Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502060026
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MELISSA DeVAUGHN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
A group of girls grabs and kisses a male classmate in the hallway.
A teen-age boy teases a girl about being flat-chested.
All of these incidents qualify as sexual harassment or gender bias, says a recent study by the American Association of University Women. And in Montgomery County, where the AAUW has a strong membership, the group says that neither will be tolerated.
Parents, teachers, AAUW members and Virginia Tech employees discussed the study at the Third Annual Educational Equity Conference held this week at Tech. But a few of the more vocal participants were Blacksburg Middle School pupils who confirmed the results of the study, bringing the national issue of gender inequity to the local level.
"Some sexual harassment has come to be normal," said eighth-grader Catherine Bernard. "No one reports it and so no one stops it."
Fourteen-year-old Phoebe Connelly agreed.
"When nothing's done about it, nothing changes," she said. "The more you talk, the more you realize what's going on."
Bernard and Connelly say they've been the victims of sexual harassment - one boy in particular is known for routinely slapping girls on the buttocks, grabbing their breasts or cat-calling.
The two girls, along with seventh-grader Rose Shawhan, attended the conference to see what they could do to stop harassment. This reflects a trend in public education that is both troubling and encouraging - troubling because teen-agers and even children must guard against sexual harassment; encouraging because they're doing something about it.
"So many girls are doormats," Shawhan said.
"They don't know it's not good because any attention is better than no attention at all," added Bernard.
The AAUW study, called "Hostile Hallways," attempts to answer the million-dollar question: What is sexual harassment?
Elyzabeth Holford, director of Equal Opportunity-Affirmative Action at Tech, said national laws focus on work, not school. But "... it has been found that peer sexual harassment is analogous to work harassment," she said.
It's up to localities to come up with sexual harassment policies for school systems. Montgomery County has such a policy, which was updated in 1992.
Holford said people should just use common sense - in other words, it's a judgment call. What one person would call harassment, another may call flirting, she said. That's why it's such a sensitive topic.
The AAUW defines sexual harassment as any "unwanted and unwelcome sexual behavior which interferes with your life."
While the "Hostile Hallways" report concentrates on the issue of sexual harassment among classmates, it shows evidence that it is happening between teachers and students, often in a lesser form known as gender bias - calling on boys more often in class or using gender-specific language.
Last November, a group of eighth-graders spoke out against such behavior with a petition citing specific examples of gender bias in the classroom.
"It started out when Abby and I started noticing our teachers interrupting the girls more than the boys," said 13-year-old Joanna Burch-Brown, who helped write the petition with classmate Abby McKee. "And then they wouldn't call on the girls when we raised our hand. In my family, we've always tried to be really conscious of sexism, racism, classism and homophobia, so I'm used to looking for it."
"I said to Joanna, 'Get the guy next to you to raise his hand,' and almost immediately, they called on him," McKee said. "That day we started talking about doing something about it."
For the following week or more, the girls kept a running tally of the number of times their teachers used sexist comments (in one class, the girls said they were gathered together, talking, when their teacher said, "What are you girls doing, trading recipes?"), ignored their raised hands or asked the boys for specific favors (such as carrying heavy equipment or fixing broken objects).
Then they wrote the petition - using no teachers' names - and asked their classmates to sign it.
"We ended up with 48 signatures," Burch-Brown said. "Thirteen of them were guys."
After giving the petition to principal Gary McCoy, the girls say they have seen some changes. Some teachers have even said they were not aware that they were being biased. Ten Blacksburg Middle School teachers were at the Equity Conference on Tuesday.
"Some of them are my very favorite teachers and it was kind of interesting when we brought it up - some of them were very surprised, and said they didn't realize they were doing it," McKee said. "Luckily, we've got a really good principal who will listen to you when you've got a problem. It was nice to be taken seriously instead of 'Oh, this is a bunch of kids trying to raise cain over something that's no big deal.'"
Phoebe's mother, Lisa Connelly, said she is proud of the girls.
"For so long, we've been taught to ignore it," Lisa Connelly said. "I think part of the reason that they felt comfortable writing the petition - it's a scary thing for kids to challenge authority - is because obviously there's a climate at the school that makes them feel comfortable enough to speak out. It speaks well of the school system and it speaks well of the kids."
by CNB