Title: “Walking through walls: The sexual harassment of high school girls.” By: Larkin, June, Published in: Gender & Education, 09540253, 1994, Vol. 6, Issue 3 ABSTRACT: For most females, crude language and other forms of sexually harassing behaviour are part of the fabric of our daily lives. To date, however, our focus on sexual harassment has been limited primarily to the experiences of adult women in academic and work place settings. What has not been explored is the prevalence of sexual harassment in schools and the way it interferes with young women's education. Equal opportunity programmes are of limited use if, for example, we urge female students into traditional male courses but we neglect to consider the hostile climate they encounter there. In this study I explored young women's experiences of sexual harassment in the setting lauded as their gateway to opportunity: school. Based on their testimonies I make recommendations for educators who are committed to making high school a more equitable place for female students. In the following excerpt from her book Cat's Eye, Margaret Atwood captures the stark reality of everyday life for many high school girls. Stunned broad, dog, bag, and bitch are words that apply to girls as well as worse words. I don't hold these words against them. I know they are another version of pickled ox eyes and snot eating, they're prove it words boys need to exchange to show they are strong and not to be taken in . . . I don't think any of these words apply to me. They apply to other girls, girls who walk along the halls in ignorance of them, swinging their hair, swaying their hips as if they're seductive, talking too loudly and carelessly to one another, fooling nobody; or else acting pastel, blank, daisy-fresh. And all the time these clouds of silent words surround them, stunned broad, dog, bag, and bitch, pointing at them, reducing them, cutting them down to size so they can be handled. The trick with these silent words is to walk in the spaces between them, turn your head sideways, evade. Like walking through walls. (Atwood, 1988, pp. 244, 245) For most females, crude language and other forms of sexually harassing behaviour are part of the fabric of our daily lives. To date, however, our focus on sexual harassment has been limited primarily to the experiences of adult women in academic and work place settings. Educational researchers in Britain and the USA are beginning to explore the problem of sexual harassment in schools (see for example, Jones, 1985; Halson, 1988; Herbert, 1989; Stein, 1993) but there has been little discussion about the way this behaviour interferes with young women's attempts to get an education. Equal opportunity initiatives are of limited use if, for example, female students are urged into mathematics and science fields but we neglect to consider the hostile climate they encounter there. In this study I explore young women's experiences of sexual harassment in Canadian schools and I examine the deleterious effects of this behaviour on their education. Building on the testimonies of young women I suggest how educators can make high school a more equitable place for female students. Why Focus on Schools? I recognise, of course, that young women's experiences of sexual harassment are not limited to schools; these students were also harassed on the streets, in public places, and in their part-time jobs. But the harassment they experienced at school set a precedent for the type of behaviour they expected to encounter elsewhere. After all, school was the nucleus of their adolescent lives: the place where they came to increase their life opportunities. As one student put it, "If you get treated badly here, you know you can expect to get the same thing in public". Being harassed at school teaches young women to accept this behaviour as an inevitable component of their everyday life. Sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women are the logical products of a society in which females are generally devalued, reviled, and mistreated. If unchecked, these misogynist attitudes seep into our schools and breed a new generation of male abusers. Young men soon learn that acting out their contempt for women is a way of confirming their own manhood (Frye, 1983). When the sexual 1 harassment that young women experience at school is tolerated, educators contribute to the reproduction of a patriarchal society in which men frequently use violence to express their sexual domination over women. Halson (1988) has written that: Schools help to reproduce, rather than to change the existing imbalance of power between men and women in different ways, not least by failing to recognize the extent to which young women are subjected to sexual harassment, by failing to note the significant impact which these experiences have on their lives and personalities [and] by failing to intervene. In these circumstances young women can cope as best they can in the full and certain knowledge that many of the boys and men with whom they come into contact behave with disrespect, contempt and violence towards them and this is considered normal. (p. 141) One reason that sexual harassment has received so little attention in schools is the difficulty in disentangling harassing incidents from what have come to be accepted as typical male-female interactions. However, educators are beginning to consider how males' diminishment of young women contributes to the decline in self-esteem and career aspirations that female students experience over their high school years (American Association of University Women, 1990). In her work with adolescent girls, Carrie Herbert (1989) has suggested that: sexual harassment may be one reason girls become disenchanted with school . . . unwanted sexual attention or confusing sexual attention which [is] defined as flattery but [makes] them embarrassed or angry may be one of the reasons for girls' lack of achievement. It has been documented that between the ages of thirteen and sixteen some girls in school lose confidence, become more passive, publicly contribute less in class and generally lose their eagerness to participate . . . (p. 37) Clearly, in our efforts to provide equitable education for female students, we have neglected to consider a primary factor that impedes their academic success. As some educators are suggesting, sexual harassment may be "the key to unlocking the whole debate on inequality of education for girls" (Brunswick Secondary Education Committee, 1982, p. 12) because it is one of the most powerful forces acting against young women. The Study The students who participated in this study were from four Canadian high schools located in urban, rural and small-town settings and represented a variety of racial, cultural and economic populations. In each school, the administration had expressed an interest in educating students about sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women and were supportive of those female students who volunteered to participate in the project. The study was designed to provide the students with a variety of ways to express themselves and included three