It is terrible that there are teens, girls, students, being mistreated in such a repulsive way. I feel like many actions should be taking place to resolve this serious issue. What we can do stuff like teaching kids at an early age to keep a certain space to those who aren't close family members and friends, and also teach them on what to do in certain situations like self-defense to prevent mistreatment in a sexual way.
If fashion is art can be debated on forever. Personally to me, fashion is not art. You wear things to cover you private body. If you wear something with complex designs then its cool but it does not make it art. Adding too, if someone has a more coordinated look then you people say it's more fashion forward. However it just means they can match and they are not an artist. I also do not consider people who make clothes artists. Your literally just making clothes for people to cover themselves with. Now you could say well they are making complex designs but in the end they will still just wear it. Also, in the video they showed how art is filled with people with clothing. This is an indicator of history for what people wear but the fashion is not the art. You can only draw so many naked people and a lot of artists don't like to do that at all. People with clothing have to be drawn. So no fashion is not art, its a way people dress to cover themselves.
People need to remind these children throughout their life through adulthood need to learn about personal space and what's right and wrong to do and to always ask for consent no matter what.
it's very sad us high schools girls have to deal with such nasty things this young at age
Honesty I´m surprised that in middle school students can experience sexual harassment from their peers. That´s awful and just scares parents to even know that , that statistic exists. Reading some stories make it seem like some teachers and adults do not take it serious. This should not be a thing anyone boy or girl should have to deal with.
get your kids into marshal arts there is things the parents can do for there kids safety the world is a crazy place anything can happen now and there are bad people who do things like that but there is always something you can do to fight back
As someone who grew up both in the USA and in Europe this country is just an aweful place for kids. From the freak underlying Puritanism that drives so many things to the creepy men and women it’s just a terrible place for kids. I believe coming to the USA just stunted my sexual development and ability to connect like I see in my European cousins and it is something I can never get back. This society will just devolve into some freakish combination of binge drinking tinder hook ups and #metoo episodes of people molesting each other and Puritan paranoia over catching some std and unwed teenage pregnancies. This stuff just honestly doesn’t really happen in Europe at this sort of level. Americans really need to examine themselves and their issues with sexuality that is driving this awful culture.
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Twenty years ago I was an aide in a 1st grade classroom. A sleepover was held. One little boy came up to a girl near me and told her he was going to climb into her sleeping bag and f%$# her after the lights went out.
I sent him back to his side of the room and informed the teacher that he should be sent home at once. She just laughed and told me he "liked" the girl. The teacher was a bully who made sure I could never take action myself, so I didn't... and I've always regretted it.
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For someone that young, I would suspect he was being abused at home. That is not normal behavior for a 6 or 7 year old in any way, shape, or form.
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A group of girls at our HS spoke to the faculty about the ubiquity of harassment since grade school. Simply put, boys need to be shown, repeatedly and from an early age, how to respect their fellow students. And girls need to be taught how to make this the expectation. So when both are young adults, neither need live in fear of the other, hookup culture can become an anachronism, and we can finally progress as a society, instead of the regression we are currently in.
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How disappointing that this article minimizes the fact that 1) sexual abuse as a crime against minors, whether perpetrated by other minors or adults, is inherently more serious and criminal in nature than sexual harassment of adults by adults and 2) boys are (often) victims too, not just perpetrators.
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Thank You! These articles are all bias against guys and how they are always the ones to commit sexual assault. It is not always guys, often girls too.
Frankly I intend to teach my daughter that she has every right to protect herself even from “just” a bra snap or whatever. That is violence and can be returned in kind if necessary by a loud scream, a push away or a slap. Everyone should teach their daughters to not accept bad behavior and their sons not to engage in it. It is not the girls’ job to just put up with it. And obviously vice versa of course.
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This is an essential component of the Me Too Movement. My freshman daughter & her friends all were in the Women's March with me & carried signs that said, "Me Too, & I am Only 14". On their signs they listed all the names they've been called, words which I don't think I can even say here. They posted pics of themselves with their signs on social media & were so horribly harassed for being in the march that the girls went to an Assistant Principal to ask for help. She recommended they "start a club." Schools are finally figuring out how to address bullying, but this is a whole different issue, & they have no idea how to handle it. I can talk about it in my home, but if it's not reinforced in school, then the MeToo Movement will simply be a fad that fades away.
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Turning both sexes against each other by bringing the #metoo movement to schools is just downright irresponsible, rotten behavior.
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Kara--do you believe that boys should be able to physically and verbally attack girls as much as they please, and the girls shouldn't dare complain? Do you really think that girls deciding to resist this means someone is "turning both sexes against each other"?
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Boys in grade school are routinely hit and harassed by girls and told never to hit a girl back because boys can't hit girls. The girls know this rule very well and keep hitting. The boys (our sons among them) come home and cry at the injustice. This is as common as green grass at most schools, always has been.
Great - just what America needs - to teach girls that all men are useless violent predators, who because of their limited humanity, cannot appreciate their natural inferiority to women.
Yep - more Snowflakes - that’s what America needs.
