Sexual assault normalized in high schools

Ontario (Canada) school officials are alarmed that a growing number of schoolgirls see sexual harassment and even sexual assault as normal.

During a keynote address to the annual Safe Schools Conference in Toronto, Gerry Connelly said a young girl will see somebody being pushed against a locker, or touched inappropriately, and apparently shrug it off.Connelly told the crowd, girls think "it's just the way it is."

A recent study by the Center for Addiction and Mental Health finds they're not alone.

Almost half of female high school students in Southwestern Ontario were subjected to sexual comments or gestures from classmates. The study also found that one-third had been touched in a sexual manner in school.

The Ministry of Education says a team of experts will examine the causes of these problems.

According to the AAUW's 2001 study of sexual harassment in schools, 83% of girls and 79% of boys in geades 8 through 11 have been harassed sexualy at school.

A recent University of Virginia study stated that one in six women who go there experienced rape, and when other forms of unwanted sexual conduct is tallied, the number of female victims is over one in three.

According to a prominent author dealing with student victims, "Sexual harassment is not about flirting, humor, raging hormones, or horseplay. It is about power and the harasser's need to exert it over a victim." (Shoop, Sexual Exploitation In Schools, p. 11)

Sexual coercion, sexual assault, rape and domestic abuse is also about the same thing that sexual harassment is about - power and control over a victim.