components: journal writing, group discussions and individual interviews. Considering the backlash experienced by adult women who have dared to label certain forms of males' behaviour as sexual harassment (see for example, Mcintyre, 1986; Ramazanoglu, 1987), I believed that a journal might be a safe place for young women to express and reflect upon what they were choosing to record as sexual harassment. I also believed that the process of keeping a journal, coupled with reflection on their comments during group discussions, would prepare the students for their individual interviews. While interviews are considered by many to be the essence of qualitative research (Roberts, 1981; Bogdan & Biklen, 1982) they are limited somewhat by the short period in which the interview is conducted. In this study, the students had 4 months to think about their experiences of and perspectives on sexual harassment as they recorded incidents and thoughts in their personal journals. They also met on at least four occasions to share and discuss their journal entries with other female students. I believed that their interview comments would therefore be reflective, as opposed to spontaneous, responses to the questions I posed. More importantly, I hoped they would develop a way of thinking about sexual harassment that was embedded in their personal experiences because young women's voices were absent from the current discussions on this issue. 2 Approximately 60 students participated in the study in at least one way. Most attended the group sessions; some also kept journals and/or agreed to be interviewed. Although the students varied in age, I only interviewed students who were 16 years of age or older because I wanted to assure the students that the information they shared with me would be confidential. I could not offer this assurance to students under 16 because I would be legally obligated to report any incident of abuse they might disclose during our interview. In total, I interviewed 25 students. I had assumed, as I developed the study, that many young women would have a limited understanding of the range of sexually harassing behaviour. This assumption was based on the work of other feminist researchers (see for example, Kelly, 1988) who had found that women tended to consider the more common forms of sexually harassing behaviour as 'normal' or 'typical' males behaviour and not as sexual harassment. My first task, then, was to give young women the opportunity to identify the harassing behaviour that permeated their school lives. Naming the Problem Prior to their involvement in the study, most of these young women had adopted the popular and contradictory notions of sexual harassment as an extreme form of violence (i.e. 'rape') or a trivial and harmless act (i.e. 'no big deal'). Many students had considered the more common forms of sexually harassing behaviour to be just 'typical' male behaviour, or as Jessica put it, "just guys being guys". Through their discussions with other young women in the group setting the students realised how often they were sexually harassed and how their experiences of sexual harassment were similar to those of other female students. Alison explained that: before when I thought about sexual harassment, I used to think it was rape. I wasn't sure . . . My friend was telling me about sexual harassment because she heard about the meetings before I did . . . and I told her I thought it was rape and she said no. And she told me about the meetings and I said well I'll go because that's happened to me a lot. For many students, the testimony of other young women led them to recall certain behaviour that, until that point, they had not identified as harassment. These testimonies, however, did not come easily. As facilitator of the group, my aim was to encourage young women to discuss and interpret sexually harassing behaviour from their own experience; I did not define it for them. Initially, my invitation for students to share their experiences of sexual harassment was met with silence. Dora explained in her interview that she had been "scared to open up" because, until she attended the meetings, she didn't know "how much it happens to everyone else and you think people are going to make fun of you". Eventually, a young woman would relay an incident that she thought might be sexual harassment. Her story was often followed by the comment 'that happened to me too' and from that point on the stories flowed. During the course of the discussions most students altered their definition of sexual harassment to include non-physical acts. Like many students, Jennifer had always thought that sexual harassment was 'molesting'. In her words: "I never thought of it as being vocal". When I asked the students in their interviews how they would previously have labelled the more frequent forms of verbal harassment, they used terms that included: 'bugging', 'teasing', 'flirting', and 'annoyances'. Helen simply stated that she had considered such behaviour "just a fact of life". The students identified three factors that contributed to their normalisation of males' harassing behaviour at school: (1) the frequency of the behaviour; (2) the way it was interpreted by others, particularly the male harassers; and (3) the fact that the topic of sexual harassment was seldom, if ever, discussed at school. In terms of frequency, the young women had come to accept as natural those forms of harassment they had experienced on a regular basis. Some indicated that this behaviour was part of the backdrop of their everyday life. Fatima explained it this way: 3 You don't even think about it really . . . because it happens all the time . . . it's a part of life . . . it's like you're walking down the street, someone whistles at you . . . it's as if it's natural to do that and if somebody doesn't do that then something's wrong. . . . It's like, say it rains every day and then it doesn't rain, it's like 'Wow, it didn't rain'. It's like whistles. . . . It's there all the time, [you] don't even pay attention to it . . . it's a part of life. The second factor that limited young women's ability to identify sexual harassment was the way the behaviour was minimised by others, particularly the male harassers. Many of the young women found that their feelings when harassed contrasted sharply with the perpetrators' assertions that this behaviour was simply 'a joke'. However, with no external validation that they had been violated, the young women would begin to question their own visceral responses and attempt to take on the perceptions of others. As Ruth explained: Before, you know it would bug me but I didn't show it . . . everybody was laughing so I had to laugh . . . I didn't know about sexual harassment. The third reason that the young women considered the harassing behaviour of males as normal was school officials' failure to address the problem of sexual harassment. It followed, then, that many students had no way of naming the abusive behaviour to which they were routinely exposed. The problem was compounded when teachers failed to respond to harassing incidents. For example, one student who complained