It was just banter Group Chats and Sexual Violence
so
i read a book recently for an essay i
was writing for a gender studies module
last semester and it was called
reclaiming the f word feminism today so
there are a few chapters in this book
that really stood out to me but one
sentence that really struck home
violence against women can take many
forms forced abortions
female infanticide female genital
mutilation
child sexual abuse acid throwing forced
prostitution
and sadly the list goes on quite a while
longer as you can imagine
so i read this list a couple times over
out loud
but then i realized that this list was
missing something really personal to my
life and my friends lives
violence against women can include
violent banter on lads group chats
so you say the words the warwick rape
group chat to any student at this
university and it’s the same story with
each person
the social anxiety takes over the
student doesn’t know what to say
they’re really uncomfortable talking
about it because the topic slips the
back of their minds
i’m not going to lie i don’t blame them
any person in this audience who was on
this campus
both times the group group chat scandal
kicked off will know
how exactly how polarizing this event
was for everyone who witnessed it
don’t get me wrong i don’t want to stand
here and drag the story out even further
and make you feel sorry for me all over
again no
but in the age of hashtag me too there
is a much greater discussion to be had
and this this group chat scandal plays a
key role in this
and we cannot let this scandal slide
under the carpet the way it already has
but i’m sure there are some of you here
who don’t actually have a clue about
what i’m talking about
and lucky for you lovely people i’m
really desensitised to talking about
what i went through in this ordeal
but there’s a time limit on this talk so
i’ll give you the brief version
so we get to uni we’re in a big basic
group of keen freshers boys and girls
alike
come second year we’ve made some
incredible memories together
but already there are some really
worrying and violent rumors about some
of the men in this friendship group
floating around
and then next thing you know a couple of
these girls discover this disgusting
group chat
now there’s all sorts of nonsense on
there as you can imagine with lads chats
like edgy memes or football
football manager talk what really seemed
to be the hot and popular topic
were the sheer amounts of threats of
rape and acts of violence against us
women who were supposed to be their best
friends
so when the two women discovered this
chap naturally they were shook to the
core of what they were seeing
and who can blame them they couldn’t
they couldn’t keep quiet about it so
when they went to the men
the worst perpetrators the ringleaders
of this chat and demanded answers
they weren’t given answers instead these
men thought it would be really clever to
use the contents of the chat and
threaten the women with it in order to
keep their silence
but they couldn’t keep quiet as i said
so then the rest of us found out
to myself and a couple of other women
involved we didn’t want to believe any
of it at first in fact we were in
complete denial
i myself i tried rationalizing
everything i tried making excuses for
these men because i told myself
these are my best friends i know them
better than this
but then it became clear that the worst
of these men were not sorry
they didn’t even see them wrong in what
they had done in fact some of them told
us that we should have taken it as a
compliment that we were being talked
about in this way
and then it became clear that as i said
that these men were not sorry
but what remains so scary and so
terrifying about the very aspect the
very essence of this group chat
was how normalized this violent attitude
towards women was within the chat
the way the men constantly egged each
other on to make worse and worse and
more violent and violent threats about
us women who were supposed to be their
friends
and some of the men i must say there
were some men who witnessed the chat and
they were on it but they never they
never participated they never joined in
any of the jokes and i never got to say
this before
but when we confronted these men and
begged for them to help us get to the
bottom of the situation
these men they really helped us get
clarity on things they were completely
transparent and completely honest
and those men they know who they are i
just want to say we always
always be grateful for the help and the
help in getting to the bottom of things
so come june 2019 the warwick run
newspaper the warwick ball
wrote the story on the group chat so
everyone on campus knew about this
the two girls who found out about the
chat put informal complaints to the
university
and then the necessary punishments were
dealt with so in that time between
june 2018 and going into final year so i
was going on a year abroad
some of the other girls were too and the
rest of the women involved were trying
to get on with their lives and complete
their degrees
but in that time the university just
kept seeming to find new ways to mess
the situation up
so for example in the summer holidays of
that year the two women who put in the
complaints to university
in their investigations with the uni
they were constantly being dragged back
and forth onto campus through
endless meetings but in those meetings
there was a complete lack of clarity and
transparency about what the hell was
actually going on
not to mention they were constantly
gaslit about the validity of their own
testimonies their own truths
not to mention the fact that they were
actually made to read the countless
messages that these men were sending
about them they were
made to relive their trauma over and
over again
might also add in the fact that one of
the women actually had to sit a final
year exam
