Citation

Brinkman BG, Elliott K, Bates SL, Smith O. Women Ther. 2021; 44(3-4): 252-270.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/02703149.2021.1961432

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Bureau of Justice statistics, 1 in 4 Black girls will be sexually abused before the age of 18. The founder of the #Metoo movement, Ms. Tarana Burke, originally designed the hashtag to help bring awareness to Black women and girls from underprivileged communities that experienced rape or sexual assault. However, the phrase was co-opted by White women sharing their experience of being sexually violated or harassed on social media which resulted in Black girls' experiences being left in the shadows, silencing their experiences. Here we describe the advocacy work of a community coalition dedicated to eradicating inequities Black girls' experience in systems, including schools, the criminal justice system, and social services. We document our work regarding Black girls' experiences of sexual harassment in schools. We developed a community-based participatory action research project to center Black girls' perspectives about sexual harassment. We administered anonymous surveys to 45 Black girls in grades 7-12. Our findings demonstrate that girls experience a range of sexual harassment behaviors in person and online and report numerous adverse emotional, physical, and educational impacts.

Keywords

sexual harassment; Black girls; community-based participatory action research