Lauriston Girls’ School students grilled in gender workshop over sexual abuse and eating disorders

The elite Melbourne girls’ school has cancelled its remaining workshops after students were allegedly pressured to publicly talk about “a lot of personal issues”.

A confronting gender workshop run at a leading Melbourne girls’ school involved public questioning about sexual abuse and eating disorders, the Herald Sun can reveal.

The Lauriston Girls’ School Tomorrow Woman session left girls in tears and parents furious.

The school has apologised to parents and students and cancelled future workshops designed to challenge stereotypes.

A parent whose daughter was a participant said the event was “an absolute debacle” which left some girls feeling ashamed, uncomfortable and upset.

The session, run by facilitators who do not have formal counselling or psychological qualifications, asked girls to stand up and walk across a line if they had ever been verbally or sexually abused.

Lauriston Girls’ School students were asked about their personal experiences of body image issues in a confronting gender workshop that left students upset. Picture: Ian Currie

“And one girl with long hair was asked to take her hair out and was told that if she cut it off she’d experience advantage like a male,” one parent said.

“It was really confronting.”

Girls were also asked about their personal experiences of body image issues and one student was grilled in front of her peers about her eating disorder and treatment she had been receiving. “The girl was not feeling comfortable, she was asked, ‘what are you doing about it?’” the parent said.

“Some girls were offended, some were crying and they were trying to get girls to go down rabbit holes and open up about a lot of personal issues,” the parent said.

A letter written to parents by vice principal and head of the senior school Anne Wallington said the school had decided not to proceed with the Tomorrow Woman program which was originally a series of six workshops.

“While the purpose of the session today was to challenge the students about if and how stereotypes may be placed on girls in our society, the questions, activities, and facilitation style made a number of the girls feel confronted and upset,” she wrote.

“This was not the intent of the school and while the program itself has purpose, the environment to explore such topics must be supportive and safe for the students,” the letter said.

A spokeswoman for the school said the school would not work with the Tomorrow Woman program again after students and parents raised concerns after the event.

“Our school psychologists are always available to students. Students were spoken to the following morning where we thanked the girls for expressing their concerns, apologised for upset caused, and confirmed that the program was not going to continue,” she said.

The event was part of the school’s SHINE wellbeing program for senior school students which focuses on Strength, Health, Inspiring, Nurturing and Engagement.

On Tomorrow Woman’s Instagram page, the organisation says it holds face-to-face workshops for girls and women at schools and workplaces.

Recent social media photos show the group holding school workshops for female students.

In one post, which shows handwritten notes from the workshop, it talks about a recent module held for year 11 students.

“We asked participants to reflect on their experience and write down what they used to think, what they now know and what they wonder,” the post said.

Tomorrow Woman founder and chief executive Paige Campbell said the organisation was “saddened” to hear that some students felt uncomfortable in the session it recently conducted at Lauriston Girls’ School.

“It’s not unusual for the sessions we run with students to become emotional but our team of highly trained facilitators work hard to create a safe environment in which to have these challenging but necessary conversations,” Ms Campbell said.

She added: “Since began in 2017 Tomorrow Woman has operated over 1400 workshops with more than 42,000 young women from across Australia with the aim of helping them find their voice and author their own tomorrow by challenging societal pressures such as beauty, relationship dynamics and body image.

“Being confident and feeling safe to use our voices as women is vital in changing the future for women; however our intention is that all women involved in our workshops have choice in how they participate.”