High School Students Protest Sexual Assault
Grace Won: Hi, welcome to State of the Bay. I’m Grace Won live in the studio. We’ll be hearing from my co-host Ethan Elkind later in the hour. He’s interviewing San Francisco author Diana Kapp about her new book ‘Girls Who Green The World’. Be sure to stay tuned for that. Earlier this month hundreds of students walked out of San Francisco private high school to protest the school handling of sexual assault and violence. This comes way after the blocks out of Bay area public high schools last fall that culminated from the demonstration from the San Francisco city hall on December 10th. Here to understand why this so called youth-me-too is happening and also how adults are responding to this protests. I’m joined by health educator Shafia Zaloom, she’s the author of ‘Sex, Teens and Everything in Between’. Welcome to State of the Bay Shafia.
Shafia: Thank you so much for having me.
Grace Won: And also, I’m pleased to be joined by Rosie Bultman, she’s a Senior at Berkeley High School. She’s the founder of Crash Course: Consent. Welcome, Rosie.
Rosie: Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Grace Won: And as we start our conversation a quick head up. This conversation about students walks out and protests will be include discussion about sexual harassment and violence and some listeners might find the topic challenging to listen. But if you can hang with us, I wanted to invite you to join the conversation that we are having. It’s an important one. And I’d like to ask these questions to you. Are you a student at the Bay Area high school? Or a teacher or administrator? Or parenting guardian? Can you share a perspective on the problems of sexual harassment, assault, and harm for these young people? Also what kind of support and education do you think students need around sexual harm? We’re gonna open our lines early so give us a call. We are at 866-798- Talk that’s 866-798-8255 or you can email us at stateofthebay@kalw.org or send us a message on Twitter, we’re @stateofthebay. Rosie, you’re a senior at Berkeley high and I want to start with you. In the last six months students of the Bay Area have been protesting about sexual harassment and assault and as a high school student can you give us a window that you and your classmates are facing?
Rosie: Yes, I can. I think that there’s two or three main issues around sexual harm on high school campuses. I think primarily there’s a culture that raise culture where people that perpetuate sexual assault and sexual harm are generally accepted on high school campuses, so this walked out our way to say like, hey, this is not ok. If you have sexual allegations or something we are not accepting, you as a school. I think the second thing is students are really frustrated as how school administrators have handled sexual assault on campus. I know many people who have gone to our school administration and have reported the same sexual harassment or sexual assault in five or six times. And nothing has been done. They still have to be in class with these people. They still have to exist around them and the people are not suspended, let alone expelled. And then I think lastly, the last thing people are protesting as how unaware teachers are of sexual harassment that occur in front of them. I think since they are high school there are people who are complaining about getting sexually harassed in the halls. I’ve been sexually harassed in the classroom in front of the teacher and she didn’t really know what to do. And so I think students are calling, not only an end of this acceptance of rape culture but for school administrators to do better when it comes to training teachers and punishing people who promote sexual harm.
Grace Won: I don’t want to have you relive the trauma of being harassed but can you tell us what really is happening in the classrooms or in the hallways. How does it feel to be a young woman walking through the halls of your high school.
Rosie: Well, in my personal experience, I’ve been tackled at school few times which is pretty, like on the way of a football game or other things like that. I do know about people who have been groped in the hallways especially in our big field day or rally days. There’s a lot of groping and physical sexual harassment and assault within the school hallways. If they’re busy so somebody want to flip their hands on some part of your body it seems pretty easy to attack. So I know a lot of people who have experienced that. I have not and then people ask each other out or still get rejected and then sometimes throw fit and sometimes turns into sexual harassment which also happened to me personally. So that’s what’s happening in our school.
Grace Won: Well, I’m really sorry to hear that, Rosie. I wanted to turn to you Shafia Zaloom, you are an educator, you are the author of this book, ‘Sex, Teens and Everything in Between’ as you listen to Rosie describe her experience at her school, how does that hit you as an educator and somebody who have worked very hard to help student understand sexual assault, sexual consent and all those issues.
Shafia: As an educator I am committed to learning spaces and as schools where hopefully we are inspiring feeling to everyone like they can belong and acquire and education equitably, and engaging and authentic connection which is what we strive and what we need in the world to move forward and do well. And when I hear things like that, it really is upsetting and heartbreaking to me. I have been working at different high school as an educator this year as a result of student activism that took place that Rosie was also a part of. And we collaborate sometimes and so in our work together and hearing some of the stories and understanding what’s been going on and you know, it really is heartbreaking, is concerning. As an adult I really wanted to make sure I am responding in a way that is going to contribute information, kid’s understanding more and also how they can support themselves as well as each other within the contest.
