Are You Nervous Yet?: Sexual Harassment of Mexican American High School Students in Chicago

• In Event: 282 - Student Forum Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 02. Schools, Violence, and Academic Resilience

Abstract

Sexual harassment is a widespread issue facing women in all areas of their daily lives. School students are not immune to this phenomenon. Making it even more challenging, definitions and perspectives on this issue vary greatly across and within various ethnic groups.
For this paper, researchers interviewed ten Mexican American high school students in order to explore five issues: (1) female high school students’ definitions of sexual harassment, (2) their experience with sexual harassment, (3) their level of acceptance of this harassment, (4) the victim's’ reaction to the sexual harassment, and (5) how often were the incidents reported. The researchers found that while female high school students had varied understandings of sexual harassment, two primary factors explain Mexican American female experiences with sexual harassment and their willingness to accept it, primarily patriarchal cultural and gender norms, in addition to Mexican machismo and marianismo. Furthermore, the female students fear public judgment resulted in self-blame for the incident. .In addition, the participants believed that the school faculty failed to provide an effective support system for any student who might have or is facing sexual harassment and consequently, the participants found it pointless to report the incident.

Authors

• Fabiola Solano, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Odaliss Cornejo, University of Illinois Chicago

• Carolina Vazquez, University of Illinois Chicago