The headmaster of a prestigious Catholic boys school has apologised after his students were filmed singing a sexist chant on a Melbourne tram.
At the weekend, students from St Kevin’s College in Toorak were caught on camera performing the offensive ‘I Wish All The Ladies’ chant on their way to an inter-school athletics carnival.
The footage, captured by a female passenger on the tram in South Melbourne, shows the boys shouting the lyrics: “I wish that all the ladies; Were holes in the road; And if I was a dump truck; I’d fill them with my load.”
The woman who filmed the footage told the ABC the chant was “disgusting” and showed “no respect for women”.
“You felt that you couldn’t say anything and if you did, I think you’d be really concerned about what might happen next,” she said.
This letter has just been sent out to #StKevin’s old boys. I left St Kev’s in 1986 and never heard a chant like this in the 1980s. Mind you, I refused to go to aths days. There is an underbelly of sexism/misogyny in most boys schools. That’s why my son is at a coed school. pic.twitter.com/A7k0RPMlML
— Joel Deane (@joeldeane) October 21, 2019
Stephen F Russell, the St Kevin’s headmaster, issued an apology on behalf of the school after the video was made public by the ABC on Monday.
In a letter to parents and old boys of the school, Russell said he was “upset, angry and frustrated”.
“As a husband, a father of daughters, a brother of four sisters, a son and, I hope, a good friend and decent colleague to many women, I know this behaviour cannot go unchallenged,” he said.
Russell also described the chant as “offensive and misogynistic” behaviour in a statement to the media.
“Students upset by the behaviour have already come to me and we have been following through in both a disciplinary and pastoral manner today,” he said in a statement to the ABC.
“We have always and will continue to challenge such poor behaviour and misogynistic attitudes through programs at school and with the co-operation of parents.”