More Boys Are Reporting Sexual Harassment at School
Last September, a sixth-grade boy in Cahokia, Ill., was sexually harassed by another sixth-grade boy, who touched him inappropriately in the bathroom. The alleged perpetrator was suspended after the incident was investigated by police.
Sexual harassment in middle school and high school often conjures images of boys as predators and girls as victims but, increasingly, boys are reporting incidents of unwanted sexual attention--from other boys and from girls--due to consciousness-raising education and the advent of new school policies. Sexual harassment as it occurs in schools, is broadly defined as “unwanted and unwelcome sexual behavior that interferes with your life,” according to the American Assn. of University Women, or AAUW, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that provides funds to foster equity and positive societal change.
The organization commissioned a national survey of 2,064 eighth- through 11th-grade students about sexual harassment. The results were published in June in a report titled “Hostile Hallways: Bullying, Teasing and Sexual Harassment in School.” Examples of harassment, the authors wrote, can be sexual comments, jokes, gestures, spreading sexual rumors about someone, writing sexual messages or graffiti about someone, touching, grabbing or pinching someone’s body, pulling clothing off or down, forcing someone to do something sexual and calling someone gay or lesbian.
While girls are still more likely to be sexually harassed in school (83% of girls said they had been sexually harassed compared to 79% of boys), boys are reporting it more frequently than they did in 1993, according to the survey, which was conducted by Harris Interactive. About 56% of boys reported that they had “occasionally” been sexually harassed in school, while 30% reported it happened “often” (compared to 49% and 24%, respectively, according to 1993 figures). Students reported that sexual harassment was mostly peer-on-peer, and both genders stated that verbal sexual harassment was worse than physical. Boys are more likely than girls, the researchers found, to tell no one.
William Pollack, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Centers for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., said boys keep the harassment to themselves because they are flummoxed, ashamed or fear looking vulnerable. Among those who do report, the study indicated, boys say they are sexually harassed by a solitary boy (25%) or a group of boys (14%) far less frequently than they are by girls.
“The biggest put-down for boys between the ages of 5 and 19 is ‘you are a [homosexual epithet]’ or ‘you are a girl,’” said Pollack, author of “Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood,” (Random House, 1998) and “Real Boys’ Voices” (Penguin, 2000). “We have a major illness in America and it is called homophobia. Boys will put other boys down in this way to prove their masculinity.”
When a ninth-grader was asked by AAUW interviewers why he didn’t tell anyone about being taunted, he responded unemotionally: “Because I’m a guy and I don’t care. I’m not so insecure that if someone says I’m gay it’s gonna bother me. I’m not, so who cares?”
Another boy, whose comment underlined the “casual homophobia” in school, said: “It was a joke, and you just call him fag back and move on with your life.”
This is typical of how boys cope with being called homosexual epithets and it is also what perpetuates the almost ritualistic use of the word in school, said Pollack, who added that some boys see sexual harassment one dimensionally.
“A boy told me recently, ‘I thought sexual harassment was when boys do bad things to girls,’” recounted Pollack. “So I said ‘What happens when boys do bad things to boys or girls do bad things to boys?’ The boy said ‘I don’t know ... it’s upsetting. If I respond to it, I am not sure what my actions should be. If I talk to anyone about my confusion or pain, I will be seen as a wimp.’ I said ‘What do you do?’ He said ‘I keep my mouth shut.’ This is the boy code.”
Both boys and girls (74% and 73%, respectively) regarded being called gay or lesbian as “very upsetting,” popular television shows such as “Will & Grace” notwithstanding. But human sexuality educator Debra Haffner said that generally the context of harassment for boys and girls differs.
“Girls are harassed about being heterosexually attractive; girls who are early developers are taunted about their breast size and innuendo is made about their sexual behavior, whereas the context of a boy’s sexual harassment is often about the possibility that he is homosexual,” said Haffner, author of “Beyond the Big Talk: Talking to Your Teenager About Sex” (Newmarket Press, 2001). “The sexual innuendo and teasing is all about what a boy might have done with another boy.”
In some cases, sexual harassment can be worse for boys, said Haffner, director of the Chicago-based Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice and Healing, a nonprofit group dedicated to a progressive vision of religion and sexuality. “If you are a girl teased about being sexually aware, there can be some status conferred,” she said. “But there is no status in being a boy and being teased about being gay. And often the boys are not gay; of course this makes the environment very hostile for those who are struggling with sexual orientation.”
It’s even more hostile for boys who are openly gay. But the AAUW researchers’ evidence reveals that boys are most likely to be taunted by girls, and they are more frequently harassed physically by girls than verbally. But many boys are ambivalent about the sexual attention of girls.
“Many boys don’t know how to respond to romantic advances of girls,” said Pollack, who added that many girls are now more aggressive in their pursuit of boys in middle school, when many are more interested in basketball and hanging out in boy packs. “Some boys don’t consider sexual attention harassment. They feel if they pull away they look like nerds or shy or they feel that they have to respond with sexual bravado, which is what society teaches young boys they are supposed to do.”
Boys often confuse sexual harassment with positive sexual attention, said the AAUW authors of the study. An 11th-grade boy’s response in the study illustrates the point: “Not too bad ... I like just about all sexual contact.” A 10th-grade boy said that his reaction to sexual harassment “depends on whether it’s a fine or beautiful girl and what the situation is.”
What researchers at the AAUW found most disturbing is that the incidence of sexual harassment has not declined in the last eight years, the victims are also perpetrators and almost all students were well-versed in their school’s sexual harassment policies.
“Clearly, there is a disconnect between the policies at school and students putting into practice the message,” said Janalee Jordan-Meldrum, senior program officer for community and K-12 programs for the AAUW, who is on the task force to develop programs aimed at decreasing sexual harassment in schools.