Grace Won: As an educator, you’ve been doing this for a while, have you seen any changes on how sexual assault as metabolized by. Kids these days is it different, or the same or they just have more knowledge and more ability to share out these stories.
Shafia: You know I think that it is a combination, me-too in particular is a which I feel in many ways started the ball rolling when it comes to this and for young people in particular thinking about what is it that I can do if I am not yet at 18 and I can’t vote if I can be in a school which I can I don’t feel that the adults are necessarily paying attention to what I want them to or listening to me, what are my options right? What are ways to get attention and shine light on issue or problem that we want the adults to address. And I think that over the years and what I’ve personally what ive seen. It is not that sexual violence is no longer is that hasn’t existed before now. It certainly has existed before history has been written and I think there’s a combination between things that have happened and I think that the me-too movement in particular has inspired a lot of youth in young people to come forward. I think that young people have also thought about giving different ways such as social media as well as the walk-outs and the options to participate in them is ways too make a difference and to create change and cultural shifts and I think that it is hard to say if there’s an actual increase or more people feel comfortable stepping forward. What we do now and it just comes up to the department offices of education. I mean office of civil rights, the department of justice is that in 2019 it was reported in public kindergarten schools sexual violence have increased by 55% from 2015-2018. Is it an increase on incidence or are people more comfortable coming forward. I actually think that there are maybe a combination. I am a sexuality educator and so I really look at context. So what’s happening in culture in ways that may be perpetuating, normalizing this sort of culture that veils sexual violence and harm and things like humor or normalizes it, dismisses it, justifies it in ways that creates a platform for more of it to scaffold higher to become more intense and challenging.
Grace Won: I wanted to pick up on something you just said, Shafia. How people try to brush it off and dismiss it. And the classic you get harassed or somebody does something, ‘I was just kidding. You are just being so sensitive. Get over yourself, stop being so hypersensetive’. I’m like a middle-aged woman and I’m like having a hard time finding a repost to that. Like, what do I say to that? And I’d love to know, just to give our listeners about their some tools, how do you recommend responding to someone who harasses you like ‘ I was just kidding.’
Shafia: I think that there is different ways and this is by circumvention in something that we know is affected by sexual harassment and assault where peer to peer intervention where people stick up for and stand up to in the face of this kind of bullying. It really is an extreme form of bullying. It is so interesting that once we talk about things within the context of sexuality how things start to become different in many different ways. Because when it comes to bullying everyone pretty much got on board on how we would stand up to it. I would ask questions I think it is important to be assertive not aggressive because we don’t want to compound the issue but we want to be really clear about what we are standing up to and to narrate it depends on what your comfort level is. You know there is a lot of different green that have a lot of beautiful way which that help kids people remember direct, distract, delegate. You could directly say to someone that’s harassment. You’re making me uncomfortable. Stop. If you saw this happening to someone else distract them and say hey let’s do something over here and or help me do x,y,and z and get them out of that situation and disrupt that dynamic that they are engage in with this other person. Or you could delegate, if you don’t feel safe in that moment for whatever reason there’s thing like you said, they throw us off balance. And we are off balance and we are funded there’s things we can’t always recall what we would want to say in a moment. Which is why sex education is so important right, because you can go over with young people with what would you say in that moment and just not to say it will happen and in context. But I think the probability of it be a bit happening would and if you are witness to someone being thrown off balance be carrying in a community building what to do would be to help them when they are stumbling. And so a way to do that then would be to say, hey not ok. Or let’s do something else right now. And maybe bring it up in a different context. Or go and get that person came with and say your friends are caught in some pretty sketchy behavior you might wanna go do something. So there’s a lot of different ways that we can intervene when these sort of things come up. When we are thrown off balance what’s in our back pocket that we can fall upon and help us be grounded again. And I like the question what do you mean by that?
