Comments on: Sex for education

By: Upenyu

Upenyu — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 12:29:13 +0000

@Soul and JP, you have a point there, it is unfair of me to lump ‘every man’ with those lecturers that do harrass students. However, given the extremely high estimation of girls who engage in these kinds of relationships by students who attend these institutions themselves I still feel that there are quite a number of lecturers who abuse their positions.
@JP I found that students at newer universities reported having greater faith in the the institution’s administration as regards reporting that the older ones. There are many factors that contribute to a case of transactional sex, manipulation by a lecturer or teacher is only one of them. We asked the students if they felt that girls engaged in these realtionships because they liked the men invloved, because they wanted money / or to pass, or because they needed money or to pass. None of our participants agreed that the men were liked, and it was an equal split between wanting and needing. Your faith in authorities is admirable, but even as one of my colleagues observed during our discussions its almost like men and women live in two different Zimbabwes.

By: Soul Kabweza

Soul Kabweza — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 14:13:30 +0000

@J-P the writer is not implying, she’s simply saying so. Read the last paragraph again:

“Instead they have become a playground for the sexual exploitation of women, where every man with so much as a modicum of power seeks to manipulate his way in to gaining sexual favours”

Sexual exploitation is indeed a big and complex problem, but to lump up every man at these educational institutions as the cause of the problem is just not fair.

By: J-P

J-P — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:45:34 +0000

In malawi we used to called it an STD (sexually transmitted disease). anyway i felt as if you are implying that all lecturers are like this. there are a few of them like that but you can not paint them all with the same brush. the other issue is that these students do not see a problem with transactional sex. to say that i am afraid i will be failed therefore i will sleep with him is a lie. contrary to popular belief there is a little bit of integrity and if you take you sexual harassment story far enough up the chain someone will listen