The Effects
The overall effect of sexual harassment is to create a threatening environment for female students. One student confessed, "A lot of girls don't feel very secure at school." For some, the anxiety that resulted from sexual harassment manifested itself in physical ways. One student was so nervous about a group of male students who constantly demeaned young women that her "stomach would turn" when she entered the school or traveled through hallways. Another claimed that the crude comments made by male students in class made her feel "sick to her stomach."

Many had developed strategies to avoid harassing behaviour. Hallways were identified as harassment zones, to be bypassed if at all possible. When the students were unable to avoid a sexual harassment area, some would travel in pairs "for protection": "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 1 will take a longer route." Other avoidance strategies included associating only with female students and restricting their participation in school activities, "like sports for instance."

Fran Thoburn

To elude harassing behaviour in the classroom, some students limited their participation in class discussions and their enrolment or attendance in various courses. One young woman monitored the behaviour of male students in her classes for the first month of a term to see how they responded to female students. During this time she didn't speak up in class. "If they don't do anything," she told me, "then, after, I can talk."

The harassment experienced by young women in non-traditional courses was a reminder of their infringement on male terrain and seemed to have a significant impact on their academic and career plans. In one school, some students had given up the idea of a career in science because they worried that the anti-female comments made by their grade 10 teacher would only get worse as they went further in their education: "If this is what I'm meeting in high school, what kind of opposition am I going to meet when I get to university or college?"

One student had dropped a course because she couldn't tolerate the demeaning comments the teacher continually made about women. And, unfortunately, a few students felt they had no option but to leave the school. This strategy was used by one student who 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 transferred schools.

Although many students had made these countering strategies part of their everyday routine, this should not be interpreted as tacit acceptance of harassing behaviour. On the contrary, these self-protective maneuvers are positive expressions of young women's strength and resistance. In most cases, the students had no alternatives. They were struggling to deal with a problem that had yet to be recognized by those entrusted with their education.