about male students who continually lifted up her skirt in class was told to return to her seat and stop interrupting the lesson. After that, she stopped wearing skirts to school: "I only wear trousers, I tell you". Another young woman had to endure a male student putting his book down her trousers and making suggestive comments while the teacher looked on. In her words, "What can you do when the person in authority doesn't do a thing about it?" I want to clarify here that it is not my intention to blame teachers for the sexual harassment that goes on in their schools (unless, of course, they are perpetrators) but to emphasise that they need to acknowledge and confront it, for although these students had been unable to label certain acts as sexual harassment, many claimed this behaviour had always had an impact on them. As Tanya put it: "It drove me crazy". Hearing the stories of other young women in group discussions allowed the students to broaden the parameters of what constituted sexual harassment and who could be sexually harassed. In recognising, like Clare, that "everybody had something in common", the young women began to see sexual harassment as a general problem they all shared. In the process of connecting their personal meanings to the term 'sexual harassment', they began to identify as harassment behaviour they had previously been unable to separate from their ordinary interactions with males. According to Tanya: This has just totally opened my eyes. I feel like I have been walking around blind while all this stuff was happening around me and I was looking the other way. Now dearly, for Tanya, "all this stuff' is not a new phenomenon. It is only recently, however, that she has been able to label it and so she and many other students 'tend to notice it more'. These young women had not been "walking around blind", but without the power of a name they had no way to make the behaviour visible. Now they were able to speak out about the behaviour they had experienced as distressing. They were becoming fluent in the language of their own lives. The Experiences All the young women had experienced some form of verbal, physical, and/or visual sexual harassment in their high schools. Although the perpetrators of the abuse were generally male students, harassment by male teachers was not uncommon. I always asked the students to specify the gender of the harasser, so they understood that I did not assume that harassment was behaviour that only male teachers or students could exhibit. Despite this, no student reported being harassed by a female teacher and female students' 4 harassment by female students consisted primarily of graffiti written on bathroom walls. Ironically, when one student told me about a young woman she observed harassing male students she expressed concern about the safety of the young woman, not her male targets. It appears that young women's expression of sexually harassing behaviour can provide males with a rationale for abusing them. I know one female . . . who does it with males. . . She'll go up and grab their rear end. She'll say things to them like 'Hi sexy', or she'll ask them 'What are you doing tonight?' . . . A few of the guys have actually come over to her, after she says that. And I'm afraid for her because if she keeps that up she could get in trouble with the guy . . . He might try something . . . it might turn out to be something bad. Overall, verbal abuse was the most frequent form of harassment reported, although some students also relayed incidents of physical and visual harassment. While the accounts recorded here reflect the wide range of harassing behaviour the young women encountered, I make no claims to have tapped the totality of each students' experience. Comments such as 'I'm just starting to remember all these things' and 'So many things come to mind now that I'm talking' made by students during their interviews suggest that a quantitative assessment of their incidents would have been unreliable. One student, for example, found it difficult to recount specific incidents because they were so frequent. In her words: "You just get used to it". In the following section I present the sexual harassment experiences of 25 high school girls. Although the young women often experienced the various forms of verbal, physical and visual harassment simultaneously, I have categorised their accounts according to the type of harassment that was most salient in the overall incident. What follows, then, is the raw material of their everyday school lives. The Forms of Harassment (1) Verbal Harassment Verbal harassment was the most common form of harassing behaviour the young women encountered at school. 'Put-downs' by male students and teachers appeared to be integral parts of their everyday school life. The frequent levelling of words like 'bitch', 'witch', 'fucking broad', 'douche', 'dog', 'bimbo', 'baby', and 'chick' against these students or in relation to women in general often occurred in the context of allegations that women were inferior to or less capable than men: In English class we were talking about women's equality; 50-50 in politics. The guys said that the 'chicks' would talk too much; we don't shut up. Through expressions such as 'A woman who makes $40,000 a year is a rich bitch', female students were warned that even the successful woman (in the conventional sense) is not immune to males' verbal degradation. Similarly, comments such as 'Women don't play basketball. It's a man's sport' were used to remind young women of their perceived weaknesses. Many remarks directed at the students by both male teachers and male students included the traditional cliche about women belonging 'barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen': Last year in my English class, I had three guys . . . sitting there saying 'Oh, you should be at home, you're a woman. I'm sure there's laundry to do and you should be at home barefoot and pregnant'. They're going on like this and they wrote that in my yearbook. . . . And then yesterday I was sitting outside my science room waiting for my teacher to come, and two guys walked by me and one of them says, 'Don't you know you should be at home in the kitchen?' And the other one turns and says, 'Yeah, I'm sure there's tons of laundry to be done'. Lyla experienced a similar situation with a male teacher. Such comments made by teachers in class settings are particularly damaging because negative messages about women are conveyed to large numbers of male and female students. 