When anyone talks about safety, the mind drifts to violence, physical attacks and destruction of property and very unlikely towards harassments; sexual harassment in particular. Women have over the years been viewed to be the weaker sex, who for that matter must be assured protection from any form of harm. However, this protection does not strongly include protection against the forms of sexual harassment which women face on a daily basis all over the world. Needless to say, these cases are not taken very seriously yet women remain to be intimidated and traumatized in the aftermath of such like experiences. It is unfortunate that this happens in learning institutions where women are supposed to feel safe and only focused on their learning. Consequently, schools are not a safe place for women contrary to the expectations of many people.
Education is a basic right of which every person should have; and women are not an exception. It is through education that one is equipped with knowledge and the skill set that must necessarily be applied on a daily basis in order to develop a source of income and schools are the places where this kind of learning takes place. However, some girls are unable to acquire this privilege due to the intimidation and emotional distress that occasions the prevalence of sexual harassment within the schooling setup. In some cases some girls are forced out of school whilst some others are hurt for their advocacy of girl child education as in the case of Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan, who was shot on her way from school (Prinsloo, 2006).
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Women have it tougher in schools than men when it comes to facing sexual harassments, being asked for sexual favors as a form of blackmail in order to get good grades or even cyber bullying. Refusing to comply often comes with consequences in the form of terrible grades.
According to Catherine Hill & Elena Silva (2005), both men and women are likely to be harassed but in different ways and their response mechanisms differ as well. Furthermore, female students are more predisposed to cases of sexual violence as compared to their male counterparts. Female students are an easy target of sexual harassment in form of verbal, non-verbal and physical abuse. Female students are forced to tolerate the nasty comments and actions made towards them; as a result they are so inured to such environments that they consider it normal in their daily activities in school.
However, the female students still end up embarrassed, upset and their confidence is bruised. For instance, most of the female victims tend to avoid the places at which they were harassed in the campus or the specific people who harassed them. In general, their minds are disturbed thus interfering with their levels of attentiveness in class. This makes it difficult for them to be fully productive in their learning (Prinsloo, 2006).
Educators have an inescapable responsibility of ensuring the safety of learners under their care, both physical and psychological. Sadly, some women are raped, sexually abused and assaulted by not only their educators, but also their fellow male learners. The female learners are faced with sexual violence that impede their access to education and as a result some students stop going school since they don’t feel at all safe there (Hill & Silva, 2005).
A good number of women do not report their encounters with sexual harassments due to a number of reasons including fear of embarrassment. These victims choose to keep it to themselves, which makes it harder for the matter to be dealt with. Sometimes they are skeptical that anyone in the authorities will help or even believe them and other times they are not aware of who to contact in such cases. This way they are likely to remain objectified by the male counterparts (Hill & Silva, 2005).
Those brave enough report their cases to the relevant authorities but they do not always get the kind of response they hope for. In the research carried out by Nan D. Stein, a certain student who was continually molested by a male teacher reported the matter to a female guidance counselor who simply brushed off the matter saying the man was a religious and wouldn’t do such. Another encounter was when a female student reported to the principal who was skeptical about the whole story and did not do anything about it (Callbeck, 1993).
No matter how lightly the safety of women in schools has been taken, we still believe that women should have the same rights and opportunities as men, including right to education. Each person ought to ask themselves pressing questions such as: are we going to sit back and leave things as they are? Or are we going to foster more campaigns about the safety of women to accomplish the dream of feminists over the centuries who worked hard for the same purpose? Are we ready to put an end to sexual harassments in both male and female in our learning institutions?
In conclusion, sexual harassment has over the years increasingly interfered with the women’s right to receive an equal educational opportunity and has continually degraded women and their potential. While more than half of the harassers think it is funny, the women remain oppressed and deprived of their dignity. Women could be great leaders and achievers but this is sometimes jeopardized by their experiences in school. Unless something more is done, schools remain to be an unsafe place for women.
References
Hill, C. & Silva, E. (2005). Drawing the line: sexual harassment on. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED489850.pdf
Prinsloo, S. (2006). Sexual Harassment and Violence in South African Schools. South African Journal of Education, 26 (2), 305–318.
Callbeck. P. (1993). Sexual harassment and Montana schools: creating and maintaining harassment-free learning . Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/sexualharassment1993harp
