May 2022 onwards | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 1214 | 1214 | 125 |
Full Text Views | 283 | 283 | 5 |
PDF Downloads | 225 | 225 | 6 |
EPUB Downloads | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Sexual harassment is an affective, embodied and relational issue with distinctly gendered consequences for those who experience it. Despite a vast literature illuminating the gendered dynamics of sexual harassment, detailed analyses of the affective dimensions of such dynamics are scarce. This article analyses young women’s and nonbinary people’s experiences of sexual harassment from the perspective of affective embodiment. The analysis draws on Sara Ahmed’s theorisation on embodied hurts, orientations and emotions to trace relational, embodied and affective processes of gendering linked with sexual harassment. The analysis identifies two harassment-related embodied processes: embodied regulation and embodied resistance. Whereas embodied regulation takes the form of feminisation – a process that renders bodies vulnerable – embodied resistance includes a variety of orientations labelled here as preparedness, defeminisation and embodied critique. Thus, the analysis suggests that bodies may respond to sexual harassment in varied ways, and even though harassment contributes to the constant shaping of bodies, it does not determine them.
Ahmed, S. (2010) Orientations matter, in D. Coole and S. Frost (eds) New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics, Durham, NC/London: Duke University Press, pp 234–57.
Ahmed, S. (2014) The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 2nd edn, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Ahmed, S. (2018) Feminist hurt/feminism hurts, in A. Koivunen, K. Kyrölä and I. Ryberg (eds) The Power of Vulnerability: Mobilising Affect in Feminist, Queer and Anti-Racist Media Cultures, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp 59–67.
Ahmed, S. (2021) Complaint!, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Betts, L., Harding, R., Peart, S., Knight, C.S., Wright, D. and Newbold, K. (2018) Adolescents’ experiences of street harassment: creating a typology and assessing the emotional impact, Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 11(1): 38–46.
Blackman, L. and Venn, C. (2010) Affect, Body & Society, 16(1): 7–28.
Boyle, K. (2019) What’s in a name? Theorising the inter-relationships of gender and violence, Feminist Theory, 20(1): 19–36. doi: 10.1177/1464700118754957
Butler, J. (1993) Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’, New York: Routledge.
Cahill, A.J. (2001) Rethinking Rape, New York: Cornell University Press.
Eom, E., Restaino, S., Perkins, A.M., Neveln, N. and Harrington, J.W. (2015) Sexual harassment in middle and high school children and effects on physical and mental health, Clinical Pediatrics, 54(5): 430–38. doi: 10.1177/0009922814553430
Epstein, D. (1997) Keeping them in their place: hetero/sexist harassment, gender and the enforcement of heterosexuality, in A.M. Thomas and C. Kitzinger (eds) Sexual Harassment: Contemporary Feminist Perspectives, Guilford/King’s Lynn: Open University Press, pp 154–71.
Espelage, D.L., Hong, J.S., Rinehart, S. and Doshi, N. (2016) Understanding types, locations, & perpetrators of peer-to-peer sexual harassment in US middle schools: a focus on sex, racial, and grade differences, Children and Youth Services Review, 71: 174–83. doi: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.11.010
Fileborn, B. (2016) Doing gender, doing safety? Young adults’ production of safety on a night out, Gender, Place & Culture, 23(8): 1107–20. doi: 10.1080/0966369x.2015.1090413
Fileborn, B. and Hindes, S. (2024) It is ‘part of this larger tapestry of anti-queer experiences’: LGBTQ+ Australians’ experiences of street harassment, Critical Criminology, 1–18. doi: 10.1007/s10612-023-09742-4
Gavey, N. (2018) Just Sex? The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape, London: Routledge.
Gruber, J. and Fineran, S. (2016) Sexual harassment, bullying, and school outcomes for high school girls and boys, Violence Against Women, 22(1): 112–33. doi: 10.1177/1077801215599079
Helakorpi, S. and Kivimäki, H. (2021) Kouluterveyskyselyn 2021 Tuloksia [Results from School Health Study], Helsinki: Terveyden ja Hyvinvoinnin laitos.