5 This one teacher, he is very sexist. He makes comments about gifts all the time, about the way they dress, or what they shouldn't do, what they should do. [He says] women should be barefoot, pregnant and everything. Considering the force of the women's movement over the past two decades, it is astonishing that such comments are expressed at all. However, when they are spoken by a teacher who has the power to assess and evaluate you, they can be profoundly abusive and damaging. A small number of male teachers appeared to use their classes as a forum for the expression of their general contempt for women: It was in my science class, and we had this teacher who was totally against women and everything about them. . . . He called his own wife a bitch, things that were unbelievable. In that class we learned everything he felt about women and towards women . . . like I learned nothing about science that year. Undoubtedly, being verbally demeaned is distressing for any young woman, but minority women students also had to deal with the racist slurs and stereotypes that were salient features of the harassment they endured. The underlying message in the comments frequently made to these students was that their race or colour would make them more pleasing or unique sexual partners than white girls: . . . there was one guy in my first class . . . he'll go, 'When are you going to sleep with me?' . . . He'll go 'I hear black women are good in bed'. . . . they were bugging me and they were grabbing my shoulders. They were like touching my hips . . . and he's going, 'When are we going to get together because I've never made love to a Chinese woman before, I wonder how it feels'. Unfortunately, while there appears to be minimal support for any young woman who is the target of sexual harassment at school, minority students are particularly isolated because they are less likely than white girls to be defended by other students: I think for the guys it's kinda like a power trip . . . They get to tease some girl, especially a minority girl . . . and nobody's going to say anything. First of all, if it's a girl a lot of guys won't say anything, and a lot of girls won't say anything. You get the minority in there, and definitely nobody's going to say anything. Male students' objectification of women's bodies was another routine type of sexual harassment. According to Mary, it was a common practice for "guys to talk about your body parts in the halls at school". The statement, 'Look at the tits on that one' is one example of the objectifying remarks made by male students in Beth's class. Terms such as 'nice ass', 'nice tits', and 'sexy legs' were used to evaluate individual female students or to refer to women generally. According to some students, the telling of crude jokes about women occurred 'all the time: during classes, out of school, at lunch-time'. Helen complained that even during her class presentation on the topic of Violence against Women, "[the guys] were making jokes about women". Although male teachers seldom initiated sexual joking, they sometimes participated in the behaviour by "laughing along with the guys" or supporting the male students' comments. Sexual joking, of course, is not always female-focused. These students indicated, however, that sexual joking was generally at the expense of women and that, ironically, similar comments about men evoked strong protests: The jokes are always about the girls and never about the guys and when you say a guy joke he'll go mental. He'll turn around and say, 'How can you say that?' 6 Verbal harassment in the form of allegations about young women's sexual activity and provocativeness frequently placed young women in the position of defending their reputations. Amelia explained that this task was made more difficult by male students' practice of "telling stories about the stuff they've supposedly done with gifts". Such accounts, whether fabricated or real, empowered young men at the same time as they disempowered young women because of the double standard that exists in relation to malefemale sexual activity. A common way, then, for the young women to be diminished was through remarks about their assumed participation, or interest, in sexual activity: Like one of the guys . . . he likes to flirt a lot with the girls . . . In one of my classes he turned around and said, 'I know you want it bad . . . you play with your hair and this and that. I know you want it bad so why don't you come to my house?' The underlying message in many of the comments directed toward the young women was that they were primarily sexual beings and that the male student or teacher had little regard for their feelings. According to Dora and other students, the rating of young women in school hallways was a standard practice. Typical comments included, 'I like the way she walks, I give her 10 out of 10'; 'Her body's not bad, I give her a 7'; 'What a dog, that one's a real 2'. Although all the young women were vulnerable to this form of males' scrutiny and evaluation, black students were generally given lower ratings than white students. Fatima observed male students playing the following game: [the guys] each had a number and whoever passed by them would be the one they would say they would have sex with . . . . If it was a pretty girl they'd say, 'Right on, you've got her!' If a black girl walks by they'd go, 'Oh, my God . . . she's got such a big ass' . . . . They'd put her down majorly. Comments about One's clothing and personal appearance are not always sexual harassment. Generally, those incidents the young women perceived as harassing were the ones they experienced as depersonalising, demeaning, and/or threatening. However, because women's value in our society is tied to males' evaluation of their personal appearance, some students felt flattered at the same time as they felt threatened by males' comments about their body or their dress. This conflict seemed to stem from their concern that what they perceived as a compliment might in fact be a precursor to a demeaning or threatening act. Alison provided the following example: I was wearing a short mini skirt and I was walking down the hall and there were two guys down at the end of the hall and they started whistling. One guy yelled out, 'Hey you in the black skirt'. They kept bugging me and bugging me. I finally turned around and said, 'What do you want?' They said, 'You got legs that just don't quit'. It made me feel good but it made me feel scared . . . I was afraid they would keep this up. And they did . . . the one guy said to my friend, 'Tell her I want to sleep with her'. And I said to my friend, 'I'm not sleeping with him' . . . . The next day my friend told me "Because you won't sleep with him, he wants you to give him a blow-job'. Two students recounted situations in which they had been threatened by male students. Beth experienced the following incident in one of her classes: I was talking to a guy . . . who sits behind me. . . He said a sentence and ended up calling me 'a bonehead'. I then said, 'You're the one who's a boner'. He said, 'You better shut-up before I stick my dick up your ass so hard you won't be able to breathe'. The second incident involved a threatening phone-call made to the vice-principal at Dora's school: This guy called up the school . . . . He called my house first and said, 'I went to school with her a year ago' . . . and my mother goes, 'Well, she's not home, she's in school' . . . . Then he called the school . . . and he talked to the vice-principal and said, 'Tell her that I'm going to rape her . . . I'm going to kill her' . . . . After 7 that the vice-principal thought that I would be better off and have better protection [if] someone [was] with me all the time. So I was in all