'The only girl in a tech class' exposes male classmates making rape jokes

A student has reignited discussions about sexism in schools and colleges after secretly recording the men in her class joking about rape and consent. In a TikTok video that's been viewed over 2.8 million times in the 24 hours since it was uploaded, a masked young woman looks around the classroom with wide eyes as a group of men are heard discussing what counts as consent when it comes to sex. Captioned "POV: your [sic] the only girl in a tech class," the short clip is a terrifying reminder of the misogyny women face every day and how far we somehow still have to go in terms of making the world a safe place for everyone.

"No matter how big or small your d*** is, they can't feel it either way," one first voice is heard saying at the beginning of the video. "Or you could just find one that doesn't talk when you ask them for consent, and it's yes any time," says another. "Or a blind one, so they don't know where you're at," chimes in another student. Although in the clip, the group of men never explicitly state what they are talking about, the "they" being referred to is almost certainly a sexual partner, and in a room full of men, it wouldn't be wrong to infer that most of them are talking about women.

Only one voice in the crowd says anything to object to or challenge his classmates' disgusting comments. "So you're saying silence is consent? That if they're knocked out it's consent?" the voice asks. Unfortunately, the others quickly dismiss his attempt — albeit a mild one — at calling out their problematic conversation. "Say nothing if you can consent!" one quips, inciting loud laughter from the other men. At this point, one of the men appears to express a smidge of self-awareness about how messed up these "jokes" are.

"Just so you know every single one of us in this room is going to hell," he says, to which another replied: "We're already there sweetheart, don't worry." The video quickly spread across social media with many pointing out that a huge part of why sexual assault rates among women are still extremely high is because men refuse to call each other out on their sexist behavior. Instead, they continue to go along with "jokes" like the ones in the video while others laugh or just say nothing.

"When we say 'yes all men' this is what we mean," wrote feminist author and columnist Jessica Valenti, sharing the video on Twitter. "Because it's not just about the man who harasses or assaults women, and it's not just about the guy who jokes about it. It's about the men who laugh, and the men who say nothing. It's true that only a small percentage of men abuse women - but that number doesn't mean shit if the majority of men enable it." Many Twitter users also pointed out that behavior such as the one demonstrated in the video is also one of the main reasons why STEM fields continue to lack equal gender representation.

"But yeah, there are less women in STEM due to lack of interest in the fields," @spacenerd07 wrote sarcastically. "This also continues when you leave school and enter a male-dominated workforce. As an engineer, I've been the only female more times than I can count & didn't have the strength to speak up when I've heard stuff like this. I left my STEM career after a ton of crap like that in the workplace as well as misogynistic attitudes about how much women should earn and how often they should be promoted. Bye aholes."