So I took part in the Beyond Equality workshop for educators on tackling sexual harassment and sexism in schools. Alongside Gina Martin were Ben Hurst and Kasey Robinson (Business Development) with a brief intro from managing director Dan Guinness. The session gave us an overview of Gina’s experiences of coming into schools and talking to kids then relaying some of that to teachers. They had some factual stats on sexual harassment and assaults in schools, talked about what’s needed to hold space in order to facilitate positive discussions, as well as some background discussion on what contributes to rape culture with this triangle diagram pictured. We had a very short breakout session (literally like 4 minutes) in smaller groups to share things we have done and found helpful in our own experiences of this work. The end of the session came so quickly and I think since they were piloting the whole thing it dawned on them they needed to do regular sessions with so much to cover and so much interest from educators – which is great, but also mean that this session whilst super interesting and important – wasn’t very dynamic in terms of practical help.
This triangle explanation of Rape Culture is actually a really great visual, when coming up against people who deny Rape Culture even exists or have problems understanding how a micro aggression or cat calling is linked in any way to sexual assault. I feel like I shall be returning to this diagram again at some point because it unlocks something – I’m just not sure what yet.