my classes and I had this undercover cop sitting at the back of my shoulder. In general, for these young women, verbal harassment appeared to be inherent in their everyday school lives. Although I have highlighted here the incidents in which verbal abuse was the most pronounced form of harassment, in many cases it acted as a backdrop to the physically harassing behaviour to which the young women were frequently exposed. (2) Physical Harassment Grabbing, touching and rubbing were the forms of physical harassment most frequently mentioned by the students. According to Clare, "guys grabbing you in the butt . . . anywhere they can" was an "everyday ritual". Even as she headed to one of our sessions on sexual harassment, Amelia said she "got [her] ass grabbed". Frequently, according to Tara, "I will be standing at my locker and someone will come up and start rubbing against me" or the "guys will walk out and they'll try to touch your chest". For some young men, grabbing and other physical actions were the primary (if not the only) way they related to the young women: Either he ignores me completely and doesn't talk to me or he comes up and grabs me, like he hugs me and stuff. . . . I would rather have him ignore me than grab me 'cause he always does it in front of his friends and he always says, 'Oh, she is going to be my wife'. . . . And like since this semester he grabbed me three times [otherwise] he ignored me completely. The young women also spoke about being followed around the school by male students. Uncertainty about the reasons they were being followed rendered many of these incidents particularly disturbing: I've been followed around the school by a guy . . . he just kept following me so I go: 'What are you following me for?' [He said] 'Just to see what classes you have'. . . . It got me thinking, 'What does this guy want from me?' In some cases, the young women were eventually trapped or physically restrained by male students who had been following them around. I was walking down the ramp near the gym and he wouldn't let me go. He covered me this way, covered me that way and I said, 'OK, let me go now'. [When] he finally let me go, he said, 'Be that way'. The young women also experienced or observed pushing, pinching, kicking, and/or slapping by male students. Mary recounted a particularly disturbing incident in which "a guy held a girl up to a locker and made her stay there while he kicked her". For a 3 week period, Beatrice was subjected to a series of kicks and pushes by a male student: The pushing and kicking happened with a guy at school . . . for about three weeks when he saw me he couldn't come up and say, 'Hi', he had to push me, or if I was walking he had to kick me. If I was by my locker he would just come up and kick me in the ass . . . When it got really serious was when I was walking down the hallway in the school and he came behind me and choked me. I turned around and I said, 'What the fuck are you doing man?' The final category of physical harassment the young women noted was sexual assault. Because the point at which physical acts such as rubbing and touching become sexual assault is not clear, distinguishing between sexual harassment and sexual assault can be difficult. Sexual assault differs from sexual harassment in that the former always involves physical contact. However, in many cases sexual assault is an extreme expression of the various forms of harassing behaviour. While the intensity of the behaviour 8 may account for its being labelled as sexual assault, the context in which the behaviour occurs is also a factor. Consider the impact of the following behaviour on a female student alone in a classroom with a teacher she has grown to know and trust: One thing happened with a teacher. Like me and my friends we have dinner with him and his wife. We go out, we talk, like I can talk to him. . . . And then one time . . . he goes, 'Hmmmm, you're looking nice today'. Like you know, he looked me up and down. He goes, 'Why don't you come here?' So I [went] there. He showed me some papers and stuff and he started putting his hands on my bum, squeezing my bum. I go, 'Heyy, what are you doing?' He goes, 'You got a nice bum . . . you got a nice ass' . . . . I was sitting on the desk and he was right behind me. So he went to grab me and he put his hand on my breast and I'm, 'Heyyy . . . Oh my God, what are you doing?' Like my God, I trusted him and he does this. Overall, the physical sexual harassment experienced by these young women intensified the impact of the verbally harassing behaviour they routinely encountered. In the same way, these acts were a way of reminding young women that the visual displays of harassment they encountered were also serious business. (3) Visual Harassment Leering was the form of visual harassment reported most often by students. A leer is a form of invasive watching, a look that continues for a length of time and is experienced by the recipient as intimidating or intrusive. As Hilary Searles-Iversen (1990) puts it: "A leer is a wrong kind of interested look". It was a feeling of apprehensiveness that the young women seemed to use as a criterion for differentiating between a leer and a look: June: So if someone said, 'Well, gee, you can't even look at somebody anymore', what would you say? Chen: You can look at them, it all depends on how you look at them . . . the way you and I are looking, like just eye to eye contact. The way somebody will look at you dreamy like, you wonder what is going through their mind . . . Or when someone [is] just staring at you, like your body . . . you feel like he or she is going to attack you or something. So it all depends on how you look at them. In some cases, as Beatrice indicated, the young women were unaware of males' ogling. However, young men's public sharing of these incidents acted as a reminder to female students that they were never beyond the daunting and judging males' gaze. Some guys were sitting there and they were just talking and I overheard them. One guy was saying that his friend Joe was having a laugh in gym class. They have swimming right now and he wears goggles and goes right under water and watches the girls' pussies. A few young women also talked about 'perverted teachers' who had eyes that would always 'drift down' when they spoke to students: I felt like he was perverted . . . I just really didn't clue in that class . . . He would come up and talk to me and he would look down at my chest . . . I wouldn't spend time with him or talk to him [even] if I had a problem. Sexual gesturing was another common form of visual harassment. According to Alison: [It] happens a lot at school. Guys if you say something to them and they don't like what you're doing they'll grab themselves and pretend they're jerking off. Beatrice recounted the following story: 9 I was in the middle of a soccer game, and someone called me from the stands. I looked over and this guy in the stands grabbed his crotch with his hands and moved it in the up and down motion. Many of the young women were teased with pornography and other demeaning material: 'I bet you wished you had a set like