Trinity+D’s+2018+OpEd+Article

=Sexual Harassment =

Recently the #metoo movement has been sweeping across the nation, causing women to feel empowered to speak out about their sexual harassment and/or assault experiences. This movement was started by activists who shared a hashtag on twitter to add their stories revolving around sexual harassment. Majority of the women shared experiences in the workplace and celebrities began to speak out about their experiences in the film making and music industries. It caught like wildfire. At the red carpet, men donned pins and women were clothed in black in support of the Time’s Up initiative in response to Weinstein’s sexual harassment allegations. Even the TIMES Person of the Year in 2017 were the “Silence Breakers” which were women that had been strong forces against sexual harassment and assault. I think that is amazing but the silence has not been completely broken. They have addressed sexual harassment and assault in the workplace and day to day interactions but they have ignored one place that is imperative we focus on. This place is in every state and county. This place is where children behaviorally develop. This place is where children should be secured a safe environment. This place is a school.

Let me tell you a story. Like //Life of Pi// you can believe it is true or not and choose the “better story”. Furthermore, I will not disclose who this girl is and I will write from her perspective:

It started off small. In seventh grade, he began to touch my arm or my side as I disembarked from the bus. In the beginning, I thought it was a mistake because the bus was so cramped. It could have been an honest mistake. Then it kept happening every week. Then I saw him do it. He had greasy, brown hair molded into a blob from his hat and he smiled when we made eye contact. What a catch. I was infuriated and I told him to stop. Did he stop? No. I think that he believed he was playing a charming game but I was angry. I continuously told him to stop and even the bus driver heard me. What did she do? She made him sit up front as his punishment but after that, she just ignored the situation. I talked about it with some people and they all thought the same thing: he likes me so much and that he wants to get hitched and live out a perfect life in a one story house with a white picket fence. I could just hear the bells ringing. Eventually he stopped. Then came eighth grade. He started calling me ‘babe” when he saw me and I felt sick. He then continued to touch me as I walked off the bus. He must just like me and does not know how to express his feelings. Poor baby. Then one day, about a year after our first encounter, he sat across from me and we were able to finally have our first conversation. He proceeded to talk about my vagina in inappropriate sexual ways. He then walked with me home and he made inappropriate comments about how my hips moved when I walked. Writing about this feels so bizarre and disgusting. I am sure that there are people that experienced sexual harassment or assault in our school. I am very sorry if you have experienced that and I implore you to speak out because your voice is what can end this atrocity.

Now let's switch gears.

Let me tell you about why the **education system** is partly **responsible** for the problems with **sexual harassment** in our nation.

#1 Dress codes
Dress codes over sexualize women’s bodies. This starts in elementary school. I attended San Antonio Elementary School in Ojai for the majority of my primary school days and I had never heard of a dress code. We were kids, why did we need dress codes? Then for fifth grade I went to Junipero Serra Elementary School. This is where I first learned the golden rule: if your fingertips could touch the end of your shorts, they were of appropriate length. Do you know how difficult it is to find shorts that are that long? Trust me, I tried but it was too difficult. So, I adopted the method of raising my shoulders so that my fingers would skim the hem. I think that this is the very beginning of the sexualization of girls bodies. Was I distracting young boys with my three inch inseam shorts? According to the education system, yes I was. Then, I became a young sixth grader at Balboa Middle School. This is the school where the administration wages a war. A war to strictly enforce the dress code, no matter the cost. They assemble their forces in the hallways, cafeterias, and quad area. They keep their eyes peeled, ready to punish a girl wearing shorts that they deemed as “too short”. If their clothes were deemed inappropriate, an administrator would pull them aside to talk to them. They would then be forced to change into their P.E. uniforms so that they can finally be considered as young women with morals. This form of public embarrassment causes girls to feel insecure with their bodies and think that to feel accepted by their school, they should cover up. As a sixth grader, the threat of being forced to change into baggy clothing and walking around campus in shame was too much for me. So, I never wore shorts for sixth and seventh grade. I felt like if I did, people would just stare at me and administrators would look down upon me. Then, in eighth grade I began to wear shorts with an inseam of two inches. A vulture then approached me telling me that she had received several complaints about my shorts being too short. I then proceeded to tell her that I would take a ruler and measure my shorts for her in the cafeteria if she was really interested. She then flew back to her perch with her feathers all ruffled while I walked away having mixed feelings. It is demoralizing to have an administrator tell you basically that you are dressing too “slutty” or “whorish”. It is disgusting to feel like your body is drawing too much attention. It is deeply saddening that girls have to grow up feeling like they should be ashamed of their bodies. Children across the nation grow up thinking that judging a girl based on her clothing is deemed acceptable. They learn at a young age that when girls do not cover up, it is appropriate to tease them about it. I mean, why not if the saint like school administrators do it too? Some people think that what a girl wears justifies or explains sexual harassment or assault. This is not okay! Schools need to take the initiative and try to teach young girls that they should feel comfortable with their bodies and that no one should harass anyone no matter what they wear. I should not be calling them out for this. This is something they should have learned a long time ago.

