Sydney Uni’s St Paul’s College Is Being Slammed For A “Deep Contempt For Women”

St Paul’s College, one of the oldest and most prestigious of the Sydney University colleges, is again in deep trouble over issues of sexism and harassment. Yesterday News Corp reported on an offensive post on the college’s Facebook group, encouraging fellow students to contact the poster if they needed help to “get rid of some chick” after they had “rooted” her.

The vile post, which also refers to “harpooning a whale” and signs off with “happy slaying”, has caused a stir across the country and resulted in other residential colleges boycotting St Paul’s upcoming social event, the Full Moon Party. The college has been condemned by the University’s vice-chancellor, Dr Michael Spence, and there is talk that the college could be shut down if they do not fix their insidious culture of sexism and harassment.

The post, pictured above, was found on the St Paul’s College 2017 Facebook page in March, but has since resurfaced, and has now been liked by over 100 students.

In response to the public outrage, Dr Ivan Head (the warden of St Paul’s College) has told News Corp that “St Paul’s College does not tolerate unacceptable or offensive behaviour and comments, and takes these matters very seriously”. The offending student has been “reprimanded” and briefly suspended from the college. But now Head is in hot water as well, over a post on the very same Facebook page which encouraged the students to consider their behaviour more carefully as “some things may resurface just when you need your CV to work for you”.

Dr Head’s post states that he “appreciate[s] we are all in our own way on a journey into responsible and respectful adulthood”, which honestly may as well just be the words “boys will be boys” in all-caps, and warns that “incautious and disrespectful use [of social media] can result in damage” — not to the victims of the posts, but to the students themselves.

This is by no means the first time the college has come under fire for sexist behaviour on campus. Previously the college was reprimanded for the creation of a “pro-rape” Facebook page (which prompts my now daily question: how is that a thing?), and there is a long history of unpleasant and violent sexual incidents connected to the college.

In 1977, a young woman was beaten, raped and killed on St Paul’s Oval (though no one was ever charged and the murder remains a cold case); and just a few weeks after that horrendous event a student was given an “Animal Act of the Year Award” for his part in the gang rape of another young woman.

Last year, former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick tried to address concerns of sexism, violence and harassment with a university-wide cultural review. However  St Paul’s refused to participate, and instead chose to “exercise its liberty as a self-governing body”. The college held its own private internal review, as well as a version of Oxford University’s Good Lad Program (which promotes “positive masculinity), run by a college alumnus.

I mean, gee whizz, this all sounds pretty vile, and apparently I’m not the only one to think so. Spence, the vice-chancellor of the university has condemned Dr Head and the college for the post and their evidently entrenched culture of sexism and disrespect.

“The fact that almost 100 people liked this particular Facebook post indicates that a deep contempt for women is not just something that marks the behaviour of an isolated student, but a core feature of the shared culture of the men of the college,” Dr Spence wrote.

The NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes has said he is “shocked” by the reports of sexism at the college. “I would urge the college to involve themselves in [the review] process as soon as possible. It is a shame that St Paul’s remain the only residential college yet to sign up to the review.”

Dr Spence similarly concluded that “the college should acknowledge that it can no longer pretend that this is not a profound issue in the life of the college, going to its very licence to operate, and they need collectively to begin to own and to tackle it.”

The question now is: how long before the matter of abhorrent sexist culture at St Paul’s is taken out of the college’s hands?

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Matilda Dixon-Smith is Junkee’s Staff Writer. She tweets at @mdixonsmith.