Ontario’s New Sex-Ed Curriculum Takes A Stand Against Rape Culture

If you have a computer, a smartphone, a television, a tablet or even a newspaper, you’ll have at least heard the term “rape culture”. Coined in the 1970’s, rape culture refers to the many ways in which our society accepts, creates and normalizes sexualized violence. In Transforming a Rape Culture, author Emilie Buchwald defines rape culture as “a complex set of beliefs that encourage male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent.”

We’ve heard about acts of sexual aggression so much this past year.

Canada was rocked when accusations began to fly against CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi, who has now been charged with sexually assaulting six women. And how did the world react to these accusations? Did we try to protect the victims? Sadly, no. the knee-jerk reaction was to blame the victims:

“He did nothing wrong, these women know what they were getting into. He dumped a woman now she’s mad, nothing worse than a pissed off female to make accusations and destroy his career. She’s not a victim, that’s it that’s all.”

“What a bunch of nosey opinionated idiots. Doesn’t matter what happened behind those doors. His professional life has nothing to do with it. I hope he gets every cent.”

(These are quote from commenters on our own Facebook page.)

After almost two dozen women came forward to accuse Bill Cosby of rape and sexual assault, he is somehow still allowed to perform his comedy show here in Canada. Just last night, at a show in London, Ontario, the disgraced comedian joked with the audience that “you have to be careful about drinking around me”. For those unaware, Cosby allegedly drugged many of the women he is accused of raping and sexually assaulting.

Comedy Central comedian Tosh.0’s uncomfortable “Lightly Touching Women’s Stomachs While They’re Sitting Down” segment which asks strangers to sneak up on women and, yes, lightly put their hands on the woman’s stomach, is yet another example of how, in rape culture, consent is a secondary concern.

Or it’s our music telling us that “blurred lines” make it okay because “you know you want it”. We tell our girls they need to cover up or else “they are asking for it”. Rape jokes still get laughs.

So how can we ensure our kids truly understand the issue of consent?

Thanks to a request made by Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, the Ministry of Education will now include the topic of consent in the updated sex-education curriculum, reports the Toronto Star.

Can I get a HALLELUJAH!?

After consent dominated headlines in 2014, Premier Wynne asked Education Minister Liz Sandals to include a focus on healthy relationships and consent  into the revamp of the curriculum — topics that will be taught as early as this fall.

Last fall, Sandals announced the ministry’s plan to unveil a new sex-education curriculum by February 2015.  This is the first update the curriculum has seen since 1998, making it the most outdated in the country. Ontario’s sex-ed program almost got an update in 2010 but was later shutdown by Premier Dalton McGuinty after receiving complaints from concerned parents and religious groups about teaching children about homosexuality, STD prevention and possibly of teaching them about oral and anal sex.

Years following that,  there has been a huge push from parents, teachers and health experts to revamp sex-ed class to cater to this generation’s tech-savy students.

Back in November, the province asked parents for feedback on the new improved program. The ministry said parents’ biggest concern was their “lack of awareness” about internet safety.

The rolling out of this new curriculum has been a long time coming. But the decision to actually include discussions around consent is extremely important, especially given all the stories surrounding sexual violence today. In fact, even students agree it’s  time consent be taught in classrooms.

Tessa Hill and Lia Valente, two Grade 8 students from Toronto started a Change.org petition back in December to help get make the topic of consent taught in sex-ed. “The curriculum needs to teach what clear, enthusiastic, and affirmative consent is and what it looks and sounds like,” their page reads. Their petition currently has over 2,000 signatures and counting.

After Wynne’s announcement Thursday, the girls plan to continue to their petition as an act of support to the premier’s decision.

Our verdict: We can’t believe it’s taken this long for sex-ed to enter the 21st century. The fact that consent isn’t already taught in classrooms is a scary thought but it’s good to finally see things move in the right direction.

Finally, Ontario children will be able to attend a sex-ed class that is current and relevant their generation. It’s about time.

We hope that the curriculum focuses it’s attention on teaching boys that rape is NOT okay as opposed to teaching girls how to say no (because clearly in a lot of instances, saying no isn’t preventing rape from happening). HOW we teach these lessons is just as important as WHAT is being taught.