Online Sexual Harassment Comprehensive Guidance for Schools

Online sexual harassment refers to a range of behaviours where digital technologies are used to facilitate both virtual and face-to-face sexually based harms. Online sexual harassment may constitute a number of criminal offences, depending on the nature of the online harassment. Whether the conduct constitutes a criminal offence or not, many victim-survivors experience these behaviours as a form of sexual violence. Throughout this guidance, we recognise and address the gendered nature of harms linked to online sexual harassment. Examples of online sexual harassment can be broadly split into the following areas: ● Unsolicited sexual images (e.g. someone sending an unsolicited image of their penis to someone else, often referred to as a ‘dick pic’) ● Unsolicited sexual videos ● Unsolicited sexual messages and comments ● Deliberately being shown pornography or sent links to pornographic content without consent ● Automated activities sending links to online pornography content (porn bots) 1. Unsolicited sexual content online refers to any sexual content shared online which is not wanted by the recipient. This could include content seen on apps, messaging services and websites which has not been sought out by the user. 2. Image-based sexual abuse refers to the non-consensual creation and/or distribution of sexual images. 3. Sexual coercion, threats and intimidation online could include a person receiving threats of a sexual nature or being coerced to engage in sexual behaviours on or offline via digital technologies. WHAT IS ONLINE SEXUAL HARASSMENT? While we make distinctions between these three categories for the sake of clarity, there are evident overlaps and links

The Okavango; a river supporting its people, environment and economic development

The Okavango basin comprises the Cuito and Cubango active catchment areas in Angola, in addition to the Kavango–Okavango non-active catchment in northern Namibia and Botswana. The Okavango River water and its ecosystem resources are critically important sources of livelihoods for people in the basin. Pressures from livelihoods and development are already impacting on the environment. These pressures may increase in the future due to the rapid increase in population, the peace process and associated resettlement activities in Angola, and major development initiatives in Botswana and Namibia. For instance, possible future increase in water abstraction from the Okavango River may affect the long-term environmental sustainability of the Okavango Delta by minimizing channel shifting and thereby reducing spatial biodiversity. The paper argues that while conservation of the natural environment is critical, the pressing development needs must be recognized. The reduction of poverty within the basin should be addressed in order to alleviate adverse effects on the environment. The paper recommends that the development of sustainable tourism and community-based natural resource management initiatives may be appropriate strategies for reaching the Millennium Development Goals of poverty alleviation and achievement of environmental sustainability in the Okavango Basin. These initiatives have a comparative advantage in this area as demonstrated by the performance of the existing projects

Boobs and Barbie: Feminist posthuman perspectives on gender, bodies and practice

In this chapter our aim is to look at the complex relational assemblages by which young people’s bodies are engaged in ‘gendered becomings’ to show a feminist posthuman perspective. We draw on conceptual tools from Deleuze and Guattari in combination with Barad to re-think practice. From this perspective, gendered embodiments are not simply the reproductions of dualist gender formations; rather, gender is engaged, negotiated and produced continually through affects and micro-relations. We show this by exploring the territorialisations and micro-relations involved in the practice of cosmetic surgery (breast implants), and examples of transversality in a feminist schoolbased project that aimed to produce different gendered assemblages through research practice. A focus on the ‘doings’ of gender enables the ambiguities and complexities of gender to be explored, including, the discursive, bodily, sensate, affective and material dimensions of practice. In particular, this approach can assist in developing alternative understandings of the ways the conditions of possibility for gendered embodiments and social change emerge through practice

Doing the Möbius Strip: The politics of the Bailey Review

In media and policy discourses on sexualisation, there has been an apparent split. Some have constructed young women as innocent children, incapable of meaningful sexual and commercial choices; others have treated young women as neo-liberal adults, agentic and savvy choice-makers. We analyse how the Bailey Review on the Sexualisation and Commercialisation of Childhood (published by the UK Department of Education) attempts to manage the tensions associated with making both arguments at once. We theorise the split as ‘doing the möbius strip’, as both sides agree on the assumption that commercial and sexual choice is either present or absent for young women. In this way, they reframe the contradictions and inequalities that shape young women’s behaviours as a problem of propriety and decency

@Notofeminism, #Feministsareugly, and Misandry Memes: How Social Media Feminist Humor is Calling out Antifeminism

In this chapter, Lawrence and Ringrose consider how social media platforms have provided new ways for feminists to engage with antifeminist and postfeminist discourses. They explore how feminist humour and irony are used as rhetorical and debating strategies to challenge problematic arguments against or about feminists by re-staging antifeminist claims as absurd, ridiculous, and illogical. We argue that humorous posts play a central role in increasing feminist audiences and mobilizing feminist connectivity, collectivity, and solidarity. The chapter also demonstrates how some of the humour is inclusive and sensitive to intersectional power relations, but other examples slip into gender binary and white feminist discourses that neglect raced and classed power structures

Recognizing and addressing how gender shapes young people's experiences of image-based sexual harassment and abuse in educational settings

This paper explores findings from a study with 150 young people (aged 12-21) across England, which employed qualitative focus groups and arts-based methods to investigate young people's experiences of digital image-sharing practices. In this paper, we explore how gendered pressures to send nudes experienced by girls is a form of Image-Based Sexual Harassment (IBSH) and how pressures upon boys to secure nudes and prove they have them by sharing them non-consensually is Image-Based Sexual Abuse (IBSA). In addition, we argue boys’ sending nudes (dick pics) non-consensually is a form of image based sexual harassment, which can be compounded by harassment of girls to send nudes back. We look at the gendered nature of combined practices of Image-Based Sexual Harassment and Abuse (IBSHA) and how sexual double standards create sexual shaming and victim blaming for girls who experience IBSHA. We also explore young people's perspectives on their digital sex and relationship education and their suggestions for improvement. We conclude by arguing that schooling policies and practices would benefit from adopting the conceptual framework of IBSHA. We suggest this would be a good first step in better supporting young people in managing and negotiating digital gendered and sexualized consent, harms, and risks