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Recognising sex-based harassment

Sometimes there is confusion about sex-based harassment, what it is and how to recognise it. A shared understanding of sex-based harassment means that teachers, students, and parents can work together more effectively to make schools safe and supportive places for everyone.

Sex-based harassment is often unrecognised, trivialised or accepted as 'just teasing', but because of its power to undermine a student's sense of safety and confidence in the school environment, it is a serious educational issue. Boys (and girls) who do not feel safe, who are unhappy and isolated, are not receiving the positive school experience they deserve.

How does sex-based harassment work?

A useful model is provided in Nola Alloway's Just Kidding? Sex-based harassment at school (2000:13-17):

Sex-based harassment targets a person because of the way they live their gender and sexuality and is recognised by its expression, reception, intention and consequences.

Recognising sex-based harassment
Expression	can be verbal, non-verbal, visual or physical
Reception	is unwelcome, uninvited and unsolicited
Intention	may be intended or unintended - but a reasonable person would anticipate the possibility that the recipient might be offended, intimidated or humiliated
Consequence	may result in humiliation, intimidation, emotional and/or physical discomfort or pain, rejection, exclusion, isolation or fear, and contribute to a hostile environment that may inhibit students' opportunities to learn.

What are the common forms?

Common forms of sex-based harassment include
Verbal	name calling (faggot, slut, poofter, gay, dyke, mole, dog)
Non-verbal	rude gestures, wolf whistling, leering, staring, stalking
Visual	pornography, graffiti, hostile or denigrating images
Physical	pinching, dakking, obstructing someone's movement, interfering with personal items, forced kissing or touching, confronting on the basis of sexuality (homophobic attack).

Sex-based harassment in the real world

Sex-based harassment happens in the real world and carries the complexities of all human interactions. Because of this, textbook definitions will never capture all the realities of such interactions. Educators can begin with good guidelines but must, as Alloway notes, 'leave the page' (2000:13) to read events and interactions at school.

Students who are perpetrators of sex-based harassment may claim they intended no harm or were 'only joking' when they downloaded offensive graphics, called someone a faggot, or added a student's home phone number to a wall of graffiti. Nevertheless they need to know that their behaviour has adverse consequences and that 'I didn't know that would offend' is not an acceptable excuse. If students are genuinely naïve about sex-based harassment, it is in their interests, and everyone else's, that they be fully informed.

Sometimes students are clearly distressed about sex-based harassment, but this is not always the case. Sometimes they accept it as their lot, or are unwilling to risk intensifying the harassment by resisting it. Some groups and individuals experience intense shame in acknowledging that they have been harassed and will not share their pain or fear. But every student needs to know that they have the right to attend school free from harassment of any kind.

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