Posted 1:26 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023
Adding to the List--Research Essay
Just like every other typical day in my English class, our teacher excused the class for our five-minute break. The period was 90 minutes long, and it wasn’t humanly possible to keep 30 7th graders quiet and engaged the entire time. So, we were allowed to stretch and go to the bathroom halfway through the period. It was work time before we were excused, and I was diving into my poetry portfolio. Instead of leaving the classroom, I continued working on my poem while everyone else left, including the teacher. After a few minutes, a group of boys walked back into the classroom to the back of the room where their desks were and started chatting. I finished the last line of my poem and stood up next to my desk for a few seconds to apply ChapStick before going into the hall to the water fountain. Suddenly, I felt something on my butt. I whipped around to see what it was and saw my classmate, Vinnie, smirking and walking back to the circle of huddled boys that were chuckling. I stood there frozen with a tomato red face for a moment and then rushed out into the hallway to a bench. I sat staring at the tile ground, processing what had just happened.
I wasn’t the type of girl that boys wanted to touch in that way. I hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet and had no particularly womanly features. In fact, it was the opposite. The group of boys that stood at the back of the classroom watching and chuckling was the same group of boys that dared each other earlier the same school year to call me a piece of paper, a wall, an anorexic bitch, and multiple other creative synonyms for flat. I felt one thing—humiliated. Humiliated because I was sure that one of those boys had made some sort of joke about there being nothing there to grab when I stood up at my desk, and I was sure that a different boy dared Vinnie to test that theory out. The rest of the class filed into the room and my teacher notified me that class was about to resume. I walked back into the room with my head down, sat at my desk, and looked straight forward for the rest of the class.
In my mind, I added the incident to the list of similar events that occurred to me throughout my years in school. I put it below the time a boy grabbed me by the hair and kissed me in 2nd grade as I was trying to put my jacket in my locker and under that other time in 5th grade when a boy I thought was my friend, pulled me into a “hug,” lowered his hand, and threatened to hurt me if I told anyone about it.
At the end of English class, I waited until every other student left the room, then packed up and walked to my next class. I refused to speak a word about what happened because I was so humiliated, and I wondered when I would have to add another item to my mental list of traumas. Looking back now, I am heartbroken at the experiences I went through and want to prevent any other child from going through something similar. So, how can student-on-student sexual harassment be combatted in my school district?
The research is clear—sexual harassment is a prevalent issue in K-12 schools. Dr. Catherine Hill and her colleague from the American Association of University Women dive into sexual harassment in schools in the AAUW 2011 report, Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment in School. The organization defines sexual harassment as “unwelcome sexual behavior that takes place in person or electronically” (Hill and Kearl 10). In the report, information is pulled from several of AAUW’s own and others’ past studies and surveys. Hill states that in their representative study of nearly 2,000 grade 7-12 students in 2011, forty-eight percent of the students were victim to a form of sexual harassment in that school year (2). Some of the instances included by the victims in the survey were unwantedly having their pants unzipped, being called a “whore,” and being cornered in a soccer goal to try to be touched in private areas (Hill and Kearl 14). Additionally, the percentage grows when looking at sexual harassment experiences over a greater time period than that year. In their previous research from 1993 and 2001, they found that over eighty percent of students had been victim to at least one case of sexual harassment in their entire school years. While it is found that sexual harassment occurs as early as elementary school, it is more prevalent as students enter puberty and appears to increase from sixth to tenth grade before leveling off (Hill and Kearl 7).
Not only does sexual harassment occur frequently in schools, but it also has several negative effects on those who experience it. Dr. Elizabeth J. Meyer and her colleague touch on these effects in her book, Gender, Bullying, and Harassment: Strategies to End Sexism and Homophobia in Schools. Victims of bullying in school include “lower academic performance, absenteeism, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicidal behaviors” (Meyer and Brown 1). Even more alarming—students who are targets of specifically sexual harassment, are more likely to experience these harmful effects and leaving school (Meyer and Brown 1). Furthermore, the AAUW confirms that thirty-two percent of students who were harassed in the 2010-2011 school year did not want to go to school because of the incident, thirty-one percent said sexual harassment made them feel physically sick due to the harassment, and thirty percent had a hard time studying due to the harassment (Hill and Kearl 22).
When it comes to the “why” of sexual harassment, there are several different reasons behind the harassment. In the book Students Harassing Students: The Emotional and Educational Toll on Kids by the curriculum director of Southern Nazarene University, Janice Cantrell, five main reasons that students sexually harass others are listed. Cantrell states that “Most researchers agree that the intent of sexual harassment is to demean, embarrass, humiliate, or control another person on the basis of that person’s gender or sexual orientation” (4). But the idea behind why harassers want to demean others is what Cantrell explains.
