My 12 year old DD shouldn't have to be subject to sexism and unwanted male attention so frequently

[crispandcheesesanwichplease]

This post has arisen from a discussion on an earlier thread about single sex v co-ed schools.

My 12 year old DD frequently gets called a slag or slut by boys at school. This is for little things like being in someone's way in the corridor. The boys at school regularly rate the girls on their 'fitness' in public and comment about their breasts. Some of the girls, including my DD, keep their sweatshirts on in school even when it's really hot to stop boys from commenting on their breasts.

I regularly see adult men eyeing her up when we're out and about (first time was when she was 9). She's a normal, young for her age, 12 year old. She doesn't wear any make up or clothing that could make her look older her look older. She's not particularly well developed physically for her age. She just look likes a kid.

She said she feels like a piece of meat sometimes and the boys at school only rate girls in terms of their physical appearance and 'sexiness'.

I consider myself to be a feminist and have raised her to think critically about gender stereotypes but despite this she thinks it's just something that she must endure, particularly at school.

I've contacted some other mums of girls who attend the same school to find out their experiences and am seriously thinking about approaching school when I have a fuller picture.

Is this awful culture of sexism and hypersexualised behaviour standard in secondary schools these days?

Any teachers/school staff out there with advice on how such a culture can be changed in schools?

we had a similar experience around those ages.
a bully boy said something so awful to my daughterI was ready to go to school.
my daughter prevented me. because in similar occasions the school tells who made the complaint and the bully makes life a lot harder for the victim.
now I think they are all grown out of it, more sensible at age around 15.

Oh god that's awful. My son has just started at a mixed secondary. I hope I'm bringing him up to not only not do this stuff but also, to call it out when (if) he sees/hears it.

It all makes me so sad.

12 is a seriously bad age for inappropriate sexual innuendo/behaviour. Boys at this age spend their lives looking at internet porn (girls are not remotely interested) and their attitudes and behaviours towards girls are informed by this and left unchecked by parents/educators and also girls who are totally unprepared to defend themselves against the aggression.

I agree with the others and wans't going to post because of that, but I had to say that I'm really impressed with how Bruce's school handled it! This is the kind o thing that I'd expect to see being swept under the rug so I'm glad that schools can and will try to tackle it given the chance.

My dd2 is also 12yo, and I have an older one too, and I don't recognise this at all. Bog standard comprehensive. So don't accept this as the norm.

The school needs to deal with these boys behaviour!

I went to a mixed school. My dds are going single sex. Know that may bring other issues but being rated out of 10 daily and having breasts groped hopefully less likely

Don't bank on it. Tbh I think this sort of language is rife between both sexes. And I hear dreadful things from friends who have girls at our girls' school.

I absolutely think the school should come down on this like a ton of bricks OP.

I went to a single sex school - and the boys' school down the road still managed to produce one of these bloody lists!

I remember my mum going through a phase of shouting 'she's 12!' at any adult men eyeing me up in public. I think most just ignored her. This was 13 years ago. By the sounds of it things have got worse since then. How bloody depressing.

Sadly I don't think this is new? I left secondary in 19991, just this morning I was recollecting my secondary school days, it was a mixed Comprehensive, roughly 550 students. It wasn't a place for thriving in studies, it was a place where you kept your head down, wanted to survive the day without getting picked on for being fat/fit/skinny/having breasts/being flat chested etc etc. You couldn't win, eating disorders were also mocked, I recall a vile boy calling my sister an "anorexic bitch", she was very very ill and nearly died FFS, she hadn't done anything to him, just walked past him.

Walking down corridors was horrible, we went the outside way whenever possible but on wet days you were made to use corridor, using stairs was a nightmare as lads looked up your skirt. The school bus was vile, my first kiss was a boy pinning me down against my will on the school bus. I am terrified that this awaits my DD.

OP catalogue your findings, deliver this to the Head and to the PTA, my thoughts are that the only way of stopping this behaviour is to increase supervision but schools can't afford more staff?

Its heartening to hear about people on this tread teaching their DC different behaviours.

I would go in all guns blazing. I was subjected to this at school and it led to daily groping by 15/16 - i.e.sexual assault. When girls complained they were told to laugh it off or not 'invite' it by wearing short skirts, shirts which showed the outlines of our bra strap at the back (all regulation school shirts did because they were designed for boys). Horrified that that kind of thinking still around - get the school to make it very clear that that kind of behaviour is unacceptable - and punishable. Stress that this needs to happen before the kids get any older and it escalates.

Definitely write to the school - if this is rife then they should be tackling it via assemblies, possibly separating boys and girls.

I have witnessed this as a teacher - so can only imagine what is going on when staff aren't present. When I witnessed it I reported it and the boy involved was dealt with but I worried about it because the girl involved didn't report it herself and I wondered if she experienced any repercussions. I hope she didn't as it was evident that I had heard and reported it myself. It made me sad that it must have been so commonplace that she hadn't bothered saying anything.