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I wasn't aware that basic courtesies like not committing battery and not calling people names was so awful. Do you then support letting some people grope, harass, name-call, and sexually assault (the bathroom story is one of rape) other people?
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The thing I keep noticing about this conversation is that I see a good deal of specificity about what we need to say or do regarding girls and women, and what we need to learn and do as girls and women; I see slightly less (with rather less specificity) with regard to what institutions -- schools, workplaces, etc. -- should do about harassment; but when it comes to boys and men... I would be curious to see an article about what actions men are taking to alleviate this problem. If it is possible to find enough to write about.
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My daughter was propositioned at age 6 by a classmate in the first grade. “I want to take you behind the bushes [off the playground] and have sex.” This boy continued to harass my daughter for the next 5 years. The school never communicated with me after I reported the incident, and subsequent incidents of harassment. It was a learning opportunity for me and my daughter. She learned that I will advocate for her, support her efforts to keep him away from her, that what he was doing was dead wrong, that others in his life were not doing the right thing-exposing him to whatever experiences led a 6 year old to proposition a classmate for sex, and imposing seemingly no consequences for his behavior. She knows she doesn’t have to keep quiet or feel shame or responsibility.
This was in a wealthy privileged community. And it started in first grade. It is not too soon for schools to wake up to teaching boys and girls where the boundaries are. This boy learned he can say or do anything to girls without consequence. Just find the right victim who doesn’t have the support and skills my daughter has.
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I agree with everything, it is wrong for another child to harass another sexually. It's disappointing that the school didn't communicate with you right after. These kinds of incidents are uncomfortable to talk about but they need to be prevented.
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I wish this article had mentioned violent degrading porn culture and easy access to it on social media by young boys. It affects how they view girls and women and can lead to disrespect, sexual harassment and violence.
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The reason they might not have mentioned it is that many reasonable empirical studies suggests there is no link.
See Christopher Ferguson and Richard Hartley by way of example: "it is time to discard the hypothesis that pornography contributes to increased sexual assault behaviour"
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Political correctness gone awry.......
Besides, this movement is already on life support. Just look at the number of comments......let it die.
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No mention of how online porn viewing, which often starts at ages 11-13, has exacerbated this culture.
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I’d also add that we adults should talk to young girls / teenagers about the sexual harassment they experience from ADULT men. I remember this starting around age 12 for me, and it being extremely confusing and, of course, unpleasant and scary. For some of my friends who developed early, this began for them even younger. I think it peaks at age 13, ugh! One day you’re an innocent child (for us lucky ones), and the next you’re fending off creepy men every time you walk down the street or otherwise go out in public. Our parents never discussed it with us. We never brought it up. I always assumed mine had no idea how lots of men treat little girls. Looking back, I’m sure my dad didn’t have any idea ; my mother, I’m positive, knew all too well.
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exactly true
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I remember just getting my license at 17, and my mother allowing me to take the car to the store. As I was walking back to the car, gallon of milk in hand, a grown man began walking at me quickly, and my instinct told me, get in the car and lock the door. I did, and he knocked on the window and said, “I just wanted to tell you how beautiful you are.” I was shaking, scared and my first reaction was to APOLOGIZE! I didn’t tell my parents, fearing they would be angry with how rude I was.
We need to encourage all children to listen to their gut instincts and empower them to take care of themselves. Boys and girls, but especially girls, who often feel pressure to be polite and kind.
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Yes, indeed. I sprouted breasts early - by age 11, I was a 34 B and by age 13, I was a 36 C - and boy, did I get pestered, groped by strangers, catcalled, etc. The worst was being propositioned by a man clearly in his 60s, on the street. Ugh.
Middle School Children are recipients of all kinds of treatment, much of it okay, so they do not know what to do when it is NOT okay. This also happens at younger ages.
Safe places for discussion and questioning of what's not okay is such an important resource. The barrage of sexualized implications and interactions when a child hits early prepuberty is unbelievable, for girls and boys, in peer groups, in media, sometimes in extended family events. The rise of smartphone use in younger age groups serves to magnify this pressure to accept that which is unacceptable.
Developmental stages blur and overlap, kids can look older but be quite young. All children deserve to live their childhoods without early onset sexual interactions, harassment and/or assault.
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Can we talk about bra-snapping, please? It is one of the most ubiquitous sexual harassment actions in schools. And it is painful! It leaves red marks. I remember spending days with anxiety, watching my back, because I hated the pinching, sharp pain. It also says to everyone, Look, she's wearing a bra!
This is not fun, and it's not funny. I don't understand why boys think that hurting and shaming girls is hilarious.
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No disrespect to Mx, but teaching kids not to hug their elders is bad juju. Our 2 kids are right brats mostly, but they hug their elders and kindly engage any older folks who say hello. They hold doors and say thanks. And they mean it.
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The point is not to force kids to hug someone when they are reluctant. They should be taught that it is their right to choose to engage physically, rather than an obligation. This is NOT "teaching kids not to hug their elders".
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but it would have a chilling effect on hug culture
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The whole job of parenting is forcing kids to do things they are reluctant to do, like eat veggies, clean room, hug elders. But we have to model it too, not just make them do it. I make a point of engaging strangers (if they need engagement), especially strangers who seem shunned by others. The last thing I want is my kids fearing strangers or using their "rights" to exclude others.