The first reason is the student does not know that their actions were unwelcome or even considered sexual harassment. In fact, 24% of harassers thought the person liked it (Cantrell 5). Reason two is that the harasser is trying to uphold the image of looking cool. Self-confidence decreases when students are going through puberty, which is when there is an increase of sexual harassment. Students may be harassed or see harassment by an older student, and therefore become the harasser to fit in or keep their peers from seeing them as weak. 24% percent of harassers completed their actions because a friend “pushed” them into the act (Cantrell 5). The third reason students harass other students is because it is seen as normal behavior within the school culture. 43% percent of boys and 34% of girls said that “it’s just a part of school life/a lot of people do it” (Cantrell 6). Reason four is students want to earn status and power. Because students have equal power compared to sexual harassment cases between a boss and employee, they have to gain their dominance. Getting ahead may mean finding a way to put down another student, and that can take form in sexual harassment. The fifth and final reason students sexually harass other students and continue their behavior is because they see no consequences of their actions. When school faculty turn the other direction from an incident or do not seriously address the issue, students continue to harass others, knowing that nothing will be done. For example, in a case in Minnesota, school officials were asked over ten times by a student’s parents to remove vulgar writing about their daughter in the bathroom stalls, but the graphics remained in place for over a year (Cantrell 7).
This research shows that sexual harassment is an issue for all students in some form or another. It is frequent, it is harmful, and it needs to be addressed. Every person in my life has some sort of story about sexual harassment, whether as a victim, witness, or even the harasser. While the problem is widespread, there are also ways that it can be confronted.
Multiple sources list various options for ways to preventing sexual harassment. Some suggestions include enforcing strict sexual harassment policies or appointing a designated person that both students and faculty can contact to ask questions, raise concerns, and voice their opinions (Pace). But even with these policies, attitudes that foster sexual harassment do not necessarily disappear. Judith Berman Brandenburg points out in her book, Confronting Sexual Harassment: What Schools and Colleges Can Do, that “education to prevent sexual harassment will require changing attitudes and behavior” (Brandenburg 68). Sexual harassment educational interventions have been implemented across the country, but there is limited information on how effective they are to lower sexual harassment. However, programs that target changing attitudes and behaviors have shown success.
Alcoholics Anonymous conducted a study in 2014 to view the effectiveness of their program and found that 22% of their more than 6,000 members that participated in the study, stayed sober for 20 or more years after completing the program (American Addiction Centers). While this program tackles alcoholism, a much different issue than sexual harassment, it concludes that implementing steps to change attitudes and behaviors can be effective. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous are recovering from a behavior they already formed, but sexual harassment needs to be addressed to prevent the behavior from forming altogether. To discourage attitudes and behavior before it happens, children need to be taught before the peak of the issue. For instance, “The Postponing Sexual Involvement for Young Teens Program” is an educational program with a high success rate. Students begin the program before they are at the age where sexual involvement increases. In a study of over 500 students that lasted five years, it was shown that program completers were “more than four times less likely to become sexually involved than non-program students” (Brandenburg 70).
Sexual harassment can occur as early as elementary school, so it should be addressed in elementary school. Additionally, like the programs above, implementing a program should take time for students to complete. A one-and-done lesson at the elementary school age will not likely stay with students throughout their entire K-12 career. Additionally, sexual harassment changes and takes on different forms as students grow older. A program that re-introduces and discusses sexual harassment several times throughout students’ K-12 career would be much more effective. Within each stage of the program, students could reflect on sex roles, gender stereotypes, and learn about specific behaviors and beliefs to be acceptable or unacceptable targeted to their age group. Active participation and the use of real, specific case scenarios and facts/ statistics could be used to keep students engaged. The goal of the program would be for students to change their attitudes and behaviors, ideally becoming more empathetic individuals. Additionally, the students would understand the negative effects sexual harassment has on all students, and therefore discourage and prevent it in the school. I propose that beginning this summer, my school district should create a sexual harassment prevention program to implement into the K-12 school system.
Works Cited
“Alcoholics Anonymous: The 12 Steps of AA & Success Rates.” American Addiction Centers, 2 Feb. 2023, https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/12-step/whats-the-success-rate-of-aa.
Brandenburg, Judith Berman. Confronting Sexual Harassment What Schools and Colleges Can Do. Teachers College Press, 1997.
Cantrell, Jan. Students Harassing Students: The Emotional and Educational Toll on Kids. Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2008.
Hill, Catherine, and Holly Kearl. Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School. American Association of University Women, 2011.
Karen Pace, Michigan State University Extension. “Strategies to Address Sexual Harassment in Schools and Youth Settings.” MSU Extension, 23 Jan. 2015, https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/strategies_to_address_sexual_harassment_in_schools_and_youth_settings.
Meyer, Elizabeth J., and Lyn Mikel Brown. Gender, Bullying, and Harassment: Strategies to End Sexism and Homophobia in Schools. Teachers College Press, 2010.