In between me hearing him insult the other pupil and going to report it, I told him off and he also made a (very uncomplimentary) comment about my breasts.

I was hoping it would have been tackled on a school-wide basis, but disappointingly it wasn't.

Bruce02 your post gives me hope, I think that the way that your school dealt with this is fantastic, well done to you and your peers for forcing the issue.

There are groups who go into schools and do sessions on consent, sexual harassment, how to tell someone you find them attractive in respectful ways etc. It sounds like this is in order to make it clear that its normal to experience sexual feelings and to establish what are and what aren't appropriate ways to deal with them. After that - the school needs to go nuclear on anyone who breaks those rules as it would on racism.

This is sexual harassment, definitely go the the head of year or HT, totally unacceptable behaviour. Kids should be safe at school without this. Document every incidence with dates. If the school are rubbish, go to the Police, it's serious.

I would kick up an almighty fuss OP

I would also get a critical mass behind you, as she cant be the only one

to some extent I got the same, but this was when I was older and essentially looked like a woman

your DD is a child, its a disgrace and a determined Head could address this with both the children and parents if they desired

fuck me, are my sons going to grow up and do this

If my son grew up to do this Stop I would be furious too. I would welcome a steer from anyone with older sons about how to educate them on this (although I don't want to derail the thread).

Yes, contact the school. It's not a new thing at all but it is still not something girls should have to "put up" with.

I don't think the behaviour of boys has changed since I was in school but what has changed is the attitude. When boys were doing the "ratings" thing or calling girls slags and skets they at least knew it was wrong (but done it anyway).

With everything being so hyper-sexualised these days everywhere you go, porn being so accessible and things like Instagram and Snapchat making young girls feel the pressure of looking a certain way, this behaviour is becoming more and more acceptable and it needs to stop.

I am afraid that 'slag' and 'slut' are becoming everyday words to describe women/girls. I pull my son on it EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. I think it is sinking in.
Where are the mums who are not teaching their sons this? I think they are everywhere.

This shouldn't be happening, you need to the speak to the school. If you keep a list of names, what's said and any witnesses, this will help them greatly.

It seems my DD is lucky to go to a large and her large circle of friends certainly don't get horrible comments. The only one who gets the odd comment is one that's extremely overweight, but this is wearing off as most have realized what a lovely girl she is. All they have is a bit of fun banter, making fun over what's someone's said in class, the fact someone's always taking but no one takes it to heart whether boy or girl.

This is horrific. Unfortunately, going to an all girls' school, whilst it shields you from it in person during the school day, doesn't get you out of it entirely. I go to one, we have a boys' school nearby and a lot of us know each other. They do regular "lists", proudly rate us out of 10, are very vocal on social media about who's a "slag", "slut", "ho", "sket" etc, comment on girls from our school they don't even know if we're travelling home and pass them, express generally sexist attitudes (Donald Trump and Ched Evans are recent heroes, though Trump was very unpopular when being racist, seems sexism is far more acceptable). This school also happens to be one of the top boys' schools in the country, not that it's acceptable anywhere but this attitude seems to be everywhere.

Unfortunately it is true that some girls go along with it, but definitely not the majority. There are a group who refer to themselves as "sluts" which I don't particularly like as it endorses what the boys do in a way, but I suppose that's internalised misogyny. The poster who said something along the lines of "teenage girls can be awful" really annoyed me, with all the shit we have to go through, harassed on the street by men, objectification everywhere, so many boys totally sexist and putting us down all the time, complete misogynist memes shared online all the time, so much else and WE'RE awful?

User they are everywhere. My own DM (thankfully) only had girls but I remember her always referring to women as "silly little tarts". If I had had a brother God knows what he would have turned out like!

My DSis has sons and I'm forever getting into heated debates with her about the things she says to them and around them. I've had the same arguments with friends who have boys.

It makes me so angry because they always take it as a personal attack on them or their perfect precious boys but fail to see the bigger picture. If boys are being raised like that by their mothers as well as growing up in a society that teaches them that they are worth more than girls, what hope do the girls of the future have? It's as if these parents forget that they could have granddaughters, great-granddaughters, great-great-granddaughters who are going to have to live in this world that we have helped to create.

The school (and all schools) needs to be clamping down on this now, asap, and following up with a proper policy and educational program to combat this issue.

Bullying, sexism, objectification of girls, all unacceptable.

Where are the mums who are not teaching their sons this? I think they are everywhere

the dads need to do it too (not picking on you BTW) but I think you have inadvertently nailed it there

I agree stopshouting. It just seems to hit home more when it's a mum not teaching their sons these things because almost every woman has been on the receiving end of it, you'd think we would want it to stop more.

But yes, it might even have more of an impact if more dads started teaching sons the right thing too. Unfortunately I have a feeling that a lot of dads (of course not all, but many) can't spot right from wrong themselves. After all, many of these grown men that leer at young girls must be fathers too, surely?