Grace Won: Ooh, I like that one. I’m getting tools form my toolbox. This is amazing this is so great. I want to re-introduce the program. This is state of the bay, a local public radio 91.7 KALW bay area. I am Grace Won we’re discussing students protest in Bay area high schools about sexual assault, we have with us Shafia Zaloom, she’s the author of ‘Sex, Teens and Everything in Between’. We are also joined by Brooklyn High School Senior Rosie Boltman. Are you a student in the Bay Area high school? Or a teacher or administrator? Or a parent and you have a story to share about your perspective on the problems of sexual harassment, assault and harm and what kind of support and education do you think students need to combat this? You could join us by calling 866-798-Talk that’s 866-798-8255 or you can email us at stateofthebay@kalw.org or you can find us on Twitter, we’re @stateofthebay. Rosie , I wanted to pick up on Shafia said which is by standard peer education which is something I think you are doing. You’re busy high school senior so among all the things you are doing this is something you have done to create a program the problem by educating your peers tell us a little something about the videos you have made and what the goals are for them.
Rosie: Yeah, so last year my junior year, I wanted to create a video campaign in order to combat sexual harassment, sexual assault, any form of sexual violence or harm on our high school campus. And going into the creation of the videos I had to be very careful as to what I really wanted them to address, who do I wanted to reach and who did I want to tell people. And I decided along with two other who are brainstorming with me that I really wanted to people who just didn’t know because I think there is so much sexual harm happen by people who just didn’t really know exactly what they are doing. That’s not to say that some people go in with a lot of malicious intent in sexual situations but I think there is so much sexual harm can be prevented when you just tell people you need to ask for consent in this situation and if you don’t that is assault, that is harassment. So that’s the target audience that I had and then for what I wanted to actually tell them, I wanted to give students, situations, scenarios examples that they lived or will probably live in the future and give them skills in those situations. Because I think that we have received a little bit I believe, pretty minimal sexual consent education at high school and I found it to be really abstract, someone who would never really been any photo like romantic or sexual relationships in any serious way, I would say what does this mean? Like I can’t visualize any situation or what where it could be useful. Ok, like I know this is consent. This isn’t consent but how do I ask for it. Like you know, I have a lot of questions, so these videos were meant to answer those questions. So, we’ve made three videos now and the videos will continue to next year, our first video was not awkward ways to ask for consent. Like there’s so many people say asking for consent is so awkward. I don’t know how to do it.
Grace Won: Right.
Rosie: The video details when you need to ask in different ways you can ask. Ways that aren’t super weird and rigid.
Grace Won: I’d love that you’re doing that because rather than getting your information from friends or I mean I can understand if it’s hard to understand what it is but it is so abstract. I think we actually have a clip from one of your first videos. Want to play it here, lets hear that.
“How do you know what your partner wants and ensure that they are comfortable? Sexual activities are more pleasurable and enjoyable for both parties. Some people think asking for consent is awkward, but we are here to illustrate some not so awkward ways for you to ask for consent. What feels good to you? Are you sure are ready for this? How far do you want me to go? Do you want me to keep going? Do you want me to stop? Is there anything you want to try? Are you alright? Do you want to try something else? What are you into? If your partner is obviously not into what you are doing it is best to speak then ask if they want to take it slow. Even after all those our suggestions you may still feel awkward when asking for consent but it still important to remember that the minor discomfort that you feel while asking for consent can save someone from feeling violated or uncomfortable by you. “
I think that is pretty clear and not awkward so, it is better than watching an episode of HBS before. And explain a little bit more. Rosie, I’ve heard, and you told our producer that these videos kind of lead to these conversations in the hallways about consent. Tell me a little bit about that.
Rosie: Yeah, so I fortunate enough to see in front of my eyes positive changes happening. I would like to think that some of them are due to the videos that we put out. I know that just within my circle of friends, people are more conscious of general boundaries. Like I have one friends that just really hate being hugged and now after kind of talking about these videos like people are checking in, hey, you want hug right now? Or do you want not to hug? And that’s the basic level of consent that I just seen kind of grow over my high school years. I know, my friends are not like everybody but within my circle that something that got it up. And then also there is some really great moments namely on the track team. The boys are talking about girls and I ask them, I wanted to test them a little bit, I was like, do you guys know about consent? And when you need to ask for it? And all three of them they start talking over each other trying to compete to prove to me who knows more about consent. And then one of them finally goes you have to ask for consent every time you make another move. I was like, yes, that is exactly what we said in one of our videos. They said that they have talked about it a lot in class, following the video that the teachers took it upon for self to have a conversation afterwards. I’ve seen a few positive changes but the problem still exists. I do see changes. It’s really encouraging for me to somebody who’s trying to make a difference.