in the same room as one of the men from
the group chat
so come january 2019 i’m fully immersed
in my year abroad
those of you who know me well know how
much i loved my year abroad i do not
stop talking about it ever
but what you people don’t know is i was
actually suffering a severe relapse in
my anxiety and depression
and i developed bulimia as a result of
this trauma
so come january 2019 last year i get
text from my friends saying
oh my god nicole have you seen this and
again another article by the warwick
board saying
that the university were actually
planning on allowing two of the worst
perpetrators two of the ringleaders from
this disgusting group chat
to return to campus the next academic
year the very same year that myself and
several other of the victims were
supposed to be returning to complete our
degrees
now i’m not going to lie i remember
reading that i didn’t know what to say i
remember running to the toilets of
friday on a versatile berlin and
throwing up everywhere
apologies to the cleaner still but then
what i also noticed on social media was
one of the other women victimized in
this group chat
was taking to twitter going on a big run
as you will but she was taking to
twitter to voice her anger at this act
of injustice
and what remained so poignant about her
anger was the fact that she wasn’t going
to be returning to campus the next year
no
she would have graduated so in essence
she wouldn’t have had to come back and
face these men like the rest of us were
but that didn’t stop her from speaking
up and protecting the rest of us women
so i saw that i knew i couldn’t be a
bystander any longer and that’s when the
rest of us
took action and spoke up and the rest is
history as you can imagine
i mean you don’t need to imagine it’s
literally on the university’s wikipedia
page
so come december last term there was the
ucu strike going on campus
i was walking along the picket lines
along it not crossing it in the
metaphorical sense of course
and there was a particular picket that
caught my eye hashtag uni story
on a faculty board a head of faculty
said that the facebook chat was a
one-off unfortunate event
well whoever said that whoever head of
faculty whoever you are
you clearly have not been reading the
news very well now have you
need i mentioned a similar disgusting
group chat by the coventry uni men’s
cricket team
or the sheffield med student who made
disgusting comments about women on a
group chat with 200 plus members
or the very lovely infamous exeter group
chat that showed the very same brand of
racism and obsession with rape
that our own lovely group chat did need
i talk about the cambridge university
professor who was allowed to return to
his teaching position
in spite of several allegations of
sexual assault made against him by his
very own students
so i looked at these headlines and i
realized that this was all part of a
much wider phenomenon that seems to
plague
uk university campuses what is this
phenomenon
rape culture now what is rape culture
some of you might be asking yourselves
you’ve seen it in headlines and articles
on your news feed
and whilst it is easy to point your
fingers at the perpetrators alone since
they are the one
after all causing the pain and hurt this
phenomenon is way way bigger this
phenomenon goes way
way further than a bunch of silly lads
on a little group chat trying to one-up
each other with their edgy jokes no
rape culture are the laws that hold
women responsible for aborting a baby
that was conceived as the result of her
rape
rape culture is taking advantage of
someone on a night out who is clearly
too inebriated to make any rational
decision about their own body
rape culture is saying that a girl is
asking for it when she wears something
that you consider to be too revealing
rape culture is pressuring your partner
into having sex with you but telling
them it’s okay because you love them and
you would never really hurt them
rape culture is listing the girls in
your friendship group in the order that
you would like to pin them down in as if
it’s a sport you can get a medal for
rape culture is the dark corners of
popular online forums like 4chan
where incels fantasize about all the
ways they love to hurt and humiliate
women rape culture is the institutions
that allow perpetrators to continue
their violent behavior
in atmospheres where victims should be
the priority and
where victims should be safe and as my
favorite gender studies writer kristen
solay puts it
rape culture is the rape joke and the
audience that laughs along
now to be honest i could stand here and
go on for days about what i think rape
culture is
but everydayfeminism.com provides a
really really extensive list and what
they think
it is and to be honest i think you all
should give it a read
especially you university students i
wouldn’t be surprised if you witnessed
some of these aspects every day in your
university experience especially on this
campus
so as if the extent of institutional
bias wasn’t apparent enough to me in my
life already
last summer i got to work for a really
important organization
i remember getting there on my first day
and i was a complete awe of all the
feminist posters the think tanks and
networks
everything that was at my disposal to
make me feel safe i remember sitting
down i thought to myself
oh this is sick isn’t it you know what
everything that happened in my past i
can forget about it
maybe there is hope for women like me
just to get on with our lives in peace
in the workplace in the in the
professional world then next thing you
know my best friend from work tina
starts getting harassed by a male
co-worker
so first it started off as kind of like
your playful flirting we all thought
he’ll get the hint he’ll get that she’s
not interested he’ll leave her alone
but what started off as playful flirting
became making fetishization comments