these'. Beth's reaction to the disturbing graffiti she uncovered in her art classroom clearly demonstrates the connection between sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women. I was looking for coloured paper when I came across a stack of boards piled in the corner with graffiti written all over them. I expected to read 'So and so, true love' or the names of people's favourite bands. [Instead] I saw a picture of a naked woman (no arms, head, calves, or knees) with her legs wide open showing her vagina, anal opening and breasts. I was shocked to see such explicit graffiti in my favourite class. To me that picture says mutilating is OK, sexual assault is OK, rape is OK, and that is what I'm scared of the most. The testimonies of these young women paint a depressing picture of high school life for female students. The cost to these young women of their constant efforts to avoid, ignore, or respond to the sexually harassing incidents was high. The self-protective strategies they developed trying to avoid harassing behaviour must be seen as positive expressions of their strength and resistance. Although these tactics often had negative implications for their personal and academic development, in most cases, the young women had few alternatives. They were struggling to deal with a problem that had yet to be acknowledged as an impediment to their education. While these students were constantly the targets of demeaning and abusive behaviour, they were seldom passive victims. Not Passive Victims The young women adopted a number of strategies in an effort to reduce their exposure to harassing behaviour, but these strategies often seriously hindered their attempts to get an education and made school an unwelcoming, even menacing place. Often, they avoided areas of the school where they were likely to be subjected to verbal and physical harassment. Hallways in particular were identified as harassment zones that were to be bypassed if at all possible. Zoe was so nervous about a group of male students who constantly demeaned young women in public that her "stomach would turn" when she walked through the hallways. When they were unable to avoid a likely sexual harassment area in the school, many female students would travel in pairs 'for protection'. Tara told me: I won't walk down the hall by myself. Not if there's a bunch of guys there. I have to have at least one person with me or else I will take a longer route. Some students monitored the clothing they wore to school for fear of being sexually harassed. Jessica would stand in front of her closet anticipating the comments she would receive if she wore various outfits. In fact, some young women began to lose control of their self-definition as they adjusted their appearance in attempts to avoid harassing comments from male students. Alison, for example, changed her whole image in response to allegations that she was a slut: I used to listen to heavy metal, my hair used to be long. I used to have the jackets, the trousers, everything. . . . When I went to another school it was alright the way I dressed because everybody did it. . . . Now all those clothes are in the garbage because they wouldn't leave me alone. They kept calling me a slut. Another way the students avoided sexual harassment was by limiting their associations with male students. Although Joan associated only with male students who didn't "talk about gifts" she wished that she could have more male friends. Unfortunately, she didn't think that could happen unless the boys changed the way they communicated with the girls. 10 Helen found that female students tended to restrict their participation in school activities--"sports for instance"--for fear of being sexually harassed. For this reason, she felt that many young women "don't perform to their full level". If female students didn't have to be concerned about harassment, she believed, they wouldn't have to restrain themselves, they could go loose and wild and they would be surprised what they could do 'cause they have had all the restraints on them. But if they had all the restraints taken off and they knew that they were off then I think that would have a big bearing on their performance in class and in sports. In their efforts to avoid harassing behaviour in the classroom, many students limited their participation in class discussions and their enrolment or attendance in various courses. Zoe, for example, monitored the behaviour of male students in her classes for the first month of school to see how they responded to female students. During this period she did not participate orally in class: Like the first month or so I'd be quiet, you know, real quiet. If they're quiet and they don't do anything [to the girls] then I can talk afterwards. Some young women were reluctant to get up and do presentations in class because the male students were often disruptive. Clare became embarrassed and "goofed up her lines" when a group of male students chanted 'Airhead, airhead' as she spoke to the class. She explained that this type of behaviour happened "with [such] great regularity" that the anxiety most students experience during class presentations was magnified for female students. The harassment young women experienced in the non-traditional courses seemed to have a more profound impact on young women's academic and career choices. As they ventured beyond the boundaries traditionally defined for women, sexual harassment was a reminder of their infringement on male terrain. Students like Lyla feared it would only get worse: A lot of girls who take science, they're really interested in the medical field. . . . A lot of them afterwards don't even want to take science anymore. Like they figure if this is what I'm meeting in school, what kind of opposition am I going to meet when I go to university or college. . . . As long as they pass they don't give a shit anymore what kind of marks they get. As long as they pass they don't have to take the teacher again, they don't have to take science again. Lyla believed that more young women would enrol in science classes if they didn't have to worry about sexual harassment. Some students withdrew from courses rather than endure the harassing behaviour of teachers. Jennifer dropped a course because she resented the demeaning comments the teacher continually made about women: We have one really bad teacher here . . . a lot of girls dropped his course last year. . . . He's a pig. That's the only thing I can think of to call him. He does not think a female can do anything. Unfortunately, a few students who were subjected to extreme forms of sexual harassment felt they had no option but to leave the school. In speaking of a close friend, Izabela explained: She didn't want to leave, she likes this school, but there was nothing else she could do. The school wasn't going to do anything and she wasn't going to be subjected to this kind of harassment for another year . . . you never know where it might lead to. Beth followed up her account of a particularly disturbing incident of sexual harassment with the comment: "I hate school . . . Maybe an all girls' school would be better for me". I heard later that she had left the school. 