Fairfield parents hope bracket ranking freshman girls prompts broader discussion on misogynistic behavior
After high school students in Fairfield posted online an NCAA Tournament-style bracket to rank 64 female freshmen across two schools by their looks, some community members say they feel the district wants to stop public conversations about a type of misogynistic behavior that’s been going on for years.
Margaret Hunter, 18, who graduated from Fairfield Warde High School last year, recalled being ranked on a similar list when she was a freshman at the school, although it was not shared online like the bracket was on Instagram.
“It’s crushing. You’re so impressionable at that age, you’re so vulnerable to criticisms. When that type of thing is posted so publicly and brazenly online, it’s really unsettling,” she said. “I think there’s a tendency by some individuals to say, ‘Oh, it’s flattering’ … but that’s not what it is. [It’s] pitting women against each other. … It’s publicizing your body to the entire world, and you have no consent over what anyone says about it.
“Situations like this have happened every couple of years in my upbringing through the Fairfield Public Schools system.”
The high schools’ head principals addressed the bracket situation in a letter Tuesday, calling it disgusting and “damaging and disparaging” to all women. The next day, Superintendent of Schools Mike Cummings shared in another letter that the students who had created the original bracket were being “targeted, bullied and threatened based on false and misleading accusations,” he wrote.
Cummings said the boys were “not responsible for posting polls, voting systems, or the multiple fake accounts that continue to proliferate.”
He added that the district is taking the situation very seriously, and those who created the bracket will be held accountable “relative to actions, and as part of our restorative practice, students will make amends.”
“We also commit to providing support to any student who has been victimized or hurt by these actions,” he said. “Our high schools will be communicating directly with families regarding their specific plans.”
Some Fairfield parents told The Courant that while they agree that threatening the students who created the bracket is unacceptable, they took issue with a different part of Cummings’ letter, which they saw as intending to silence public discourse.
“While we understand the intense
reaction of our Fairfield community, ongoing public comment, misinformation and speculation on social media and in the local press are hampering our investigation and creating unfortunate consequences of their own,” he said. “We respectfully ask that everyone carefully consider the implications of amplifying what has become a public conversation and allow us to continue our fact finding.”
A district spokesperson said Friday administrators will not comment further on the situation.
One parent of a high school student said: “To me it was basically, ‘Hey anybody who feels bad about this, you need to stop talking, because it’s not a big deal and we’re going to handle it. And you guys don’t worry about how we’re going to handle it.’ ”
The parent added they were hopeful that given the attention surrounding this iteration of such a list, administrators would not sweep it under the rug. Instead, it should lead to communitywide conversations on issues of equality, the parent said.
Hallie Levine, whose three children attend Fairfield Public Schools, said it is clearly wrong for anyone to threaten the boys who created the bracket or their families. But following the superintendent’s letter, “the idea of the victim has shifted from the girls who were targeted to some of the perpetrators themselves, and I think that’s unfortunate,” she said.
“It’s a deeper issue about some of the sexism and misogyny in school,” she said, noting her sixth-grade son and his friends are talking among themselves about the bracket. “This is the sort of situation where you need to have schoolwide assemblies, because these issues aren’t going away.
“As a parent, my concern is that the administration is just waiting for this to die down, and we don’t want it do necessarily die down. We need to be talking about these issues and bringing them out and acknowledging them.”
Mary Dobson, a licensed therapist whose practice LIFT Wellness Group in Westport serves Fairfield families, said in an email it is already common for young women to compare their bodies with idealized images shared in the media.
“When comparisons are drawn for them, as was the case here, pitting them against their friends and peers, this is particularly destructive and damaging to a young woman’s developing self-esteem,” she said.
While it’s normal for human beings to judge and evaluate each other, “the potential to publicly humiliate and evoke shame grows exponentially with the use of social media,” she added.
“By the time these brackets were removed, literally thousands of eyes had viewed them,” Dobson said. “Such mass rejection has never been feasible before at any time in history. What do we know of the implications of this on a 14- or 15-year-old developing personality?”
Dobson noted that the students who created the bracket, “as out of line as they may have been, have surely suffered more mass rejection over the past week than they could have comprehended. While we hope this will be a learning lesson for all, many parents have not approached it as such.”
Hunter said she also condemned any threats to the students who created the list and their families, but agreed it was important to continue a conversation about why misogynistic behaviors, even at such a young age, are harmful.
“‘Let’s just not talk about it at all,’ doesn’t do any of the girls on that list justice,” she said. “It doesn’t help teach any new lessons. It just creates a cycle of repeated excuses for these types of behaviors that are so toxic.”