The society we live in is structured based on the authoritarian relations that govern it and is perpetuated by them. The ways in which they appear are multiple, as well as the ways in which patriarchal narratives are etched on our bodies and in our minds since childhood. These narratives shape the prisms through which we view and analyze our reality and are expressed as behaviors. Going from childhood to pre-adolescence and adolescence, the individual becomes more directly and intensely involved in what we call society and is able to self-identify, make decisions for themselves and set the terms on which they want to exist.
This process does not happen in a vacuum, but in a context that consists of many factors; the relationship with the family, peer relationships and peer culture, social media and the extended environment of the person, with school occupying a large portion of their day and therefore of their daily life. Some of these relationships can be fruitful, while others can be authoritative.
One of them is the stance of the male teacher towards female students. A man opposite girls, a mature man opposite schoolgirls, a specialized and educated person opposite “young and ignorant” teenagers, a man with prestige opposite ordinary schoolgirls who simply speak ill of him. An adult opposite minors; in whichever duality of roles we place him, the position that he holds becomes authoritative. This power can take the form of sexual violence, embedded in the bodies of young people, whether expressed verbally or physically. Rape and murder do not happen in a vacuum, but rather they are the top of a pyramid of gender-based violence that begins with comments and narratives about the body. This is even more infuriating when it happens to people in the age when they shape their relationship with their body and sexuality and even more so when it happens in a space like the classroom, a place that should be their own, that should be safe and fertile for each person to blossom in their own way.
The question for us is not the transfer of one or two teachers, but the permanent removal of people like them from the school environment and from every context that has to do with children or teenagers. It is also crucial to explore the ways in which schools will be truly safe places, spaces of solidarity and of formations of healthy relationships, communities of the young and the old, places of authentic learning and exploration.
Since worlds are made by those who live in them, we would not want to speak and act alone through our own prisms, but instead to talk to the subjects of the school community themselves.
So, in an effort to get in touch with the students and their parents, we proceeded to distribute the above text to the people attending the school of Olympiados, where there were complaints from female students who had received abusive behavior from one of their teachers. Of course, our action did not go as planned both during the time we were distributing the text and at the meeting where we invited students to discuss with them.
As the text was being handed out to students who were entering the school premises, teachers expressed their dissatisfaction with the people who were distributing the text. They mentioned how the issue is over now and there is no reason to still “bother” them (they obviously associated us with other collectives that have intervened in the area), as the teacher is not present at school, without specifying whether he has been transferred to a different school environment, if he just sits at home using the leave he is entitled to or if he has been subject to disciplinary action after a sworn administrative examination (which seems unlikely as such procedures take quite a long time to be completed).
In other words, there was a general atmosphere of complacency, namely that the problem has been solved simply because this piece of trash is absent from this specific environment. It does not matter if at the moment the abuser targets other unsuspecting people who view him as a teacher, a kind gentleman who wants to help, a father, an uncle, a family friend and other such roles behind which such scums know well how to camouflage their awful and sick minds.
We are therefore very saddened that there is a practice of concealing such behaviors and an indifference from individuals in the school community.
So for us the problem has not and will not be solved until the last abuser has no place in this society.
We are many, we do not keep quiet, we will burn patriarchy and the state.
Open Anti-Patriarchal Assembly Fousta Kapelo