Grace Won: Well, Shafia Zaloom as an expert on this what do you think about Rosie’s consent videos and also, tell us why a simple say yes or say no approach doesn’t really work?
Shafia: Yeah, I think the videos are phenomenal. I had so much fun, you know getting to know Rosie, and have been so inspired by her leadership in what she’s trying to do with her videos and how collaborative the process has been which I think is amazing and the group that she believes is incredibly diverse representative of different social groups in campus which I think is awesome. When it comes to videos, I think those are helpful. When it comes to education in general, we know this best practice is that we have to provide and present a variety of ways by which kids can learn this information and there’s learning the information and then there’s filtering out how to apply the information to the complexities of human relationship. And I think that’s where a lot of other programs have an opportunity to improve is to not just give a definition. To not just like tell kids in this abstract way, whomever, respect your partner because there’s so many young people come to me and say I understand what’s the definition of consent is but what does that mean for me? What does that mean for me on a Saturday night? What does that mean for me when I am walking down the hallway? And someone grabs my butt and what does that mean? And so, I think that the videos are really a great way the tech skills are amazing in this group of young people have, the music and the language is really concrete and I think that is something we forget that this is actually abstract and as adult we want to be responsible and never let kids feel that they have to have experiential context to understand what we are saying. It is also reading your kid, what kind of kid do you have and what it is in most of them. How do they like? How do they learn? As parents, caretaking adults in young people’s lives, what are the multiple ways we can say something or introduce a topic or explore and express it with a young person that really models the thing that we are trying to get them to understand. And I think that is the most important piece because this is about how we treat each other and how that matters. This is about how we connect, how we build connection, this is how we build community. This is how we treat each other in our relationships. And so as many ways as possible that we can engage in this dialogue whether it’s videos or classroom instructions or a conversation in the car or late at night when you kid comes home from with their friends, go downstairs and start making food. You know, just listen and talk less and listen more. And I think the biggest challenge for parents and other caretaking adults including school and teachers and administrator school folks and school adults is that we weren’t modeled this either, right? So this isn’t we got at all. So it's a messy business in terms of how to do this. Because we are learning, we make mistakes. I still make mistakes, and it is hard because when that happens there is a potential for someone being hurt or not hurt or whatever it is. And in the other part of it is we live in a culture that is meritocracy that tries to avoid what’s awkward and what’s difficult and uncomfortable. I think it is even more important that we recognize how important healthy vulnerability is which is essential to connection.
Grace Won: Such a good point that we actually have a comment from a listener she writes or he writes, I am a parent of teen boys and I am not approved but I am reading a conversation about consent I can imagine my sons in that stage of life and I worry that an innocent misstep by them might ruin their lives. Help! What do you say to this parent, Shafia? What should they do? Make lunch downstairs and have a conversation about consent is, like how do you launch into that conversation? I think it is overall sexuality education that includes consent and that we are not talking about consent under this umbrella of sexual harm when it is absent. How essential and important it is to a positive healthy romantic and or sexual exploration that is grounded in mutual respect care and dignity. It is also the floor. The foundation. The fundamentals, it is not the ceiling. It is actually a pretty lowbar. And I worry about how we focus so much on consent and that’s it. You check the box, with an ask and you get a yes, or you get a no and that’s it. Because ultimately I think as parenting adults we want our kids to engage in romantic or sexual relationships when they choose that gonna enrich their lives and sort them. Scaffolding over time it is not one big talk. It is a lot of collecting comments and dropping a question here, dropping a question there. I think it is important that parents understand it doesn’t have to be this big huge thing. It is mostly about values. When you’re watching tv together, you could say, what do you think about how they treated each other? Do you think they both got to walk away with their dignity? Your kid might go, what does that mean? It’s a great conversation starter. This happens all the time when it comes to the word respect I hear well-intentioned parenting adults use the word respect constantly. I’ll be in a room of hundred 18 year old’s, and say how many of you have been taught respect in your whole entire lives and every hands goes up. But then I’ll say who can feels confident in giving me a definition. Every hand goes down.
Grace Won: It’s again an idea of it is too abstract, it is really hard to understand what to do . we have another comment from a listener, John writes, ‘I am a single dad with a teenage daughter. What can and can’t talk to her about. Should I be modeling anything for her? And I am actually going to throw that to you Rosie as a female teenager yourself. What have been some successful conversation around sexuality that you have with the grownups in your lives. As a parent or a teacher or some other adult.
