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May 15, 2008Teenage girls still experience harassment |
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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News: Girls and women have made dramatic strides toward gender equality in the United States. The study, the first to examine social and individual influences on girls' personal experiences of sexism, was carried out by researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Kentucky. It appears in the May/June 2008 issue of the journal Child Development. In surveys, the researchers asked the girls about their experiences with sexual harassment and about discouraging comments they'd received about their abilities in science, math, or computers, as well as sports. The vast majority (90%) of girls said they had experienced sexual harassment at least once, with few reporting that such experiences had taken place more than once or twice. Specific forms of sexual harassment included receiving inappropriate and unwanted romantic attention (67% of girls), hearing demeaning gender-related comments (62%), being teased because of appearance (58%), receiving unwanted physical contact (52%), and being teased, bullied, or threatened with harm by a male (25%). The researchers found that both individual and social factors influenced whether girls were aware of sexism, with girls who were older and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds reporting more sexism than their peers. Moreover, Latina and Asian American girls reported less sexual harassment than girls from other ethnic groups. Girls who felt pressure from parents to conform to gender stereotypes perceived more sexism than other girls. Finally, girls' own attitudes about themselves and society affected how they perceived sexism. "This study documents the continued pervasiveness of sexism in the lives of adolescent girls," notes Campbell Leaper, professor of psychology at the University of California Santa Cruz and the study's lead author.
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