Female teachers across Sydney experience sexual harassment in the classroom

Female teachers across Sydney say they are experiencing a rise in shocking incidents of sexual harassment in the classroom as they warn the “manosphere” is fuelling misogyny among schoolboys.

Female teachers across Sydney say they are experiencing a rise in shocking incidents of sexual harassment.

Female teachers across Sydney say they are experiencing a rise in shocking incidents of sexual harassment in the classroom as they warn the “manosphere” is fuelling misogyny among schoolboys.

The Saturday Telegraph can reveal that male students are making highly sexualised remarks to female educators including taunting them with rape 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.

Young schoolboys are continuing to target female teachers with deepfakes.

“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 rape and porn 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.

Melinda Tankard Reist, movement director for women’s advocacy group Collective Shout, says teachers are experiencing sexual harassment. Picture: NCA Newswire/Gary Ramage

Meanwhile, a series of forums praising “incel manifestos” show the extent of hatred towards females.

“I’ve known about (mass murderer) … first I was bluepilled and believed what he did was wrong, a few years later, I read his manifesto, watched his videos, and fully related to him,” one user commented on an incel forum thread.

In another thread, the men make vile references to a recent high-profile female murder victim saying they “hoped she suffered every second in her last moments”.

An eSafety spokesman said the authority was “deeply concerned” by the rise of harmful attitudes and behaviours towards girls and women, including online influencers, communities and forums associated with these views.

“We are also seeing new technologies like deepfake images being weaponised against teachers, students and school communities,” he said.

“Our research shows boys and young men often go online to seek answers about identity, belonging and purpose … but social media algorithms frequently exploit those interests to push increasingly extreme and harmful content.”

Last week, Melinda Tankard Reist, movement director for women’s advocacy group Collective Shout, was subjected to harmful online abuse including hundreds of rape and death threats online.

The pile-on of abuse was due to the group’s successful campaign to remove games with themes of rape, incest and sexual 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 rape threats, sexual intimidation, comments about their bodies,” she said.

“One teacher was told by a male student she had a mouth that belonged on (porn 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.”

Macquarie University criminologist Dr Vincent Hurley said incels were preying upon vulnerable teens, saying the hate can eventually lead to extreme violence.

Any Australian experiencing online abuse can report it to:esafety.gov.au/report

Originally published as Female teachers across Sydney experience sexual harassment in the classroom