51³Ô¹Ï

Why did Felipe Fern¨¢ndez-Armesto feel the need to begin his article on sex scandals in higher education by describing a former student as ¡°Statuesque. Stunning. Spectacular,¡± before suggesting ¡°more salacious¡± epithets, too (¡°Dens of inequity?¡±, Opinion, 21?March)? Such unlooked-for remarks are surely just the sort of thing that can in themselves constitute sexual harassment in the context of the student-teacher relationship. They certainly made me feel uncomfortable: would you want your tutor describing you like that?

Fern¨¢ndez-Armesto also presents an ?unhistorical account of changes in the customs and mores surrounding such abuse. In his day, he claims, ¡°there was no shame and no attested harm in a priest pinching a choirboy¡¯s bottom¡±. No attested harm? Rather than the free-floating relativism to which Fern¨¢ndez-Armesto seems to ascribe changes in attitudes towards this behaviour, he might at least have hinted at the deep and complex social forces that have created a situation where (often, although lamentably not always) victims of abuse can finally speak out and resist their abusers.

By privileging the cases we ¡°all know¡­in which alleged abuses have proceeded from accusers¡¯ imagination¡±, Fern¨¢ndez-Armesto¡¯s article conveys little more than nostalgia for the days when bosses could squeeze their secretaries¡¯ knees with impunity.

Tom Cutterham
St Hugh¡¯s College
Oxford

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I can understand that Felipe Fern¨¢ndez-Armesto¡¯s student would have needed to appear as she did had the tutorial topic been ¡°embarrassingly scanty uniform as a given of historiography¡±. Otherwise, couldn¡¯t she have worn a wrap?

Michael Thomas
Associate lecturer
The Open University