Getty Images
Just for the record, I know this girl and she shops at Abercrombie and Fitch, not Frederick’s of Hollywood. She definitely would not like 35 year-old men to comment about her picture or ogle her in any other fashion. She does not smoke anything. And even if she wore underwear to school and chain smoked in the cafeteria, no teacher is ever justified in speaking to or about students in this manner.
It made me think of my own high school experience back in the eighties and you know what? That kind of behavior happened all the time. I can only remember six of my high school teachers; one because he was a wonderful teacher. Another because he was a terrible teacher. The other four I remember because they all made sexually inappropriate comments. One told me he would give me an A if I wore a mini skirt to school and went on the cat walk that went through the room. Another teacher put his arm around me on the first day of class and told me that I didn’t have to do the work to get a good grade. And while talking to a friend one day, I said I was so bored I was going to jump out the window. A teacher passing by told me to not jump until he got downstairs. So I could land on his face. How gross/mortifying/nasty is that? All this occurred in what was the best Chicago public high school at the time. But it was a school that had been boys-only until just a decade prior and an astounding number of male teachers perpetually harassed the new female population.
Then in college I was befriended by a college professor. He gave me a collection of works by Flannery O’Connor and told me I had the talent to be a great writer. I was young and naiive, so I was flattered. Then he began to send me poetry. Then he taped candy canes all over my car. Then he called my house 15 times a day for months on end until I finally moved and changed my number.
When it comes to sexual harassment in an academic environment, I know I am infuriatingly far from alone. In light of current events, I have been talking about this issue with several adult women and their stories are nothing short of horrifying. I have been told about affairs between teachers and students – in high school. Stories about groping and offers of grades in exchange for sexual favors.
Every girl being harassed is being told that her looks and sex are more important than her intelligence, skills or effort. She is placed in a position of feeling that she must choose between her grades or permitting verbal and/or physical violations to continue. Shame, humiliation, helplessness and anger are obvious outcomes of those on the receiving end of this kind of treatment. But what is less tangible is the long-term impact sexual harassment has on academic and business careers.
The girl at my daughter’s school had to switch P.E. and homeroom classes four weeks before the end of the school year. She quit track. She went from an A in class participation to an F. And these are only the quantifiable outcomes. How can this child trust or respect her teachers now?
Personally, I became a frequent truant of the classes in which my teachers were inappropriate. My grade point average suffered, impacting my college options. After the stalking incident by my college professor “friend,” I quit writing for years.
I find it stunning that in this day and age sexual harassment in secondary and higher education is still happening. Not because I think people capable of this behavior are fundamentally different than they were twenty years ago, but with the legal and financial consequences as severe as they are today, one would think those doing the harassing would be more strongly deterred. Unfortunately, it seems that the drive to abuse power and authority at the cost of young girls’ sense of self, safety, and academic potential, is simply not worth trying to resist.
How common is sexual harassment in high school these days? Do you think this case is a rare exception? Was sexual harassment in your high school or college as prevalent as it was in mine?
