Outrage as male students rip up Australia campus sexual violence report in viral video
A viral video has surfaced of two male students from The University of Sydney ripping up copies of a landmark report that exposed the systemic culture of sexual violence across Australia’s university. The students, who are associated with the campus’ conservative club, have since been condemned by both the university and the general public. Indeed their abhorrent behaviour emphasises exactly why we need to keep on talking about misogyny and sexual violence in these institutions.
According to News.com.au, the incident took place during a presentation by incoming Student Representative Council (SRC) Women’s Officers and current Sexual Violence Officers, Ellie Robertson and Martha Barlow. The report being handed out focused on “years and years of abhorrent and disgusting behaviour” at USYD, particularly at its “unreformable” residential colleges.
The specific report in question was first published In February 2018 by author Nina Funnell and End Rape on Campus (EROC) founder, Sharna Bremner. It was titled “The Red Zone Report: an investigation into sexual violence and hazing in Australian university colleges.” In it was 200 pages of graphic photos, screenshots and police reports, as well as the stories of dozens of rape and hazing survivors. The sensitive information was collected and organised in such a way as to document the culture of sexual violence within Australian universities’ residential colleges.
The meeting was recorded and live streamed so the entire world got to witness the moment when these two losers took it upon themselves to laugh, rip up the report, and exclaim “No one cares.”
Barlow, one of the women presenting this extremely critical report to the council, told News.com.au that the blatant display of sexism was “horrific, but perhaps not unsurprising.”
“It is a quite frankly reprehensible display of misogyny to so blatantly laugh…(at the) victim-survivors (in the report), and an incredibly telling one. Just like the colleges themselves, these student representatives would prefer to ignore the problem of sexual violence altogether and pretend it doesn’t exist. To this we say that the time is long past to sweep this under the rug,” she continued.
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The University of Sydney’s 2023 Annual Report on Sexual Misconduct exposed some shocking realities. For example, it revealed that staff and student reports of sexual assault or harassment had more than doubled since 2022, rising up from 121 to a total of 246 in 2023.
The report also sheds light on hazing—a practice that continues to be dangerously under-addressed at universities. Every year, there are examples of students falling seriously ill or dying as a result of hazing challenges gone wrong. Plus, there are other long term consequences. For example, one study has shown that 71 per cent of hazing victims experienced setbacks such as physical, emotional, and/or mental instability, sleep deprivation, a loss of sense of control and empowerment, and a decline in grades and coursework.
In a joint statement, the pair said that they were “disgusted” by the male students’ behaviour. “To hear current students remark ‘no one cares’ as they laughed about rape and hazing is not a slap in the face to us as The Red Zone authors. It is a slap in the face to those who were harmed in the colleges and survived, and to the loved ones of those who didn’t,” they continued.
As upsetting as it is, I completely understand what these women meant when they say that as horrific as these actions were to witness, they didn’t come as a surprise. We’ve become so used to seeing these displays of gendered aggression, they just don’t hold any shock-value anymore.
