We’d like to think that we live in a more enlightened age. Or even that the threat of legal action keeps people in line, but in reality sexual harassment is still something that women and girls have to deal with on a daily basis. My personal experience with harassment ended when I left high school. O…M…G…was high school a gauntlet of harassment! Yet I was totally unprepared to deal with it. Honestly I don’t think I knew that I could deal with it. I graduated high school in 1993, a mere one year after Anita Hill brought the topic to the forefront. Even more honestly, the only framework I had for harassment was an episode of “Three’s Company” when Chrissy’s boss kept chasing her around a desk!

Which is why it utterly saddens me that almost two decades after Anita Hill and a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court said schools could be held liable our girls are still unprepared to deal with harassment.

Participants (600) were asked about experiences with sexual harassment and any discouraging comments they received in traditionally male-dominated areas such as math, science, computers and sports.
*Ninety percent of girls reported experiencing sexual harassment at least once.
* 67 percent of girls reported receiving unwanted romantic attention
* 62 percent were exposed to demeaning gender-related comments
* 58 percent were teased because of their appearance
* 52 percent received unwanted physical contact
* 25 percent were bullied or threatened with harm by a male
* 52 percent of girls also reported receiving discouraging gender-based comments on the math, science and computer abilities, usually from male peers
* 76 percent of girls reported sexist comments on their athletic abilities, again predominantly from male peers

What was even more shocking than the depressing stats was what the girls thought about their experience:

Older girls and those from a lower socioeconomic background reported more sexism than did their peers. Latin and Asian American girls reported less sexual harassment than did girls of other ethnic groups. Girls who had been exposed to feminist ideas, either through the media or an adult such as a mother or teacher, were more likely to identify and report sexist behavior than were girls who had no information about feminism. Girls who reported feeling pressure from their parents to conform to gender stereotypes were also more likely to perceive sexism. Girls who felt atypical for their gender and/or were unhappy with stereotypical gender roles were most likely to report sexism and harassment.

I want to focus on the idea that girls who had been exposed to feminist ideas were more likely to report harassment. While I don’t expect every woman to get herself a membership to NOW (OK, I lie, I do…), I do hope that there are a few feminist viewpoints that we would take time to talk to our kids about. Yes, sons and daughters.

For our girls - A good follow-up to the birds & the bees talk should be one about harassment. I know most of us taught our girls ‘good touch, bad touch’ when they were too young for the talk. Let’s meld those two ideas in a chat. Be truthful to them, but don’t paint every boy as a predator. While I said that my harassment ended when I left high school, it began around 5th or 6th grade.

This is why I get so upset when schools enforcement of anti-sexual harassment rules go overboard. Yes, it needs to be enforced, but calling the police? This feminist says, hell no! Especially for a 7-year-old. All that case did was give more fodder to anti-feminist forces AND make the girl question alerting authorities in the first place. That should serve her well when she’s older and really should turn in a harassing boy or man.

For our boys - Same with the girls, follow up with a talk about respecting girls. We teach our boys never to hit a girl, why not teach them to not spank them for laughs? No snapping of our training bras? No lifting of our skirts? And never take “boys will be boys” as an excuse for harassing behavior. Rolling in the mud as your on your way to Aunt Betty’s wedding, yes? Harassment, no.

It can be a touchy subject (no pun intended), but one that must be addressed for our children’s sake. For our girls, they need to know that unwanted touching and verbal harassment should never be tolerated. For our boys, they need to know how to behave like real men and keep their hands to themselves. Do we really want a generation of boys with “harasser” on their records? I don’t think so. A good resource for all of us on this matter is the AAUW report from 2006, even if it focuses on college campuses.

Readers - Any thoughts on how to talk to our girls and boys about harassment?

Hat-tip to Womenstake & Our Bodies Our Blog for alerting me of this story.