Yes to talking much earlier to young people about what it means to say no and set up boundaries. But also I believe we need to talk to teen girls and young women about the word "yes," and that's it normal and healthy to know what you like and want for yourself. There is such a fixation on the word NO that we are forgetting young women should also get to think about what feels good and right without fear of being labeled "slutty" or aggressive. Here's a link to a post about how to talk to teen girls about this that I really appreciated (full disclosure: I didn't write it but I'm the Exec Director of MEDIAGIRLS): http://www.mediagirls.org/blog/mediamondaytip-how-to-have-the-talk-with-.... Let's all keep discussing this!
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As a Lexington resident, I really do wish these students might have impressed on them a simple point: merely because they are able to live in Lexington, they are automatically among the most privileged human beings in all of history -- white of not, male or female. They are not being oppressed. They are, if anything, one and all, on the other side of the equation.
How entitled must you be to imagine that, coming from such a background, you are nonetheless among the oppressed?
There really is a revolting level of self absorption and self aggrandizement in such a bizarre complaint.
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What planet do you live on, where no one is subject to sexual attack or abuse? The most abused group is 3-4 year olds, the second most abused group is 2-year olds. This is at every economic level in all ethnic groups. Maybe you should educate yourself about these issues instead of displaying your ignorance.
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And as a teacher of one of those two students, I'd have to tell you, she's VERY aware of her privileges. It's one of the reasons she's one of the leaders of the INTERSECTIONAL feminist club, where they deeply delve into the issues of how race, sexuality, religion, class, and gender are sometimes in conflict and sometimes in sync when it comes to issues of discrimination and inequality. We've discussed this issue in class, and I've also had and been privy to some conversations with her about life as a teenage girl in Lexington. These include varied things such as comments she and her peers have gotten over looks, the fact that classmates in science refuse to work with her because of her gender, and numerous reports of sexual harassment and assault.
I'm sorry your need to be a scold conflicts with their reality, as well as their desire to make the world better for themselves and their peers. Feel free to contact the two girls mentioned - you'd be impressed by their intellectual skills, their self-awareness, and their understanding of the larger world. Since you're in town, it's just a local call or a very short walk or drive. Rather than slagging teenage girls from the safety of your computer, feel free to actually talk to them - as I said, I think you'd be pretty impressed, and I think you'd find they agree with you about the privileges they have about their economic status and the benefits they get due to their race.
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"Intersectional feminist club" is to a high school what polo or yacht club is to society. Not a ton of such clubs in the coal mines or the isles of a Missouri Walmart.
Sounds like these students are getting excellent preparation for college, where they will file a Title IX complaint on the slightest provocation, real or imagined.
We can hardly wait.
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The nonprofit Stop Sexual Assault in Schools has a free student-led video online called "Sexual Harassment: Not in Our School!" It's geared for K-12 parents and students. Good for starting important conversations in K-12 schools!
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Inappropriate behavior between youth and in fact between adults is very well understood, for the best insights you would not go these neo-Marxist postmodern analytic schemes. These exist to keep a cadre of quasi-intellectual social science blabbermouths employed and receiving grant money and influencing policy. For the most authoritative insights you would look to Ancient literature and the wisdom of the thinkers that predate cash grants for social science. Then you might look at some clinical evolutionary psychology. The last think you want to give any creed is modern pop culture gender study. A good expert on why this gender identity and power structure based dreck is nonsense is Professor Jordan Peterson, via his extensive lectures available on Youtube. There are very much more fundamental forces at work in human behavior than socialization to gender.
The important thing about your youth is that yours is not different than most common human experience, and that you outgrow it. It passes. Nothing is new in human nature for the past 5000 years. Inappropriate behavior is normal just like bad weather is normal. Learning to handle it is more valuable than chasing the mistaken petty tyrannical concept that it can be so modified as to not exist.
"If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion (or keep their own) most people would be contented to take their own and depart." - Socrates (469? - 399 B.C.)
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So you are basically saying, boys will be boys, and girls just have to take it. Thanks for your enlightened perspective.
By the way, "clinical evolutionary psychology" is an oxymoron.
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No parent is going to recognize the possibility of consent among children.
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All of the issues raised in this article are excellent and long overdue. Sexual assault and harassment in public middle and high schools happens with regularity. So, teaching about consent, Title IX rights and what to do if harassed and/or assaulted are critical lessons.
The ignored narrative in this entire movement regarding school related sexual assault and harassment has been a.) why do students so often not report? And, b.) when they do report what are the adults doing once informed?
Once the adults know of the sexual abuse and harassment they have a legal and ethical duty to respond. I speak from experience. Why do so many school employees remain silent? Fear of retaliation from administration is paramount. Too often school administrators sweep these issue aside. Why? Because career advancement and self preservation takes precedent over protecting kids. Their silence and complicity helps foster an abusive culture within the building. Please read the attached. More school employees must show moral courage and call out their co workers who chose to remain silent.
http://framingham.wickedlocal.com/news/20161206/framingham-school-commit...
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