Horeck, Tanya;
Ringrose, Jessica;
Milne, Betsy;
Mendes, Kaitlynn;
(2023)
#MeToo in British schools: Gendered differences in teenagers' awareness of sexual violence.
European Journal of Cultural Studies
10.1177/13675494231191490.
(In press).
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Abstract
This article explores how British secondary school students responded to and made sense of the rising public awareness of sexual violence in British society that emerged during lockdowns for COVID-19. Based on the findings from a 2021–2022 study conducted in five secondary schools, the article explores the gendered discrepancies in girls’ and boys’ awareness of violence against girls and women. In particular, it examines how the youth participants in this study responded to two related media stories during lockdown: the news of Sarah Everard’s kidnapping and murder by a police officer and the viral spread of sexual abuse testimonies on the ‘Everyone’s Invited’ Instagram page and website. The article demonstrates how girls were more likely to experience, recognize, and discuss sexual violence, in part due to feminist consciousness raising during lockdown via digital technologies like Instagram and TikTok. Although some boys did recognize the problem of violence against women, in general, they were much less aware of Sarah Everard’s murder and Everyone’s Invited and were prone to absorbing manosphere-like discourses around false rape accusations In focus groups, some boys deployed a defensive masculinity and adopted a discourse of male victimhood, which denied the scale and scope of violence against girls and women. However, through involving boys in focus group discussion with both us and their male peers about power and privilege, progress was made in challenging and counteracting rape myths and anti-feminist male victimization narratives.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | #MeToo in British schools: Gendered differences in teenagers' awareness of sexual violence |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1177/13675494231191490 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494231191490 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © The Author(s) 2023. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Lficense (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages. |
| Keywords: | Social Sciences, Cultural Studies, #MeToo, British schools, COVID-19 lockdowns, Everyone's Invited, gender, Sarah Everard murder, sexual violence, social media, teenagers, POLITICS, CULTURE, GIRLS |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Education, Practice and Society |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10177076 |
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