Hemmings, C. (2012) Affective solidarity: feminist reflexivity and political transformation, Feminist Theory, 13(2): 147–61. doi: 10.1177/1464700112442643
Huuki, T. and Renold, E. (2016) Crush: mapping historical, material and affective force relations in young children’s hetero-sexual playground play, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37(5): 754–69. doi: 10.1080/01596306.2015.1075730
Kelly, L. (1989) Surviving Sexual Violence, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Kelly, L. (2012) Standing the test of time? Reflections on the concept of the continuum of sexual violence, in J.M. Brown and S.L. Walklate (eds) Handbook on Sexual Violence, London: Routledge, pp xvii–xxvi.
Kinnunen, T. and Kolehmainen, M. (2019) Touch and affect: analysing the archive of touch biographies, Body & Society, 25(1): 29–56. doi: 10.1177/1357034x18817607
Mendes, K., Ringrose, J. and Keller, J. (2018) #MeToo and the promise and pitfalls of challenging rape culture through digital feminist activism, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 25(2): 236–46. doi: 10.1177/1350506818765318
Pihkala, S., Huuki, T. and Sunnari, V. (2019) Moving with touch: entanglements of a child, Valentine’s Day cards, and research–activism against sexual harassment in pre-teen peer cultures, Social Sciences, 8(8): 1–13. doi: 10.3390/socsci8080226
Renold, E. (2002) Presumed innocence: (hetero)sexual, heterosexist and homophobic harassment among primary school girls and boys, Childhood, 9(4): 415–34. doi: 10.1177/0907568202009004004
Ringrose, J. and Renold, E. (2014) ‘F** k rape!’ Exploring affective intensities in a feminist research assemblage, Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6): 772–80. doi: 10.1177/1077800414530261
Robinson, K.H. (2005) Reinforcing hegemonic masculinities through sexual harassment: issues of identity, power and popularity in secondary schools, Gender and Education, 17(1): 19–37. doi: 10.1080/0954025042000301285
Russell, A.M. (2013) Embodiment and abjection: trafficking for sexual exploitation, Body & Society, 19(1): 82–107. doi: 10.1177/1357034x12462251
Shildrick, M. (2002) Embodying the Monster: Encounters with the Vulnerable Self, London: Sage.
Sills, S., Pickens, C., Beach, K., Jones, L., Calder-Dawe, O., Benton-Greig, P., et al (2016) Rape culture and social media: young critics and a feminist counterpublic, Feminist Media Studies, 16(6): 935–51. doi: 10.1080/14680777.2015.1137962
Sylwander, K.R. and Gottzén, L. (2020) Whore! Affect, sexualized aggression and resistance in young social media users’ interaction, Sexualities, 23(5–6): 971–86. doi: 10.1177/1363460719872727
Quinn, B.A. (2002) Sexual harassment and masculinity: the power and meaning of ‘girl watching’, Gender and Society, 16(3): 386–402. doi: 10.1177/0891243202016003007
Venäläinen, S. (2017) ‘I no longer let anyone hit me for free’: affective identificatory practices of women imprisoned for violent crimes, NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, 25(2): 126–40. doi: 10.1080/08038740.2017.1343256
Venäläinen, S. and Calder-Dawe, O. (forthcoming) Empowered and vulnerable? Analyzing affective-discursive practices and dilemmas in young people’s resistance to sexual harassment, Qualitative Psychology.
Vera-Gray, F. (2016) Men’s Intrusion, Women’s Embodiment: A Critical Analysis of Street Harassment, London/New York: Routledge.
Vera-Gray, F. (2018) The Right Amount of Panic: How Women Trade Freedom for Safety, Bristol: Policy Press.
Virrankari, L. and Leemann, L. (2022) Osallisuuden Kokemus ja Seksuaalinen Häirintä: Kouluterveyskyselyn 2019 Tuloksia [Social Inclusion and Sexual Harassment: Results of the 2019 School Health Promotion Study], Helsinki: Terveyden ja Hyvinvoinnin laitos.
May 2022 onwards | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 1214 | 1214 | 125 |
Full Text Views | 283 | 283 | 5 |
PDF Downloads | 225 | 225 | 6 |
Institutional librarians can find more information about free trials here