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Thought the Brighton Grammar boys were bad? Wait till you meet some of the parents

Since an Instagram account that sexually objectified underage school girls was closed down, some of the parents of the Brighton Grammar boys involved have rushed to downplay their actions.

Since an Instagram account that sexually objectified underage school girls was closed down, some of the parents of the Brighton Grammar boys involved have rushed to downplay their actions. (Pic: Supplied)
Since an Instagram account that sexually objectified underage school girls was closed down, some of the parents of the Brighton Grammar boys involved have rushed to downplay their actions. (Pic: Supplied)

“[*****] is an up and coming draft pick in the 2018 slut draft we like to start them young!! Key traits — she’s 13 but tits of a 14 year old, loves a**l but doesn’t mind copping it up the p***y!!”

This is just one of the charming posts written recently by a Brighton Grammar student on the “ys [young slut]_academy_puspus” Instagram account.

The online group boasted more than 40 members, the majority of whom appear to attend Brighton Grammar in Melbourne.

Their targets were multiple primary school girls. Some victims were as young as 11. One photograph of three Grade Six students was described as an “orgy of YS [Young Sluts]” who would make “prime candidates for the YS Slut Draft to take place in 2016”.

The ringleaders, meanwhile, are just months away from being able to vote, drive and drink in licenced premises. Two Year 11 footballers have so far been expelled and police are investigating.

Brighton Grammar School. (Pic: Supplied)
Brighton Grammar School. (Pic: Supplied)

But if you think that’s bad, just take into account the behaviour of some of the parents of these boys.

Since the Instagram account was first uncovered, a small but vocal group of Brighton Grammar parents have engaged in a nasty backlash campaign, defending the boys, minimising their actions, and even criticising one of the victim’s mothers for daring to bring the issue to light.

“What’s the big deal? It was only up for a few hours” one mother reportedly said of a photo of primary school girls.

Other alleged comments include:

“The (grade six) girls should have been wearing tracksuit pants (instead of shorts)”.

“Think about how this will impact the poor boys, one of them is suffering depression”.

“(The boys) just made a silly mistake and (the mother) needs to let it go”.

One man is also reported to have made a threatening phone call to a victim’s family insisting that it was just “a group of boys having fun”.

Melanie Sheppard, the mother of one of the victims, wrote about the incident in an online article and was also attacked on Facebook by a Brighton Grammar parent.

“This woman has gone way too far driving a media circus that will forever follow these teenage boys, and they are boys not men,” the disgruntled Brighton Grammar parent commented on Facebook. “This ongoing vigilante behaviour of hers has to stop.”

They also criticised Ms Sheppard’s parenting skills and maternal judgment.

Worse still, a Brighton Grammar mother also posted malicious remarks about a teenage girl associated with the case.

Sharna Bremner from End Rape on Campus says that “it reflects a particularly toxic culture when parents themselves appear to be bullying other people’s children as a way of deflecting attention away from their own clique”.

Ms Sheppard agrees. “It’s not one individual parent, but a small group of parents who appear to be behaving ‘in pack-formation’,” she says.

Some parents of the Brighton Grammar boys have blamed their young, female victims for being photographed because they were wearing shorts, not pants. (Pic: iStock)
Some parents of the Brighton Grammar boys have blamed their young, female victims for being photographed because they were wearing shorts, not pants. (Pic: iStock)

So why would parents so stridently defend something so obviously wrong? Is this just your standard run-of-the-mill victim-blaming and “boys will be boys” attitude? Or is there something more going on here?

According to various experts, when a group feels its reputation is under threat they will often develop a ‘siege mentality’ — a phenomenon characterised by hyper defensiveness and a misguided perception that group members themselves are the true victims.

In cases where there has been media attention, members of the aggrieved group will often shift focus away from the original misconduct (in this case, the boys who participated on the Instagram account), by pointing to the media scrutiny as evidence of their own, “unfair” persecution.

Not only does this tactic allow group members to divert attention away from their own moral culpability and moral failings, it also serves to solidify loyalty, bonding and social cohesion between group members by advancing an “it’s us versus the world” mentality.

University of Western Sydney criminologist Dr Michael Salter says that when it comes to institutional defensiveness, it is not just administrative staff who have a vested interest in protecting and defending a school’s reputation.

“Parents also have a financial interest in minimising what’s happened, especially if they have invested a great deal of money in aligning themselves with the school (and its reputation),” he says.

The annual cost of tuition for a Year 11 student at Brighton Grammar is $36,982.

Expelling two students does not produce meaningful cultural change. (Pic: News Corp Australia/Jason Sammon)
Expelling two students does not produce meaningful cultural change. (Pic: News Corp Australia/Jason Sammon)

According to Professor Brian Martin from the University of Wollongong and author of The Whistleblowers Handbook, there are five key strategies that detractors will use to discredit or silence whistleblowers.

These include: cover up what’s happened (for example, refuse to reveal the total number of students involved); devalue the target (suggest that girls are to blame for what they were wearing; suggest that the whistleblower is just out for media attention); reinterpret events (reframe the Instagram account as an “inside joke” or downplay it as “boys will be boys”); use official channels to give the appearance of justice (publicly “purge” two students as sacrificial offerings in order to protect the greater group); attempt to use intimidation or bribery (threatening, anonymous phone calls to the whistleblower; aggressive Facebook posts; comments about children etc).

Most, if not all, of these tactics have been employed by different people in this case.

And while some members of the public have praised the school for its decisive action in expelling two students, others urge the school to remember that expulsions themselves do not produce deep and meaningful cultural change.

“If the school is not also taking responsibility for the culture within the school, the risk is that those attitudes are going to persist,” Dr Salter says.

This is a case where individual boys have systematically exploited a group of girls so that a wider group of males could bond through the social exclusion, humiliation and powerlessness of those girls, and through the sense of male domination they would have felt over them.

These boys had no consent to do what they did. They had no regard for the basic rights and autonomy of the girls they targeted. And indeed what they did suggests a malicious disregard for the rights of all girls to live a life free of intimidation and the fear of sexual harassment.

Nor should we ignore the sense of entitlement these boys must have felt to even think to do what they did.

And when that level of entitlement is combined with parental efforts that minimise, whitewash and excuse those actions and choices, a truly disturbing image emerges.

As for Ms Sheppard, she does not regret blowing the whistle.

“How can we ever expect our girls to fight for themselves if we won’t fight for them?” she asks.

Nina Funnell is a freelance writer and author

If you or someone you know has been impacted by sexual harassment, support is available at 1800 RESPECT.

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Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/rendezview/thought-the-brighton-grammar-boys-were-bad-wait-till-you-meet-some-of-the-parents/news-story/25b2c3629606df06ce8a3d0c705ef513