11 As evident in the stories of these young women, life for many female students is often a grim battle against a hostile and threatening school environment. The perilous situation of female students is shocking when one considers that the term 'equal opportunity' has become so entrenched within the discourse of education that the commitment to equitable education is lauded as a primary objective of most school boards. And yet, as one hears the testimonies of these young women it is clear that something is amiss. The road to equality carved for female students is fraught with cracks and barriers, so that young women move with trepidation if they dare to move at all. Despite the efforts of many caring educators dedicated to the philosophy of equitable education for female students, schools remain places where young women's opportunities are limited. This situation exists, in part, because the focus on equal access (e.g. to science courses, sports, equipment, computers, etc.) has thwarted the development of equal opportunity initiatives that address the root causes of women's inequality. As Gaskell et al. (1989) put it, "Equal opportunity means much more than equal access on a formal basis. The problem lies much deeper" (p. 22). As we attempt to deal with this issue it is useful to consider the young women's comments. For although they were frequently the targets of sexually harassing acts, most claimed that many male students and most male teachers did not harass them. This belies the popular notion that such behaviour is an intrinsic expression of masculinity or an unfortunate consequence of the myriad and inescapable social forces that operate to construct male abusers. The fact that all males do not engage in harassing behaviour despite the similarities in their physiological make-up and their similar exposure to the beliefs and institutions that ostensibly account for the expression of such demeaning behaviour, suggests that some males make a conscious choice to harass females. I suspect, as Mary Beth told me, that "some guys do this because they can". This is what educators can change. Towards a More Equitable Education for Young Women As a way of supporting those educators who want to provide a more equitable education for female students I offer suggestions generated from the information provided by the young women whose stories have been recorded here. These suggestions are based on the assumption that young women's inequitable position in education is not a product of their own deficiencies; rather, the emphasis is on the creation of a learning environment in which female students are acknowledged as equals. The foci of the following recommendations extend from the more specific problem of sexual harassment to the larger issue of equal opportunity in education. (1) Policy The development and implementation of a sexual harassment policy that covers students is a strong, public statement that school boards acknowledge and they will not tolerate the sexually harassing behaviour to which many students are subjected. Aside from moral principles, a primary reason that students need to be accounted for in policies of sexual harassment is the increased likelihood that school boards may face legal liability if they fail to deal with the harassing behaviour to which students are being subjected. In the USA a recent ruling by the Minnesota Human Rights Department has sent a strong message to all school districts that the issue of sexual harassment must be taken seriously (Boyd, 1991). In this case, a female high school student presented evidence that school authorities had not dealt effectively with her complaints about the demeaning graffiti, lewd comments and humiliating and degrading acts that she endured at school. As a result, The state . . . found probable cause that Chaska High and School District 112 had not responded appropriately to Olson's complaints about sexual harassment. In fact, the department said, school officials had created 'an offensive atmosphere that promotes sexual harassment in general'. (Boyd, 1991, p. 12) However, it would be naive to assume that the mere implementation of a policy will resolve the problem of sexual harassment. Although a policy is a statement of institutional support and offers redress to those who are sexually harassed, educators' ultimate goal should be to change the attitudes that perpetuate sexually harassing behaviour. As these students put it, 'Education is the key to prevention'. 12 (2) Education Because sexual harassment is part of the hidden curriculum in the school life of many female students, educators must ensure that this problem is made visible. The recent decision by the Minnesota Human Rights Department has prompted some school boards to strengthen their sexual harassment policies by providing education about the topic for all members of the school community. In the Chaska school district, for example, all district employees [have] attended seminars on sexual harassment and students in grade four through twelve [have] studied the issue. Students are helping rewrite pupil handbooks to include a definition of sexual harassment, and high school students serve as members of a new Human Worth and Dignity task force. (Boyd, 1991, p. 12) Based on the information provided by young women who participated in this study, and considering their comments about the activities I conducted with them in group settings, I developed an educational kit on sexual harassment to be used in high schools. Activities such as those included in the kit could be conducted with students, teachers, and administrators so that all members of the school community are sensitised to this problem. In planning educational sessions, it is helpful to consider the suggestions offered by the young women. For example, separating young women from young men in the initial stages of the educational process may be advisable as a way of providing female students, in particular, with a safe environment in which to express their opinions and share their experiences. In addition, the display of posters and the availability of brochures on sexual harassment are visible reminders that the school considers sexual harassment a problem and is committed to eliminating it. However, the transformation to a harassment-free educational environment is unlikely to be rapid. By challenging the attitudes that produce sexual harassment, we are attempting to eliminate one of the tools used by men to reinforce their power over women. In essence, what we are advocating is radical social change. In the interim, to support young women as they attempt to move along the difficult road to equality, it is important that we offer them refuge from the forces that operate against them. Male students' appropriation of so much of the physical space within the school places female students in a vulnerable position as they try to weave their way through a threatening school environment. Young women need a place within the school where they can relax their endless vigilance; they need a place to call their own. (3) A Separate Place