That utterly vile website that was sharing sexually explicit images of over 2000 Australian high school girls – some of them underage – might have finally been shut down, but the ramifications are still coming in strong.
Firstly, there’s a Change.org petition calling on Malcolm Turnbull to bring in better legislation to deal with these websites (both in shutting them down and punishing those responsible) that’s already hit 30,000 signatures in two days. (It should be noted that although the Australian Federal Police confirmed today that the site had indeed been shut down, they elaborated only so-far as to say “authorities” had done so. It is believed the site was shut down by administrators.)
And secondly, there’s this sub-par response to the website from one of the schools affected.
Catherine Manning, a mother of one of the students, accused the school of slut-shaming and victim-blaming the students instead of laying the blame at those responsible for this vile website.
She posted on Facebook that she’d received a “furious” text from her daughter about a meeting it.
“Instead of laying blame directly where it falls – with the perpetrators – it seems her school decided the best line of defence was to haul the girls into a meeting and not just police their appearance, but thoroughly insult and denigrate them,” she wrote. “Nice job, revolution school. At the assembly my daughter and her friends said they were told they had to check the length of their skirts, and that anything that doesn’t touch their knees or below by Monday morning would be deemed inappropriate. They were informed that this was to ‘protect their integrity’. They were also told not to post photos of themselves online, and to refuse any request from a boyfriend for a ‘sexy selfie’, as their boyfriends will only be around for a couple of days; maximum a year; but definitely not in ten years’ time. They were told the boys are distracted by their legs, and that boys don’t respect girls who wear short skirts.”
Manning writes that afterwards, some of the girls got together to document their outrage to the meeting, only to be shut down by a teacher.
“As a parent, I am MORTIFIED that my daughter was subjected to such appalling messaging at the hands of those entrusted to care for her.”
The school has yet to make a comment, although they did send out an email on Wednesday that they believed no current students were involved.
Photo: Kambyra / Facebook.
