A qualitative study of children, young people and 'sexting ... - NSPCC

A qualitative study of children, young people and ‘sexting’
Here the rights of or feelings of the girls involved are secondary to the meanings their bodies have for
male competition or homosocial bonding- something we explore in more detail in section 4.
Harassment of girls
Girls have adapted to this form of harassment by adopting practices like wearing shorts under skirts or
even refusing to wear skirts, which are understood as making one more vulnerable to touching up, as
these year 8 girls discuss:
R: Now I don’t even wear a skirt because all the boys will just like discuss it. When I am playing
with my friend even if you have shorts on they still stop and say, ‘Ah it’s looking a bit hairy
down there still’. I would go like, ‘Excuse me’.
I: Do you mean they are talking about your legs being hairy?
R: No, your down below.
R: And that is why I always wear trousers.
R: I always wear trousers because the wind keeps on blowing my skirt yeah and then this boy in
year ten tells me, ‘Why are you trying to get ready’.
R: When us girls do it it is a joke yeah, we all pull up each other’s skirts making sure you wearing
shorts yeah. The boys try it –
R: It’s not funny when they do it.
Girls in year 10 also talked about this as a ‘daily’ experience of ‘harassment’.
R: I think a lot of boys, especially year eight and year nine are excited about female bodies and
sex, so it is a big highlight.
R: Last year, when we was in year nine, I had a hard time.
R: Yeah, I got harassed like nearly every single day, not sexual harassment like seriously, but then
they do stuff like, ‘Oh look at her bum’ and ‘Look at her breasts’.
R: Yeah, they still do shout some things out.
R: Yeah, at least now they are shouting it out. Before they would like run past you and slap your
bum and that.
R: Yes, year nine. And they used to do that thing. Do you remember, they used to put do you
remember, we were standing yeah. Say you were standing talking to your friends, a boy will
come over and then they will put their leg round your front leg and then they would push you
over and then they would do that –
R: Yeah and you would just go flying.
R: You would go flying on the floor, and then if they were really that bad they will jump on you
and we used to like run from all the boys.
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