SOCY-498-01
December 4, 2013
Prof. L. Richards
Independent Study
Getting Played
Getting played is a book written by Jody Miller. It is essentially her recap of her
interviews with high school students in Saint Louis Missouri. She interviews both girls and
boys about sexual encounters in their school. The book asked the questions is there sexual
harassment in high school? and what should be done about it. Miller uses approximately
seventy-five students in her sample, forty boys and thirty five girls(Holland and Cumley).
Sexual Harrasment I
The answer is yes, there is sexual harassment in high school. She interviewed several
female and got their perspective on the issue. She wanted to know their personal experience with
sexual harassment. Several girls told the same story about boys disrespecting them walking down
the school hallway. Boys would try and talk to them by calling them or walk up to them and say
something like hello or what’s up and if they did not respond or talk to the boy, he would call her
a bad name, like a bitch or a hoe. If, she saw the boy again and he was with his friends, he tell all
of friends to start calling her names when she walked by them in the school high hallway. Other
girls talked about a similar situation when boys approached then in the hallway in school, but
they handled the situation differently, they would actually have a conversation with the boy to
avoid any disrespectful confrontation, but the side effect to this approach was that he going to
consider her his girlfriend, which would not be true or even worse, that you were having sex with
Independent Study
him and being passed around to his friends. This is a mild form of sexual harassment that some
of the girls experienced in high school(Miller,2008).
Sexual Harassment II
The next level of harassment is unwanted groping and touching. Once a girl lets down her
defense system and tries to be friends with the boy, the boy may try to hug the girl or touch the
girl without her permission. This is a more extreme and aggressive form of harassment, border
line date rape. This involves the physical interaction, not just mental interaction and also means
he is crossing the threshold of criminal activity. Most of the girls interviewed said that they
would not let the guy getaway with touching them sexually. These incidents normally led to
immediate confrontation with the boy(Miller,2008).
Options
According to a news article book review written by Ann Campos-Holland and Samantha
Cumley girls had few options to respond to boys sexual advances. Girls had to stand up for
themselves/show sufficient outrage, engage in avoidance techniques, third party intervention, or
ignore the incident. This placed women in a situation that Miller refers to as a “Gendered Double
Bind.” Showing outrage threatened the boys masculinity and was often simultaneously
accompanied by peer groups “Amping up the situation.” “Standing Up” ultimately led to young
women being labeled as “Stuck Up” “High Sididy Bitch” and “Too Good” for young men. As
the young men attempted to re-establish their masculine identities, they responded with gender
degradation or sexual and/or physical victimization. On the other hand, ignoring young a man’s
sexual advances tended to create an appearance that the girls were sexually available. In this
situation, the young women were labeled as “Hood Rats” or girls who were sexually open Independent Study
leading to continued or serial victimization and social isolation. Miller suggests that the school
peer context is a “testing” ground for these young to assess the sexual availability of girls
in the name of hegemonic masculinity (Holland and Cumley).
Prevention
What should be done about sexual harassment in high