Rosie: I think that I have had the privilege of having some healthy conversation around sexual consent with my parents. I have been in three relationship with my high school experience so that also changed the conversation around sexuality. I think it relieves my dad actually a little bit but advice for that, I think as a dad, you need to check in with your daughter and you have to come to her and ask if she experience any sort of sexual harm or if she needs any support in that sort of area. I remember this one time, there’s this really old man starting too you way too much, in a really creepy way in a restaurant and I left the restaurant and I came home and I started crying. And my dad, at first, says Rosie why are you crying? And in a second I kind of dropped everything and he just kind of consoled me and explained that it wasn’t ok and and justified what’s weird about it because I think a lot of the times victims of harassment and assault they feeling fine and I feel super weird and vulnerable and I want to cry for no reason so affirming her feelings, if you ever catch her in a situation like that I think telling her what she should expect from a partner is really really important. Because I just know too many people that are taught what they should expect from a partner by a partner who is trying to manipulate them. Those two things you know, making her feel hear, checking in with her, validating her feelings and then what she deserves and what she expect and what is isn’t ok in this types of situations. I think that would be amazing in a lot more that they can get from their father.
Grace Won: Excellent advice, I think we should be like your father too so sounds like he did some great modelling there. I mean this is why we talking about this issue, one kind of sexual harassment as a woman or girl issue but it really isn’t. one thing, just looking at this protest, there’s many young men and young women who are protesting, Rosie as you have been in these protests, tell me about the experience of boys how they appeared unfortunately as victims but also as allies.
Rosie: Yeah, so at the protests that I attended two years ago at my school there were a series of speakers that the first few were planned but then it ended up being hour and hours of people coming up and detailing their experiences with sexual harm what I saw men doing I did want to detail that experience and make it sexual harm that something only happens between a male perpetuator and a female victim because it happens with all genders and all types of relationships so I did unfortunately see a handful of men detailing their experience. I also saw few boyfriends of girls who have gotten sexually harm you know just go there and quite literally hold their hands while they detailed their experience and just there as form of emotional support. I did also see a few guys go up and talk about their experience on sports team and other environments like that where rape culture is really accepted and there’s one or two boys that went out and talked about that they have been complicit in sexual harm before but they wanted to get better I don’t even know who that much before but that aside I think that guys in this situations we have a guy who is working on our classroom, I think they can provide a lot of insight to what it looks like when a group of boys in a room talking together and that group of boys in their whole lives isn’t taught about . I think if you are a guy you want to help out in terms of these efforts like providing that male perspective telling what your friends in general is really helpful in furthering the conversation and making it more rooted in reality, I would say.
Grace Won: That’s such a good advice. Shafia, with a minute that we have left I wanted to ask you, as adults what should be keeping out eyes out when it comes to our kids and how should we be opening up those conversations with them?
Shafia: there’s a few things, I think educating ourselves sex positive sexuality so that we can embrace the role of being their primarily sexual educator in our child’s life. I don’t know a sexual health educator who doesn’t believe that to be true. And to really focus on the relationship piece, boundaries, child-parent boundaries are super important and really allowing your kids to be an expert in their own experience. I think that’s the most important piece becoming a really askable parent which allows us to create holds this base where there is no judgment, no shame, no ultimatums, no guilt, where they can explore and express what they seen, what’s they hearing, what’s going on? And ask questions if they want to and not to launch but in many ways let them guide you in conversation but to be the energy behind or the inspiration or the catalyst for it happening on a regular basis. But I really think allowing your kids to be an expert in their own experience is an important thing to remember because they have a power that we don’t and that’s to know what’s happening when the adults aren’t around.
Grace Won: Such good advice, you’ve given me a new life goal Shafia which is to be the askable parent so I am putting that into my head. That’s such really great. We gonna have to leave it there with Shafia Zaloom as the author of ‘Sex, Teens and Everything in Between.’ It’s a great book and if you have a kid I recommend you get and read it. Cover to cover. We have also heard from Rosie Bultman, she’s a senior at Berkeley High School and Youtube set of videos called Crash Course: Consent. Look for those, they are excellent. I want to thank you both for joining us.
Shafia: Thank you so much for your interest.
Grace Won: Yeah, and if you wanna to learn more about these issues that we’ve discussed check out the State of the Bay page KALW.org.