Updated

Nina Funnell from the NSW Rape Crisis Centre who says that women studying at Sydney University's college fear ostracism if they report rape, and the colleges must acknowledge there is a problem.

Source: 7.30 New South Wales | Duration: 6min 1sec

Topics: youth, nsw

Transcript

Editor's note (November 20): The graphic used in the video is incorrect. It is a photograph of St John's College, not St Paul's College.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER, PRESENTER: A revealing pro-rape, anti-consent page on Facebook, the social networking website, has exposed a culture conducive to misogyny at Sydney University's most hallowed hall, the all-male St Paul's college. Misogyny is hatred or contempt for the human rights of women.

The Sydney Morning Herald investigations editor Ruth Pollard uncovered the site, which has now been removed. The university is investigating and now has the names of college students and former students associated with the 'Define Statutory' group. The police sex crimes unit and the Rape Crisis Centre have condemned the site because they say it grooms perpetrators of sexual violence.

Ruth Pollard's main informant was Nina Funnell, freelance writer, a former student and tutor at Sydney University and a current board member of the Rape Crisis Centre. And for your information, there is one explicit sexual reference in this interview.

Nina Funnell, welcome to Stateline What prompted this exposure?

NINA Funnell, FREELANCE WRITER: Well I was a student and tutor at the university and during my time there I had a number of young women come and disclose to me that they'd been the victims of rape or sexual harassment whilst in their college years. And I was really distressed by this. And then one of the students who had alleged that she'd been raped by a college man actually found the website and it was actually one of the members of the website who had assaulted her. And so I spoke to her about this and she decided, along with a group of other women, that they wanted to speak out about this and take it to the media and expose the culture for what it is.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Why not to the college?

NINA FUNNELL: Well, in the past I've actually been involved in trying to raise awareness about these issues and other women and myself have often been laughed off as either, "Oh, you're just a femi-Nazi," or, "You're blowing this out of proportion," or, "Why can't you just learn to take a joke?" So we figured that because the college heads don't always respect young women to begin with, we probably wouldn't be listened to and so we would have a better chance going to the media.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: So a serious reputational risk for the college. Now, rape is a criminal offence and you're saying that the women did not report the rape. Now we know many women don't report rape in NSW because they have no confidence in the criminal justice system here. So where does this go, because it's an allegation that's just not going to be proved?

NINA FUNNELL: Well, we know that, as you said, most women don't report rape anyway, but in the college culture they're even less likely to report, because we have to remember that these women are expected to live, study, work and socialise alongside these people on a daily basis and they risk massive social ostracism if they speak out about it. So most of them will never report. And I've actually spoken to women who allege to me that they were assaulted and when I said to them, "Well did you report it?" They said,"Well, report what? Who's going to believe me? And if I do report it, I'll be shunned by the entire college community."

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: St Paul's college is investigating. Have they acknowledged a problem?

NINA FUNNELL: Absolutely not. I think that their response has been completely pathetic.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: What about the university, though?

NINA FUNNELL: Yes, and the Vice Chancellor has actually been very good. He has acknowledged that there is a problem and I think that he is committed to taking action about it.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: The language on the website 'Defines statutory', pro-rape, anti-consent. There must be some law students there because there's a debate on about the definitions of consent, isn't there?

NINA FUNNELL: Well, yes, and we need to remember that the consent laws actually changed in 2007, so many young people believe that no means no, but pretty much anything else means yes, whereas now the consent laws state that women are never in a state of consent unless they actively and freely state that they are.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Let's explore that for a moment. So all the young men and women understand the laws in NSW were changed in 2007 redefining consent so that even if a woman is drunk out of her mind, that is no defence for an accused on the basis of consent?

NINA FUNNELL: Absolutely not. And in fact if a woman is so drunk that she's at the point of passing out she actually does not have the capacity to give consent in the same way that an eight-year-old child does not have the capacity to give consent. So students need to be very careful around these issues, particularly with the culture of binge drinking that we know is endemic within college life.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: What must a man do to satisfy a court that there is consent? What do you have to do to get consent?

NINA FUNNELL: Well, the laws now state that they have to be able to demonstrate that they took reasonable efforts to ensure that consent was given freely. Basically all that means is you're saying to the person, "Is this OK? Are you having a good time?," and ensuring consent that way.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: And this is not in the attitudes expressed in either this college, this university, or across the spectrum really.

NINA FUNNELL: Well, I mean, we know that St Paul's used to have in their Salisbury bar something that said, "They can't say no with a c..k in their mouth," and when one student actually wrote about this in Honi Soit, instead of removing the offending graffiti immediately, what they did was they called the female student and banned her for life from ever coming back to the pub. That was their response. So there is a certainly problem.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: The difficulty for women at this university and other institutions is this peer pressure, they cannot speak out because to do so would mean they'd have to pack their bags and leave?

NINA FUNNELL: That's right. And we also need to remember that many of these students themselves, even if they did leave, their parents and family members often attended the same university colleges as well, so it's even more difficult to speak out about their ordeals.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: You're meeting the Vice Chancellor of Sydney University. What do you want to happen?

NINA FUNNELL: Well I think he's actually really committed to discussing this issue and I'm hoping that what will happen is that there will be an investigation, that experts will be consulted and brought in to evaluate the current culture and that ultimately some sort of plan will be - and education strategy will be rolled out to the colleges to change the current culture.

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Good luck, Nina Funnell. Thanks very much.

NINA FUNNELL: Thank you.