31/07/2025
The Saturday Tele reports on the rise of s*xual harassment of female teachers + quotes our Movement Director Melinda Tankard Reist.
'The Saturday Telegraph can reveal that male students are making highly s*xualised remarks to female educators including taunting them with r*pe jokes, sharing deepfakes of them on social media and other harmful behaviours.
The teachers – some who have worked in the profession for more than 20 years – the rise of online misogyny and incel forums had “influenced” toxic masculinity among young men.
Shockingly, dozens of forums and social media pages uncovered by The Telegraph shows the extent of the incel culture within NSW and other states, with young men found to be praising mass murderers and encouraging disgusting acts of violence against women.
A female teacher, 28, who worked at a private co-ed secondary school in Sydney’s west for almost three years, said a small cohort of year 8 boys taunted her almost “daily” forcing her to quit and teach elsewhere at an all-girls school.
“The boys would comment on my body and make other suggestive comments,” she said.
“A female student also alerted me that these boys had made deepfakes of me and shared them on Snapchat.
“I ended up leaving the school half way through the year as the stress of being targeted was too much to deal with.”
Another female teacher, who works at a private school in Sydney’s lower north shore, said she was “constantly targeted” by a group of boys last year.
“They would openly make jokes about r*pe and p**n during class and when I would tell them off they would just laugh in my face … I would go home crying,” she said.
The educator, who has been teaching for 22 years, said she had noticed an increase in misogynistic comments from teenage boys and that she thought they were being influenced by the manosphere culture on social media.
Meanwhile, a series of forums praising “incel manifestos” show the extent of hatred towards females…
Last week, Melinda Tankard Reist, movement director for women’s advocacy group Collective Shout, was subjected to harmful online abuse including hundreds of r*pe and death threats online.
The pile-on of abuse was due to the group’s successful campaign to remove games with themes of r*pe, inc*st and s*xual torture from global gaming platform Steam and another platform.
Ms Tankard Reist said she was aware of female teachers “leaving the profession” in NSW.
“More younger female teachers are telling me that they didn’t go into teaching to be harassed every day, to be subjected to r*pe threats, s*xual intimidation, comments about their bodies,” she said.
“One teacher was told by a male student she had a mouth that belonged on (p**n site), it’s disgusting.
“Another female teacher in NSW told me that she won’t walk to her car unless she checks CCTV footage to make sure there’s no boys around because she doesn’t feel safe.”’
Full piece [paywall]: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/education/female-teachers-across-sydney-experience-s*xual-harassment-in-the-classroom/news-story/1e8690e5114b83c59c2c47866da334fc
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