This celebration of abuse and misogyny must stop

THE hazing that’s happening in our university colleges is an abusive ritual. Authorities need to take it seriously and recognise it as criminal behaviour, writes Susie O’Brien.

THE #metoo movement may be under attack for being trite and churlish, but today we see a reminder of why it’s needed.

A new report called The Red Zone details rituals carried out on first-year students at university college residences, showing how thousands of our nation’s smartest, most privileged young men engage in alarming and abusive behaviour.

The study, by Nina Funnell, makes for damning reading. It shows how the colleges are ruled by a clique of older students preying on impressionable first-year students for “sexual and sadistic purposes”.

Male students were made to masturbate into shampoo bottles belonging to female students, defecate in common areas and run naked through the grounds covered in paint.

Alcoholic benders were common; students often drank until they vomited or passed out as part of their “Bachelor of Inebriation”. Some were pinned to the floor and had wine poured into their mouths. Female students woke with strange men in their room, had dead fish thrown at them and had photos of them posted on internet sites naked or in compromising positions.

Nicknames such as “Fresher Mullet” were given to girls considered to be the ugliest. Some female students were used as “bait” and being subjected to a “bone room” which was a large space with mattresses on the floor.

Others were made to drink alcohol off each other’s genitals, subjected to threats of rape and pressured to “hook up” or “skull and score”.

Males were most often the perpetrators but they were the victims too.

Hazing rituals at universities around the world include forcing students to vomit on each other, covering their bodies in hot sauce, and being forced into a cage. (Pic: supplied)

The impact of such behaviour cannot be over-estimated. One family quoted in the report even linked their son’s suicide to the hazing he was subjected to at St Paul’s College in Sydney.

A number of targets reported self-harm in the wake of the incidents and one student died after drunkenly walking on the road.

Although the report covers the residential colleges at Sydney University, there are alarming signs this culture is rife in Victoria as well.

In recent years students have started speaking out about their experiences at Victorian universities, with one 27-year-old from the University of Melbourne holding a sign that read: “I got the perfect score: 2 rapes; 2 unis; 2 degrees.”

Another from Monash University said she was raped in a wooden cabin during orientation week in 2014.

A friend of mine attended a University of Melbourne residential college recently and was shocked that half the students came from the same up-market Melbourne suburbs: Armidale, Toorak, Kew, Hawthorn and Brighton.

This meant the halls of residences were ruled by a band of privileged private school kids, including some who cemented their place at the top of the social hierarchy by abusing and humiliating their fellow students.

It’s sad to think thousands of parents make great sacrifices to send their academically-gifted young to university in the city.

They entrust them to the colleges, little knowing what is ahead.

A similar picture emerged from the 2017 Human Rights Commission into sexual assault on Australian campuses.

The commission’s report, which surveyed 31,000 students, showed half were sexually harassed in 2016 and one in five in a university setting.

At La Trobe University the figure was one in three.

The commission’s report described 203 sexual assault case studies, with 151 taking place at college parties and events. The report also found 94 per cent of students who were sexually harassed, and 87 per cent of students who were sexually assaulted, did not make a formal complaint to their university.

Funnel is right that such behaviour, which has long been a hallmark of the most expensive and prestigious educational halls of residence, should be criminalised.

Although some universities have made improvements in recent years, some colleges appear incapable of taking steps to bring about cultural change.

The permissive macho culture, which glorifies the power of men over women and normalises the degrading treatment of younger students is allowed to remain as long as it’s kept under wraps.

You may be thinking this doesn’t affect you.

Remember that one day these young men behaving in this way will run the courts, corporations and parliaments of our country. And yet they spend their time at university perpetrating a culture that not only condones, but celebrates, sexual abuse and misogyny.

It’s time it was stopped before more damage is done to young lives.

Susie O’Brien is a Herald Sun columnist. [e-mail] @susieob