I honestly wanted to shake my computer around. To think that kind of ignorance and victim-blaming from a priveledged position exists nowadays still boggles my mind. But then again, it doesn’t at the same time.

I’ve been told if I were “truly confident” about being a woman (ie. a strong, feminist woman who KNOWS we matter) then I’d be able to laugh it off and not let it ruffle my feathers. It’s that kind of thinking that’s keeping younger girls from reporting these issues now and standing up for treatment they know they deserve.

Stay strong - others hear you!

I went through a lot of harrassment as a kid too, though it wasn’t in school. I used to think it doesn’t happen in countries like the US.

It’s sad that children have to go through all this.

It amazes me (though it shouldn’t) that it gets you coming or going… Either you’re “attractive” (whatever that means in that time and that place and to those people), and therefore subject to the male sexual gaze as manifested in unwanted comments, touching, etc., (”gaze” is such a passive word for what that really means) or you’re “not attractive” (whatever that means in that time and that place and to those people), and therefore derided for not being subject to the male sexual gaze. I guess that’s partly what we mean when we speak of women as the “sex class” in the patriarchal world view.

When I was a teenager I just wanted to be well out of it, androgynous and neuter, until I was ready to think about my sexuality in my own terms, and even then I never wanted to be abused for it.

And surely it would be most helpful to the boy’s development that he learn as soon as it is possible for him to learn such things that it is NOT OKAY to touch other people in the crotch and ask them questions about their private parts?

vintagefan: It would have taken a lot more confidence than I had at the time to use sexually dismissive rejoinders in response or retaliation, and I kind of wonder whether when you’re one of the powerless underdogs of a school environment, retaliation would even work to stop the bullying, or whether it would just escalate things. It often seemed to me that when I reacted angrily or made any kind of comment I just got pushed around more than if I just got out of dodge.

I think it’s not just what you say, but how you say it that makes this approach work for the people it does work for… I know from observation that it can sometimes be used to great effect by confident young women with perceived social power.

I also wonder at the advisability of continuing to approach sexuality in such an adversarial way, or letting sexuality be the territory for aggression and harrassment on both sides, even if *they* started it. Yes, I know I’m off in my utopian fantasy again (it’s so *nice* there), but I wonder whether there’s some other way to turn it around that doesn’t tacitly accept sexuality as this battleground, or possibly also doesn’t make it (high school, social interaction between the sexes, etc.) a battleground at all…

Thanks for the comment, very thought provoking!

I was going to say that telling a bullied child to “just ignore them” is the WORST possible advice, for all the reasons you stated. It puts the burden of stopping the abuse onto the victim, which is wildly wrongheaded and also DOESN’T WORK. I really hope they’ve stopped telling kids this, but I doubt they have.

It feels so redeeming to read this, because it happened to me, too.

I was just telling a friend of mine today that I would never teach high school (which here in Australia goes from grades 7-12), because I’m scared of 12-14 year old boys. For me, 7th and 8th grade in particular, were typified by a constant stream of harrassment from my male peers (it came from my female peers too, but at least not ALL the girls treated me like I was less than human). I just learned to block it out by reading, and, when that didn’t work, I learned to “justify” it– those boys needed their fun, and I was lowly enough that I was a “good” target for it. Once, an older girl saw the sexual harrassment I was facing on the bus, and reported it to the police. I felt guilty– not for being harrassed, but for getting the boys in trouble for their “jokes” (jokes that made me feel like crap, but what did my feelings matter?) I had some experiences like yours, where guys would try to touch me inappropriately in order to humiliate– a gross parody of sexual attraction, meant to emphasise the fact that they believed I was unworthy of any “true” sexual attention (and of course implying that my value lay solely in whether or not men find me attractive). More common, however, was emphasising my lack of sexual attractiveness directly, by refusing to come close to me– jumping away, screaming if they came within a few feet of me, making sexual comments about me that were not even a parody of desirability– just focusing on my undesirability. Once, when a boy I had a crush on found out about that crush, he started calling me an ugly dog to my face every time he saw me, and spread it around the whole school that this was his opinion of me. When my peers grew up a bit, it was less bad, but I got much of the same from the younger students.

I think I coped about as well as I could– at some point, I realised that I wasn’t going to let their opinions dictate my body image– but there was still damage to my overall self-image, that made it hard for me to form relationships. I was twenty before I was able to actually tell a guy directly that I liked him, because I was always seized by the fear, not simply of rejection, but outright hatred, if he found out about it.