The usual thing, or what we should expect, when someone is harassed, bullied, etc., is that we stand up against the bully and the harasser. Another thing we may expect is that when a woman or a man are filmed without their consent, we should blame the ones who filmed them.

Unfortunately, neither our expectations happened in Passant Khaled’s case nor the Mansoura teacher’s case.

The Teacher Who Bullied Passant vs the Mansoura Teacher

If you don’t know what happened in both situations, we will tell you the details.

Following Passant’s suicide, her sister spoke about how Passant’s chemistry and physics teacher made fun of her in front of her colleagues. 

He told Passant how she had become a trend more popular than the “Shaimaa” trend referring to the pictures that were spread by Passant’s blackmailers, “Ibrahim A.” and “Abdul Hamid. Sh.” 

The Mansoura female teacher’s situation happened because she and her colleagues, other teachers, were on a Nile cruise that wasn’t a school trip. So the teacher and her colleagues started dancing, and she didn’t know that she was being filmed while she danced.

What we thought was good news

Yesterday it was announced that the Gharbia Security Directorate managed to arrest the chemistry teacher.

We wanted to celebrate a step like this because it should make people understand that anyone who bullies someone should be punished. Still, we saw a group that supported him, and we couldn’t help but compare this support to the reaction with Mansoura’s teacher.

Supporting the Male Teacher 

A group was formed on Facebook to support the male teacher accused of bullying Passant right before her suicide.

The group already has 1k members, and the number is increasing

It’s easy to guess that the group was formed after the arrest news spread, and the fact that in only a few hours, more than 1000 joined the group and was ready to defend a bully is horrifying. 

Attacking the Female Teacher

People quickly supported a teacher, a man, who bullied a girl who committed suicide, but when it comes to a female teacher filmed without knowing, she was attacked!

The moment the video spread, people started insulting the teacher and spreading the video even more. Although there weren’t any students on the trip, and it wasn’t even a school trip, she was attacked for dancing if it was supposed to be part of her private life.

The Many Wrong Things About This 

What is wrong with this? Everything. 

Starting from the fact that they created a group to defend a teacher who bullied his student and played a part in her suicide to the fact that the members didn’t even wait to hear whether he was innocent or not, they just decided that he was innocent. 

People rushed to support a bully, but when it comes to the Mansoura teacher being filmed without her consent, they immediately attacked her for dancing instead of attacking and being angry about the fact that she was filmed in the first place.

The Explanations behind supporting the Male Teacher

The group is filled with posts insisting that the teacher is innocent; why? Because he was their teacher, and they never saw him doing anything wrong. 

We aren’t saying that they are lying, but we are saying that just because they know him and he was nice to them, that doesn’t mean that he was nice to Passant or that he didn’t bully her.

One even posted saying that since they didn’t see anything wrong from the teacher, they shouldn’t believe any “bad” things said about him.

Someone nice to you can easily bully and harm someone else. 

We see this same reaction with sexual harassers where their friends and family start defending them just because they know them. This unjust defense could make people bully and harm others, believing that they will get away with it as long as they treat others nicely.

Blaming the victim

It’s not only about making a support group for the teacher but also about claiming that he is innocent. There is something far worse, actually. 

A few comments went as far as to say that even if he bullied Passant, why would she commit suicide just because of his comment? 

Even after the many efforts to spread awareness about bullying and what harm it can cause, people still blame the victims. 

Another comment said that “after everything Passant went through,” don’t let the beginning fool you, “she couldn’t handle the teacher’s comment?” It even said that it was unbelievable. 

Bullying is never a small matter, even if it was one sentence or word.

People weren’t offended by the fact that he bullied his student, but they were ready to bully the Mansoura teacher.

They tried to justify their reaction and how they attacked the female teacher by saying that it was a “school trip,” and when it was announced that it wasn’t a school trip and no students were involved, they kept insulting her anyway.

The Sad Reality

Inside the group, they are already celebrating and saying that the chemistry teacher was released. There was no official confirmation, but they seemed to believe that he was now free. 

Whether the teacher was free or not, innocent or not, we had to ask a lot of questions about this group and the different reactions toward Passant’s bully and the Mansoura Teacher. This woman was filmed without her consent.

In the group, all the posts defend someone announced by Passant’s family as her bully. None of them are talking about Passant and what happened to her, and if a post or two mentioned Passant, they only do so to defend the teacher and say that he is innocent and the ones who should be punished are the blackmailers. What about the bully? The people who didn’t believe Passant? 

On the other hand, the Mansoura teacher had to quit her job, have problems with her husband and family, and was attacked by many people. In fact, she is still being attacked to this moment.

Instead of supporting her for being filmed without knowing, people rushed to destroy her life. They said that a woman shouldn’t “behave” like this. 

So, in their eyes, a woman shouldn’t be happy and enjoy her free and private time, but a man is allowed to bully his student, and he will be supported by 1000 people. 

Wrong Priorities

For how long will people have their priorities wrong? We know for sure that it’s not proper or humane to defend someone who was declared a bully instead of talking about a girl who committed suicide because she was blackmailed. It’s not right to attack a woman for dancing and completely ignore the fact that she was filmed without her consent.

We can’t ignore the double standards in both of these situations. We can’t ignore that the media blurred the chemistry teacher’s pictures and only added his initials, but they made sure to spread the Mansoura teacher’s picture, full name, and the video itself.

Is it okay for a man to bully a young girl who was his student and support him even when people know what he was accused of doing? Is it okay to bully a woman who was filmed without her consent, and instead of supporting her, people decided to attack her because she was dancing and celebrating like a normal human being?  

When we compare these two situations, we can’t ignore how people’s reactions differ based on gender. 

The man, who is wrong, is supported.

The woman, who is a victim, is attacked.

We hope that one day people will get their priorities right because, so far, this isn’t happening.