One of the most significant outcomes of this research was the solidarity that developed among young women as they met to share their experiences of harassment. As Janice Raymond points out in her book, A Passion for Friends, the development of strong bonds between women provides them with: a common world that becomes a reference point for location in a larger world. The sharing of common views, attractions, and energies gives women a common connection to the world so that they do not lose their bearing. (p. 8) Through the creation of separate spaces for young women, educators can provide places where female students can dare to assert themselves and where the strength of their collective voice can rise above the drone of debilitating messages that permeate their lives. In such places young women can exist, somewhat sheltered from the prevailing winds of patriarchal culture and try to stand up straight for once. One needs a place to practice an erect posture, one cannot just will it to happen. To retrain one's body one 13 needs physical freedom from what are in the last analysis physical forces missraping it to the contours of the subordinate. (Frye, 1983, p. 38, emphasis in original) Separate spaces for young women in educational settings can take a variety of forms. These include more all-girls' schools, the creation of single-sex classes in mixed-sex schools, young women's clubs, and designated rooms for female students within co-educational environments. By providing spaces where young women can come together, educators can provide antidotes to the destructive messages that underlie the harassing behaviour female students endure both within and beyond the high school setting. In such places young women may come to realise that their experiences of sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination are part of a general problem they all share. Then, collectively, they can begin to resist the chilling winds of tradition that bring "a message of exclusion--stay out" and "a message of subordination--stay under" (Gilligan, 1990, p. 27). In doing so, they can begin to claim their rightful place in education. Educators truly committed to the provision of equitable education for female students need to broaden the limited focus of traditional equal opportunity initiatives by considering also the hostile climate in which young women are educated and the need for young women to be empowered. As a final suggestion, I propose that educators adopt an expanded model of equal opportunity that incorporates four foci: (1) Access; (2) Inclusion; (3) Climate; and (4) Empowerment. This I have labelled as the AICE (pronounced 'ace') model of equal opportunity. (4) The AICE Model of Equal Opportunity By concentrating primarily on the issue of access, educators have been unable to address the range of factors that limit young women's educational opportunities. This is not to detract from the importance of encouraging female students to enter non-traditional fields; rather, it is to suggest that this strategy alone will not remove all barriers that young women encounter as they pursue their education. As part of a Ministry-funded project on sexual harassment (1992), Pat Staton and I surveyed Ontario School Boards about the formal and informal strategies they had implemented or were developing in their efforts to create a gender-equitable educational environment for female high school students. We found that few boards had addressed issues of inclusion, climate and empowerment. In an effort to assist educators in the development of a more balanced and effective equal opportunity program, we suggested the development of strategies from each of the four key areas outlined in the AICE model: ACCESS--encouraging equal opportunity in instruction, particularly in fields related to non-traditional jobs. Enabling young women to choose from a range of careers. INCLUSION--looking at gender bias in teaching and learning materials in terms both of inclusive language and content. CLIMATE--creating an educational environment that is safe and supports equity. Dealing with violence against women. Looking at 'What goes on the walls [and] what goes on in the halls'. EMPOWERMENT--creating a space within the school where young women can develop a sense of solidarity. Providing an antidote to counter the negative messages young women receive both within and beyond the school setting. (Staton & Larkin, 1992, p. 28) By meeting the criteria of the AICE model of equal opportunity, educators will be addressing factors such as sexual harassment that seriously limit the educational experiences of young women. In doing so, their commitments to the provision of an equitable education for young women will be validated. Conclusion 14 Sexual harassment acts like a wall that blocks young women's movement toward equality. By ignoring this obstacle, we have placed female students in a confusing situation. As they are being inundated with messages that their opportunities are unlimited, many are feeling increasingly more confined as they restrict their behaviour in an effort to avoid sexual harassment. In short, equal opportunity has increased young women's access to education but sexual harassment ensures that they remain unequal. The movement for equitable education for female students cannot be separated from the larger political struggle against male dominance and one of its primary weapons: sexual harassment. Certainly, educators cannot be charged with the sole responsibility of transforming a patriarchal society but they can begin to confront the power imbalances that maintain it. Developing policies and educational programmes on sexual harassment, providing safe spaces for female students, and expanding the traditional focus of equal opportunity initiatives are all positive steps. Unless we are prepared to deal with the factors that work against young women "philosophical statements about providing a gender equitable environment will have neither force nor meaning" (Staton & Larkin, 1992, p. 37). As Lyla put it, when educators confront the problem of sexual harassment, "that's when equality will begin. That's when we will really start being equal". Acknowledgements This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author wishes to thank Paula Caplan for her helpful comments and suggestions. Correspondence: June Larkin, Department of Applied Psychology, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, 252 Bloor St W, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S IV6. REFERENCES AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY WOMEN (1990) Shortchanging Girls: shortchanging America (Greenberg Lake; The Analyses Group Incorporated). ATWOOD, M. (1988) Cat's Eye (Toronto, Seal Books). BOGDAN, R. & BIKLEN, S. (1982). Qualitative research for education (Toronto; Allyn & Bacon). BOYD, C. (199l, 29 December) How one teen fought sex harassment in school, St. Paul Pioneer Press, p. 12. BRUNSWICK SECONDARY EDUCATION COMMITTEE (1982) Equal Opportunities Project 1982 Report (Melbourne, Transition Education Advisory Committee). FRYE, M. 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