Sexual harassment in colleges - Something has to change

Different societies, naturally, deal with gender issues differently. A Tokyo medical school has apologised over tweaking entrance exam results to limit the number of female students.

The Tokyo Medical University swizz was revealed during an investigation around the admission of a bureaucrat’s son supposedly in exchange for favourable treatment for the school in a ministry project. The land of the rising son indeed.

In Ireland, minister of state Mary Mitchell O’Connor may make classes on sexual consent compulsory in colleges. Considering and imposing are two very different things but that such an option is being considered provokes serious questions. The initiative follows NUI Galway research that found 70% of female students and 40% of male students claimed they experienced sexual hostility or crude gender harassment while in third-level education.

Even if it seems hopelessly naive, even if it seems tragically wet, surely it’s fair to ask how or why those who prey on these students feel free to do so. Of course, a minority of people always did, and probably always will, but the suggestion that 70% of women in college experience some level of sexual harassment must ring alarms bells — even in a world with a grab-’em-by-the-pussy boor in the White House.

Surely parents are not as unsuccessful in instilling ideas of respect and restraint in their children as these figures suggest? If they really are, then something has got to change.