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How Boys Deflect Responsibility for Street Harassment: Class, Race, and Responses to Sexual Violence Awareness Programmes

In this article, Mischa Dekker, shows how boys respond to harassment awareness training programs and analyses how such audiences might fail to see street harassment as ‘their’ problem

Author
Mischa Dekker
Date
05 October 2024
Links
Read the full article here

The article is based on ethnographic observations of street harassment awareness programmes organised in France, along with interviews with their participants. In the article, Dekker finds that boys’ intersectional identities informed their responses to these programmes. Boys of colour in schools located in underprivileged areas argued that racism towards racialised men, rather than their own behaviour, often led white women to report being sexually harassed. White boys in schools in more affluent areas avoided feeling responsible for street harassment by associating violent acts with working-class men or men of colour. The author argues that boys are more likely to deflect responsibility for sexual violence when a training programme insufficiently relates its message to their personal experiences and lifeworlds.

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