about her skin color and her race
it became making sexual advances to
water in the office it even became
making homophobic
comments in front of our gay co-worker
and one day at lunch we just sat you
know trying to eat our sandwiches
talking about the weather and what
he thought would be a good idea to try
and touch her up
so as you can imagine she she couldn’t
stand for this any longer she was so
uncomfortable so we told her you know
what let’s just go to the managers
they’ll sort out i remember telling her
tina these are the big boys of the uk
they’ll sort it right out
this is a safe space so when she sat
down with one of the managers to voice
her concerns over this man
and i overheard this entire conversation
well eavesdropped
i overheard this entire thing that’s
what matters but then my friend was
continually blamed for the actions of
this man that made her so uncomfortable
she couldn’t come back into work for a
few days
she was actually asked things like why
didn’t you report it sooner
it’s not like he pushed you into a
corner and forced himself on you now did
he
now just just imagine this just imagine
this was a woman
asking my friend these questions this
was a woman
blaming my friends and accusing her for
the behaviors of this man
that had no respect for her had no
respect for any of us in this workplace
and this was a woman
making her feel like she deserved to be
treated in this way
this shows how people from all
backgrounds cultures identities
anyone can be a perpetrator of rape
culture but this shows how this
rape culture is crystallized even in the
highest ranks of our society so the
people who run our state our media our
economy they’re all
capable of being perpetrators and in
fact this rule bending is so pervasive
that keeping victims quiet and accusing
them and holding them to blame
is actually the easier more desirable
option than holding the perpetrators to
account because you know what it’s just
a bit it’s quite a lot of paperwork to
fill out at the end of the day isn’t it
so
as i said i overheard this entire
conversation and i sat there and i
thought
this is all a bit creepy now i’ve been
here before and i won’t be surprised if
many of you thought the same for example
how many of you in this audience
have been harassed or made to feel
uncomfortable by someone you know a
co-worker a flatmate
a colleague and then you told yourself i
don’t want to cause anyone trouble
i don’t want to make an issue out of
nothing nothing happened i can live with
it it’s fine
and sadly my friend ended up doubting
herself in this very way because of this
woman who made her feel guilty
so as i said i sat there i thought this
is all a bit creepy now i’ve been here
before i’ve seen this before
i immediately thought of the way my two
friends who put in the complaints to
university they were asking their
investigations things like
have you ever been in a relationship
with any of the men from the group chat
i was asked this in a counselling
session back in 2018.
just imagine this speaking on live radio
this time last
year a female presenter actually had the
nerve to ask me on live radio
whether or not i’d had sex with any of
the men from the group chat
as if our choice in romantic and sexual
relations meant we deserve to go through
any of that
as if it meant we deserve to have our
best friends make these disgusting
threats about us behind our back as if
we deserve to go through any of that
so yeah and that’s when it became clear
to me how widespread this problem is
i was even asked things at the time when
i first discovered the chat where the
people were closest to me the people who
were supposed to have loved me
i was asked things like you don’t think
they would ever really hurt you now do
you
i was asked things like it’s not like
they went through with anything they
said on the group chat did they
this all shows the systematic violence
that exists and the systematic violence
that forces victim victims and women
into submission and into keeping quiet
accusing victims and holding them to
blame for the actions of a perpetrator
is only ever going to remove
accountability
from the people who’ve caused this pain
in the first place
and we wonder why so many victims are so
terrified of speaking up about their
experiences it explains why so many
by so many of us women victimizing this
group chat were so reluctant to talk
about this for the longest time
especially when like i said the people
closest to me were asking me things like
this
i even have people online asking me
these kind of questions too and that’s
that kind of stuff is difficult to
ignore
but what these people will never ever
understand what they can even never even
imagine in fact what they can what they
will never experience the same way us
women did
was the fear that we had to live with
the fear that we were expected just to
deal with and just get on with and
having our best friends turn out to be
monsters like this behind our backs and
having people we trusted
just turned out to be just liars for
example
i nearly missed a final year german exam
a second year german exam sorry
because i was too scared i was terrified
to make the five minute walk from my
flat
to the bus stop because i was terrified
of the chance that i would have bumped
into any of these men i was terrified
of the retaliation i would have faced
because i spoke up
you know what there are people out there
there are people at this university who
i still have to face every day
who hate me and hate my friends and hold
grudges against all of us because we
took on the system and spoke up
and that small minority you know who you
are i have just one thing to say to you
you can keep your anger i hope it makes
you very very happy in life
but you’re part of the problem of rape
culture too and i hope that makes you
very proud of yourselves
