In this Washington Post article, Samantha Schmidt discusses how sex education is changing in schools to include education surrounding consent in an attempt to address these issues during children’s formative years rather than once they get to university. Specifically, the article discusses this education on consent in middle schools as students are going through puberty and some are having their first romantic interactions with peers, whether physically intimate or not.
Educators across the country have said that waiting until college is too late to prevent sexual violence.
The author tells the story of a suburban Maryland middle school, as health teacher Courtney Marcoux introduces the topic of consent to her students in a variety of ways. This is not unique to Hallie Wells Middle School, as the commonly-referred to “#MeToo era” is increasingly concerned with introducing consent to children at younger ages and formalizing this through school programs. Just months after allegations against Harvey Weinstein sparked a nationwide call for greater action against sexual assault and consent, Maryland passed a bill in 2018 requiring that sex education in schools include lessons on consent.
During Marcoux’s lesson on consent, the health teacher showed students a photo of a football player with a quote next to it: “I’m going to start tackling guys in football jerseys and saying, ‘Look what he’s wearing. He was asking for it.’ ” This sparked discussion amongst her class, as the students were confused and dumbfounded as to why someone could just assume someone wearing a football jersey wants to be tackled in the middle of the street. Marcoux responded with an important statement to the students about how we see this manifest itself in our society with regard to sexual assault and victim-blaming.
“We cannot assume that somebody wants to do something because of what they’re wearing, because maybe they were flirting, because they did it once before,” Marcoux told the class. “We cannot make these assumptions.”
This is significant given our discussions in class this week surrounding the issues of sexual assault, victim-blaming, and consent. As the article discusses, many are calling for earlier education with children in teaching them about consent before they get to university, where these issues are so prevalent. Teaching children to own their bodies and respect their peers’ bodies is a crucial component of changing our society’s attitudes towards these issues and hopefully changing the startling statistics of how many are negatively impacted by these issues. Doing so is not just for the benefit of women, but for our society as a whole.