"Pull yourself together, you're a woman": this is how violence against teachers grows in classrooms

PalmThe homophobic episode that a teacher from IES Baltasar Porcel suffered from students has been the trigger for a type of MeToo in the education sector, with various professionals sharing similar experiences of verbal and sexist violence within classrooms. The situation has caused strong indignation among the educational community, which has long warned of the increase in aggressions and disrespect towards teachers, many of them (33%) physical. Professionals consider that the case that has come to light this week is the tip of the iceberg of a broader and often silenced problem.

Many teachers have contacted ARA Balears to report the rise of sexism, homophobia and reactionary attitudes among school-aged youth, as well as the normalization of violent and discriminatory discourse, both towards adults and among peers. Comments such as “you pick it up, since you’re a woman” and “he likes to shove dicks up his ass” are examples of what is heard in classrooms; other threats and insults include expressions as harsh as “all women are whores” and “one day I will rape you”.

According to the coordinator of the coeducation commission of a public institute in Raiguer, Mallorca, these behaviors are neither isolated nor anecdotal. In most cases, she points out, it is male students who make these types of comments, often influenced by social media content. Many of them follow profiles linked to the far-right and reproduce these discourses in the playground and even inside the classroom. The homophobic aggression in Andratx has been a particularly visible example of how much what happens outside of schools —especially in the digital environment— can end up neutralizing and hindering the school's pedagogical work regarding coexistence, respect, and values education.

Radicalization reflected in politicians

Certain political positions foster hate speech that, increasingly, students exhibit without fear of consequences. The president of the Parliament and leader of Vox in the Balearic Islands, Gabriel Le Senne, has recently criticized the murals dedicated to the visibility of sexual diversity on the facade of IES Porto Cristo, where couples are seen kissing. The Vox leader pointed to this educational center, in an action that reinforces the tension over the role of centers in promoting values linked to diversity. All of them are included in the LOMLOE (state organic law) and in the LEIB (autonomous law). According to Le Senne, these types of initiatives “adocrine our young people with determined ideologies”. The far-right representative has also remarked that his party will ask for the mural to be removed.

“We are in front of IES Portocristo, looking at this ideological mural that, as we have seen in so many institutes in the Balearic Islands, indoctrinates our young people with certain ideologies. And this is unacceptable. From Vox we will ask for them to be removed”, he stated. According to the president of the Parliament, “one thing is to respect all people, whatever their race, religion, and sexual orientation, and another is to promote certain sexual orientations”. “This has no reason to be”, he sentenced.

His words are inscribed in a context of growing polarization over educational content and the role of schools, while a part of the teaching staff warns of the consequences of this political confrontation within classrooms, where hate speech and discriminatory attitudes among students are increasingly present.