now don’t get me wrong social media was
where this whole problem began it’s
where everything kicked off it’s what
started this thing in the first place
but social media also helped bring our
problems to light social media had our
voices heard in the age of hashtag me
too we’re living in it now as i said
unsurprisingly people were going to be
angry once we had our story put out
there once people heard our story
my two friends my two very brave friends
who took on the university
they never gave up in their effort they
never gave up in trying to protect us
not just us but every other victim on
this campus
and then i saw my friend taking to
social media and that’s when i knew i
couldn’t be a bystander any longer
so then my best friend heather and i
went on twitter going on our usual
twitter rants as you do
and started throwing around the hashtag
shame on new warwick as a joke
what we did not expect was to wake up
the next morning and see that our story
had gone viral
the hashtag had thousands of uses my
mentions were blowing up my dms were
flooded
which doesn’t happen often at all mind
you and
i had victoria derbyshire’s assistant
herself on the phone begging me to speak
on live tv and share my experience
now i’m not gonna lie i look back and
none of it feels real
i can’t even replicate the kind of
feelings i had back then i can’t even
imagine
what i was going through it feels more
like a black hole i was sucked into
without any control over what was going
on
everything was just happening in front
of my eyes and i just had no power over
it
the university had made their decision
to abandon us and let these men return
to campus and put us in danger
and we were expected just to live with
it just to act as if nothing happened
but for the first time people were angry
for us and people were angry with us
people were actually listening to us
now you have no idea how amazing
that type of validation feels when for
the longest time
you’ve been made to feel like as if you
had no right to feel the things you did
you’ve been made to doubt the validity
of your own truth you’ve been made to
doubt yourself
and people just start to listen people
start to care
you can’t imagine how amazing that felt
for us back then
because as victims stood together and
spoke up people
actually listened and people noticed and
people paid attention
social media was used as a tool to
humiliate us and degrade us in private
but it also became our very saving grace
in public
but don’t get me wrong i was terrified
at first so i spoke on the radio and tv
under the alias sarah
and i shared my story i was still
terrified i was terrified of the
backlash
of the retaliation i could face but i
was also terrified of the powerful legal
teams
and the money that protected some of
these men especially the men that had
more violent severe allegations floating
around about them
but when i spoke on tv and radio i knew
i wasn’t just speaking for myself
anymore
but i was speaking for any other woman
that those vile men
hurt both on the group chat and in real
life
and then something else also became
clear to me
i wasn’t just doing this for us anymore
but i was speaking up for any other
victim of sexual violence
at this university who have been failed
by this institution
and that became clear when the protests
went ahead on campus
now i remember sitting on the back of a
bus in berlin crying just at my phone
looking like a bit of a weirdo to be
honest
i remember just sitting there crying
because i saw all the hundreds of people
who turned up to show support for us the
students the staff alumni even parents
or some of my friends turned up to show
their support and voice their anger with
us
everything that happened in that time
walk back then showed what can be
achieved when people stop
silencing victims and actually just
start listening
and it also showed what can be achieved
when victims stand by one another in
solidarity and speak up together and
share their truth
now don’t get me wrong this this ordeal
was destroyed two years of what should
have been the best four years of my life
and i’m not gonna lie i can’t wait to
leave this place
but am i gonna let this violent
experience define me for the rest of my
life
no fair enough it has made me who i am
today it’s shaped the woman i’ve become
but i’m not going to let it define who i
want to be going forward in life no
instead i think the lessons i’ve learned
from this experience are going to be
what i take forward and to be honest i
think we all have something really
valuable we can learn from the right
group chat scandal
yes the system is flawed it’s so
incredibly flawed it’s so flawed i could
do another ted talk about it frankly
but we have to continue to hold it to
account
we have to continue to challenge it we
challenged the system once before when
the system was determined to see us fail
and when the system abandoned us
and since then the university have
committed to change they have committed
to
protecting their students better in
future we’ve we’ve already started to
see that promise come to light
but we have to continue to hold them to
that promise now
don’t get me wrong i am not an authority
on how to promote
positive intersectional care politics at
university i do not have a gender
studies degree
i don’t have a degree actually at all
but what i will say at the very least
what we can actually just start doing
something so simple
what we can start doing is actually just
listening to one another instead of just
trying to brush each other under the
carpet instead of just ignoring each
other
people listening to us women back then
made all the difference in our lives
when all hopes seemed lost and the
system abandoned us
if we listen to each other more in the
future maybe these systematic failures
might never ever happen again
thank you for coming to my ted talk
[Applause]
[Music]
you