What’s the difference between flirting and sexual harassment? That was one topic of conversation at an April 13th party celebrating a new book called Hey Shorty! A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment and Violence in Schools and on the Streets.

In a packed bookstore on the Lower East Side, teens from the youth program Girls for Gender Equity (GGE), which put together the book, stood at a microphone and broke it down: Flirting feels good, is motivated by attraction, and is something that both parties engage in willingly. It’s a two-sided interaction that both people are enjoying. But sexual harassment is one-sided, unwanted attention of a sexual nature. It makes the person who’s getting the attention feel uncomfortable and sometimes even humiliated.

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“You are ashamed. You can’t focus. You want to speak, but you can’t. Your voice is trapped in a small, locked box,” read one youth organizer who contributed to the book. “Worst of all, sexual harassment is as common in school as it is on the streets. It’s unbelievable to see how it happens day after day without students even realizing what it is.”

Common Behaviors

One of the girls described her shock when she realized some of the common behaviors she saw at school—like boys grabbing girls’ behinds in a game of “booty tag,” and commenting on girls’ bodies as they walked by—were actually sexual harassment.

“I was used to being sexually harassed since elementary school, even on the street with old men coming up saying dirty things to me,” said Ariel, a youth organizer. No one seemed to make a big deal out of it, so she didn’t talk much about it, either.

However, since becoming active in GGE’s sexual harassment workshops, Ariel has tried to educate others. “It takes a lot of effort to talk about it with friends who see it as normal,” she said.

And just talking about it can sometimes make the situation worse. In the book, Ariel recounts how her friends called her a snitch for reporting that a boy had harassed her. Worse, the dean she reported the incident to told her that she was “at fault for wearing an outfit that provoked that sort of attention.”

“Maybe I did want someone to tell me how nice I looked,” Ariel admits, “just not the way he did.”

image by YC-Art Dept

Denying the Problem

That feeling—that it’s not a big deal, or even that girls are “asking for it”—has been a big obstacle for GGE. The group conducted a survey of 1,189 middle and high school students in New York City, and found that most of them believe sexual harassment is “not a problem” in their schools.

However, those same survey respondents reported that students at their school—both boys and girls—were often touched, pinched, catcalled, pressured for dates, and publicly teased in a sexual way.

Some of the 23% of respondents who said they’d been sexually harassed in school reported feeling depressed, violated, insecure, and afraid as a result. Very few students ever reported their harassers to school officials, but most who did said that the school did nothing. That means harassers never get the message that what they’re doing is wrong.

Can You Say ‘Stop’?

If sexual harassment is allowed to continue, worse things are more likely to be tolerated. “Really what we’re talking about is preventing rape and preventing violence against women,” said Joanne Smith, GGE’s executive director. GGE holds workshops that teach people how to say “stop” to harassment. Learning to say “stop” to a fellow student, Smith said, can help a girl feel more comfortable saying “stop” in other, potentially dangerous situations: when she’s being pressured to do something she doesn’t want to do, or if a boyfriend tries to hit her.

The program’s main policy goal is to get schools to take sexual harassment seriously. So far, the city has not been responsive.

As the book party wound down, the girls described their disappointment when they presented their findings to the New York City Department of Education and recommended that schools clearly post information letting students know how and to whom they should report sexual harassment: “They told us ‘keep doing what you’re doing’ but basically said they weren’t going to do anything,” one teen recalled. “We were angry. We thought their responses were robotic...Even when we told them about our personal experiences they acted robotic. It was very disappointing, but we’re not stopping,” she said firmly, as the audience broke into supportive applause.

The group has another meeting with Department of Education officials soon, and youth organizers believe they can make a bigger impact if more students join their cause. To find out how you can become a member of GGE’s coalition to end sexual harassment in schools, email coalition@ggenyc.org.

To order the book, go to feministpress.org and click on “Hey Shorty!”