Crossing the Line: Cyber-harassment

Cyber-harassment: When Home Isn't a Haven
By Julia Smolinski
AAUW Research Intern

Phoebe Prince and Jamey Rodemeyer should never have been famous. We know these teenagers' names because their suicides were tied to sexual harassment and bullying — not just in person but online as well. What does it mean for harassed kids when their abuse follows them home from school?

In January 2010, Phoebe Prince, a Massachusetts high school sophomore, was found hanged in the stairwell at her home. For months, her classmates had been calling her "whore" and "Irish slut." In September 2011, 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer committed suicide outside his house in Buffalo, New York. An openly gay student, his peers routinely called him homophobic slurs.

These examples show just how devastating sexual harassment can be for students, and their stories have a common thread: Both students were sexually harassed in person, and the harassment continued online after school with insulting text messages and vicious rumors on online social networks. Both were victims of what is increasingly known as cyber-harassment or cyber-bullying.

AAUW has reported extensively on sexual harassment in the past, but our most recent study, Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment at School, now includes cyber-harassment, a relatively new and malicious form of sexual victimization. Cyber-harassment is unwanted conduct that takes place online or through other electronic means such as text messaging. Sexual harassment, whether in person or electronic, includes spreading sexual rumors about someone, attacking someone's sexuality, or making unwanted comments of a sexual nature, among other things.

The nature of online communication, however, can make cyber-harassment particularly cruel. Harassers may operate under the guise of an alternate or untraceable identity, and this anonymity may encourage kids who wouldn't normally harass at school to do so online. The ability to harass someone via a computer screen — away from the presence of teachers or bystanders — can also empower harassers to be more aggressive and relentless. And because the Internet and cell phones allow communication that is instantaneous and often intrusive, harassment can escalate quickly and at any time.

The prevalence of cyber-harassment among young people is not particularly surprising. Nearly all American teenagers have Internet access, and studies have shown that teenagers spend more time using electronic media than they do on any other activity except sleeping. ¹ It makes sense, then, that the harassment taking place in school hallways also shows up online. In Crossing the Line, one-third of girls (36 percent) and nearly one-quarter of boys (24 percent) who responded to AAUW's survey said they had experienced cyber-harassment. Most students who experienced it reported that this abuse was in addition to the harassment they already faced at school.

Although cyber-harassment is difficult to moderate and control, schools and parents can take steps to lessen the threat. Schools can adopt policies that strictly ban the use of campus computers to harass others and include cyberharassment in their sexual-harassment prevention programs, as well as educate students, parents, teachers, and administrators about this high-risk behavior. Parents can have even more influence, because cyber-harassment generally takes place in the home. Since parents usually purchase computers and cell phones for their kids, they can enforce proper online conduct. Parents should also familiarize themselves with their kids' technology so they understand how cyber-harassment can happen.

While parents and educators might be daunted by the many ways technology can foster harassment, we all have a responsibility to protect kids from victimization. It will require diligence, but we have to do what we can to make sure kids don't use technology to demean and torment their peers. If you need motivation, just imagine being the parent of a bullied child who was driven to suicide.

¹ Pascoe, C. J. (2011). Resource and risk: Youth sexuality and new media use. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 8, 5–17.

This article was originally published in the Winter 2012 issue of AAUW Outlook.