t leave me alone, because of how much tome I spent with my friend. They eventually spread a rumour that I was a lesbian, and I had to live with the bullying all the way through high school after they told everyone I’d tried to kiss my friend. She stopped talking to me after that and I was completely alone. I came out as bi a few months ago to my family, but for a long time I hated myself because of all the bullying I’d had for being a “puff”, all because the boys had Wanted to ‘get with’ my friend and I was a ‘cockblocker’.

H

| 22nd December 2020

I was bullied a lot all throughout secondary school by my peers because I was ‘weird’ (now I realise I was just being read as queer long before I ever consciously felt like I was). We had a young male teacher for Design and Technology and we had class with him once a week. One of the boys favourite ways to bully me was to pretend ‘flirt’ with me and then laugh about it, the joke being I was of course too disgusting and weird to ever be flirted with for real. My male DT teacher used to do the same thing – jokingly flirt with me, and then laugh about it with the rest of the class. This started when I was in year seven, eleven years old. He did it nearly every lesson, and it was humiliating and scary. The worst was at the end of year seven, I had won a trip to a theme park for running a stall at the school fete. The DT teacher was supervising this trip, and he came up behind me in class and leaned over me and joked that I could sit next to him on the rides if I wanted – the idea of ‘throwing a bone’ to the ‘ugly’ girl. It made my skin crawl. I only had to have lessons with him for two more years, and every wednesday (the day of our class with him) I’d pretend to be sick and go home early so I didnt have to go to his class. I dropped his class in year ten, soon as I was allowed. I used to get physically sick the days before his classes. I didnt feel like I could report his behavior because I felt like other people would laugh at me for thinking that a young ‘attractive’ teacher would even think about flirting with someone as ‘weird’ as me. I hated his guts for the rest of the time I went to that school, and had to watch all three of my younger sisters go on to have classes with him (luckily he didnt do this to any of them far as I know – I was very tomboyish and so singled out as visibly ‘weird’ where my sisters werent).

Ann

| 22nd December 2020

When I was young 13 maybe ( I looked 10) I was sent to the principal’s office over a shirt I was wearing that was deemed inappropriate by my teacher. ( The shirt was a small eyelet, full coverage mid chest to hip ) I told the vice principal I didnt understand & that I had borrowed the shirt from my best friend who often wore it to school. Also I considered her to be more mature than I physically so I was stymied. He proceeded to explain to me that it wasnt the size of your breast that caused the problem but the shape.He further expounded on the exact attributes of mine. The whole time he was talking I was intuitively put off, uncomfortable but didnt know why.

A

| 22nd December 2020

When I was walking in front of my school with 2 of my friends, a guy who I think was 15/16 or at least something like that, yelled that i had a nice arse at me, i was 11 years old. I felt gross afterwards and thought that it was my fault for wearing tighter pants than usual or because I did something wrong.

anonymous

| 22nd December 2020

Having been reflecting- I once woke up to a male friend (we had been platonically ‘spooning’) fondling my breasts. I was attracted to him at the time, but that does not make it okay for him to randomly fondle me in the middle of the night. This again happened a few years later, but that time I was so drunk I could not move. Luckily both times a different friend had woken up and he stopped. Both times were u18, which really shows the importance of education on consent to both girls and boys, from a suitable but young age.

Anonymous

| 22nd December 2020

When I was was 11 or 12 I was on the school bus after school and I sat between two of my classmates. We started talking and suddenly they started touching me in between my legs and asked if that tickled. I said no, but they kept on doing it. I didn’t say anything because I guess I had a crush on one of them and I liked the attention, but still, I felt really uncomfortable. And when I wanted to get up I had to go past one of them and it was very narrow. And he suddenly pulled me on his lap and didn’t let me go for a few seconds. I walked out of the bus and was really ashamed of myself because I didn’t do anything against him. I blamed myself. I thought I was dumb and naive. I’ve never told anyone and I don’t think I have the courage to.

Trinidad Rojo

| 9th November 2020

Last year was the worst year so far in my life. It all started when one guy asked if I had a boyfriend. I said yes. He started talking about how I must send him nudes and do dirty stuff with him. The next couple of days, he started from saying things like those to picking on the boys that would sit around me and telling them to take off their shirts and show it off to me. Making jokes about how I should suck his friend’s dick. Then, he started watching porn in class, somehow the teacher didn’t notice. Then another boy, well, a female to male transgender boy, started showing me porn in front of the whole class, the ones sitting beside him looked uncomfortable but didn’t do a thing. I didn’t either. Then on P. E. He gropped my ass while acting like he was tying his shoe laces. The first boy then started sending me dick pics, and at that point I told my parents who sued his, and he finally stopped. Then I decided to rant in the middle of a class about everything that had been going on. You should have seen their faces. The second boy started to cry and his friends said that was just the way he was, trying to defend him. All of this went down in the span of 4 months. While all of this was going down, my boyfriend started threatening that he would kill me and then himself if I dared leave him. When I did, the next boyfriend I had asked for nudes every day until I gave up and sent them. I am glad to say I no longer have to see them and the first at least apologized. But the damage is done.

Isabel

| 9th November 2020

I was in 8th grade and i got an anonymous note in my locker telling me to kill myself. My locker was right in front of the cameras. I went to the school’s dean of conduct who is in charge of the cameras to see who sent it to me. I went there and he told me that i was overreacting and that it was probably a boy who liked me and wanted to get my attention. Long story short i never found out who it was.

K

| 9th November 2020

My friends dad (who I had known since 4th grade) rubbed my back the way you rub a spouses back and combed his fingers through my hair the way you would with a spouse. Months later he tried to get me to go into a gas station with him alone. Whenever I went to my friends house he wanted a hug or something physically, not just with me but with all the girls that came over. He would go from yelling at his youngest to smiling and laughing when he saw me watching. Not too long ago me and my friend where in a library and we noticed a man sitting in the teen section past hours. Rather then sitting down across from him, me and my friend went two bookshelves away from him to quietly talk. 15 minutes later the man was slowly walking up to us and whispering something so we speed walked to the kid section (where my dad was) and he followed us all the way there and left us alone when he saw my dad. That is the day I realized that in few peoples eyes I am not a human, I am an item. I am nothing more than an item to them. in 6th grade I was told that because I am a female i am to stay and the kitchen and produce children. I was told that none of my dreams would happen because I am a female. Playing my favorite sport, basketball, the boys said i was good for a girl. I was called a prostitute while wearing athletic shorts from the boys section. I was told that because I was a female my jokes weren’t funny. I was 12 at the time being told these things by my peers both male and female. I am now 15 and can feel them starring at me as only an item.