#2 No sexual harassment education
I remember in sixth grade, we had a presentation about sexual harassment. Except, instead of teaching kids what constitutes as sexual harassment, they only covered why pantsing was considered sexual harassment. They believed that was the best use of a thirty minute presentation. We need to learn about what sexual harassment is! I did not know what qualifies as sexual harassment until I was in ninth grade and that should not be tolerable. I think that is another reason why sexual harassment is not reported. We do not understand when things go over the line. We do not discuss the difference between verbal sexual harassment and jokes. Or even yet, we try to fool ourselves into believing it was just a joke. This lack of knowledge is what causes men and women to be doubted when they report sexual harassment. People disbelieve them. I have talked to some of my friends and they have said that they have been cat called. I said that was awful and unacceptable. They believed that was the way life was and that it just happens sometimes. If we understood what sexual harassment was, then people everywhere would feel more empowered to report sexual harassment and assault instead of doubting themselves.

Why don’t we teach this in schools? Quite frankly I am unsure but if you are reading this, let me give you a short lesson:

Sexual Harassment: harassment in a workplace, or other professional or social situation, involving the making of unwanted sexual advances or obscene remarks Here are some examples of sexual harassment:
 * Direct or indirect threats or bribes for unwanted sexual activity
 * Sexual innuendos and comments
 * Intrusive sexually explicit questions
 * Sexually suggestive sounds or gestures such as sucking noises, winks, or pelvic thrusts
 * Repeatedly asking a person out for dates, or to have sex
 * Touching, patting, punching, stroking, squeezing, tickling, or brushing against a person
 * A neck/shoulder massage
 * Rating a person's sexuality
 * Ogling or leering, staring at a woman's breast or a man's derriere
 * Spreading rumors about a person's sexuality
 * Name-calling, such as bitch, whore, or slut
 * Sexual Ridicule
 * Frequent jokes about sex or males/females
 * Letters, notes, telephone calls, or material of a sexual nature
 * Pervasive displays of pictures, calendars, cartoons, or other materials with sexually explicit or graphic content
 * Stalking a person
 * Attempted or actual sexual assault

I hope you learned already learned this in school but my guess is you did not. :)

#3 Schools do not teach children about sexual health at a younger age
The first time I have ever heard about a vagina and a penis was in fifth grade. With all the giggles and blushing faces, it was evident that we all felt embarrassed by that topic. This is where the problem lies. These are body parts! We should feel comfortable talking about them at a young age! Women who have suffered from sexual harassment or assault feel uncomfortable talking about it or reporting it partially because they feel embarrassed. An example is if someone had made comments about my vagina. Do you know how mortifying it would be to walk up to a teacher about it? I would not feel comfortable doing so because we are taught to feel uncomfortable talking about penises and vaginas. I also believe that words have power. You become powerful when you are able to fully articulate what has happened to you instead of quivering with fear about how they will react when you say those words. I think that the school system fails us in that way. I do not see why discussing penises and vaginas should be saved until we are in fifth grade. It is not like they magically appeared that year and I think that they education system should recognize that.

Schools everywhere, please step it up. It really is not difficult. You are a sad excuse of a safe, accepting shell of what you aspire to be. Thank you for being muck that I can rake up in this assignment. :D

Well said Toby.