A High School Student Continuously Makes Sexual Remarks to the Only Girls in the Mathematics class

A High School Student Continuously Makes Sexual Remarks to the Only Girls in the Mathematics class

Introduction

A reality in the lives of female students for decades, sexual harassment has only recently become a topic of legal and social scientific discourse. Although a small number of researchers had begun exploring the topic, it was the Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that brought the issue to the public consciousness. Since that time, research has expanded rapidly, examining a broad range of topics related to the perceptions, definitions, antecedents, and consequences of sexual harassment. This paper will discuss that passing sexual remarks to the only girl student in the mathematics class is a social justice incidents as it comes under sexual harassment, although many questions remain unanswered, this research has provided convergent data to support the conclusion that passing sexual remarks is a common experience for girls in the school, that it is damaging to those who experience it, and that institutions can exert some control over its occurrence and ultimate consequences. This article summarizes the current state of scientific research in this area with the goal of providing a broad, yet comprehensive examination of the major issues (Fitzgerald, Gelfand and Drasgow, 1995).

One of the reasons why many people may have trouble “getting it” is that it is not always obvious just which behaviors constitute sexual harassment. Virtually everyone would agree that there has been sexual harassment when a women's refusal to grant sexual favors to her teacher results in her being barred from job advancement, demoted, or fired (Petrocelli & Repa, 1992). Equally clear is the case of a college student who must sleep with a professor to obtain a recommendation for graduate school, or the office worker who is subjected to obscene propositions on a regular basis from a co-worker. But most girls—and most courts of law—consider less egregious actions to constitute sexual harassment as well. A woman who works in a small factory whose walls are covered with nude pin-ups, the secretary who must endure endless pinches and pats from her boss, the student who has to listen to off-color jokes in a methametics class: all of these women are being sexually harassed as well.

Just why some of these behaviors constitute sexual harassment seems to baffle many men—and even some women. The reason why unwanted sexual attention is so troubling to women has to do with the power differential, perceived or real, between men and women in our culture. A woman who is sexually harassed often feels that she has no option but to endure the mistreatment because she might lose her job, flunk a course, or anger the harasser to the point of physical harm (Petrocelli & Repa, 1992).

This power differential means that sexual harassment can occur even when a woman is not in an officially subordinate position. For example, in one oft-cited case, a female surgeon and tenured professor at ...