Teach us consent : digital feminist activism and the limits of school-based consent pedagogies

![CDATA[Globally, debates about sexuality education initiatives, and specifically the inclusion of lessons around consent, remain politically and socially charged. While it has long been recognised, consent education plays an important role in reducing sexual assaults and coercion and improving young people’s experiences of intimacy. However, political conservatism has slowed or prevented its consistent presence in educational programs. Joining a chorus of scholars and policy-makers, young people have begun to demand consent education in different settings, and in February of 2021, a significant movement was commenced in Australia, when Chantel Contos launched an online petition calling for mandatory consent education within Australian schools. In doing so, she collected testimonials of over 6700 schoolgirls who experienced sexual assaults during their school years by young men attending all-boys schools. The e-petition precipitated a larger campaign (with 44,484 signatories) called Teach Us Consent, which continues to call for more comprehensive sexualities and relationship education in schools, including addressing toxic masculinity, rape culture, slut shaming, victim blaming, sexual coercion, and is inclusive of queer sex education. Contos’ petition has received global media attention and ignited dialogue within Australian schools and government about how to reform school-based consent education. Drawing from Ferfolja and Ullman’s concept of ‘a culture of limitation’, this chapter reviews the Teach Us Consent movement and analyses national and international social and news media, exploring representations of consent, gender and power. Our analysis demonstrates that the media debate around Contos’ e-petition, and even the Teach Us Consent movement itself, overlooks a long and challenging history for researchers working in health, gender and education who have advocated for more comprehensive and critical consent, sexualities and relationship curricula. Recognising Contos’ impact in using social media as a vehicle for political change, we ask what role it might play in better disseminating research about consent and sexualities education, to politicise the work of researchers and ensure new efforts to develop consent education is informed by a strong research base.]]