Violence is a prevailing problem in elementary schools, middle schools and high schools throughout Canada. According to the research made by CBC 41% of boys say they were physically assaulted, 26% of girls say they experienced unwanted sexual contact at school and one in four students first experienced sexual harassment or assault before Grade 7. Fights and verbal harassment can be found at most schools and most of the time boys are the ones involved with these problems. The question here is: Why is violence so prevailing and why are boys more likely to cause violence?

Willingness to fight, desire to fight.

First, whenever a boy is challenged or being picked on everyone expects them to fight. This aggressiveness is one of the main characteristics of masculinity. Indeed, boys are taught that they should engage in the fight and win in order to be recognized. “Give them hell.” was one of the expressions used by Kimmel on the intro to men’s studies it represents how boys will be often confronted. On top of that, wanting to pick fights and win is almost glorified in a certain way, especially during teenage years. This explains how easy it is to begin fights at school or other places like the school bus.

Relationships and Status 

Second, boys are taught that status is important, so competition is also involved with this phenomenon. They want to prove they are better and stronger and that they are not weak. In a lot of cases, they also want to make up for a lack of self-esteem. In addition, another cause of school violence is that friends and peers put pressure on boys. For example, friends can push boys to get involved in fights. It also is common for a group of boys to bully other people together. Boys that disagree with violence will not speak up or report what happened because they are afraid to get rejected since one of the rules of “Bro Code” is no snitching.

Anti-femininity

Third, another of the main characteristics of masculinity is antifemininity this consists on avoiding emotions. This prevents them from being empathetic. The emotions will often accumulate and boil up and will get out eventually, this can take the form of physical aggression.

Sexism

Sexual assault is directly linked to sexism. This is because men tend to think they are superior than women and they consider them as objects. This way of thinking has been taught to them by interactions, the people that surround them, social media, advertisements and the portrayal of men and women in films and TV. They will consider those acts as conquests and as a way to feel superior.

How can we prevent physical assault/fights?

Schools have to raise awareness of how hurtful bullying and school violence is. We as a society can also stop this by changing the idea that boys need to fight and be tough so that physical assault isn’t normalized. Other ways to prevent this kind of violence is to teach the children the importance of emotions and how to handle them as well as giving them resources so that they can seek help if they are experiencing problems in their household or in their life. Lessons on self esteem could also be helpful.

How can we prevent sexual assault?

Putting clear and good policies for these kinds of problems is one of the firsts steps. It is extremely important in order to protect and help the victims and to stop whoever is hurting them. In addition, schools must teach that women are equal to men and that they should be respected. Teaching what exactly is consent and sexual assault is also very important. 

Lastly, we need to change problematic representations of men and women in films TV and social media (this goes for both physical and sexual assault), in order to prevent sexism and challenge the idea of what a man is. It is by breaking apart sexism and masculinity that we will be able to confront the issue of school violence.

Violence has always been a prominent issue in every school, in every grade and any student can suffer from this. Every student has either witnessed or been victims of physical or sexual assault, although less than fifty percent of students have reported it according to CBC. Many different reasons why students do not denounce these assaults are tied to the reactions of both the school system and their peers. Often times, when these situations happen, the victims are afraid that nothing will be done for them and are afraid of the repercussions they will experience after telling their story. The fear comes from being called a “snitch” by their classmates, says Jayden Trudell, a victim of physical violence. Boys and girls experience a different type of violence that is not only restricted to physical violence but also sexual assault or harassment. High school students must depend on themselves and their parents most of the time to get through these circumstances.

The government’s lack of database on violence in schools encourages the education system to deny and reject any allegations made against a student for fear that it will tarnish the schools’ and/or the students’ reputation. There is no concrete number of how many violent incidents happen in school which leaves both the judicial and education system, with the idea that nothing is happening inside a space that is supposed to be safe. It is easier for schools and the administration to take no action when the reports on violent incidents are not accessible to the public, it gives them an advantage since no one has information on these incidents that can be used against them.

Without the parents’ knowledge of what is happening in their children’s schools, it also makes it difficult for the victims to speak on their experiences. The parents that are interviewed in the short CBC documentary are aware that the police is often at their children’s schools but have no further information explaining why they are there or if anyone in danger, including their own kids. The fact that schools withhold this information from the parents reveals that even the schools are not properly equipped or trained to track every violent incident in school. Regardless, even when a student comes forward and talks to an adult that is supposed to be a trustworthy person, the school does not take action to protect the victims or punish the people responsible for these assaults.

Girls in high school suffer mostly from sexual assault, unwanted sexual contact, and are called degrading names. High schools often claim that students are not adults but when a situation like rape happens, the girls are expected to deal with it on their own, find therapy and even act like nothing has happened. One in four girls in high school “face unwanted touching and grabbing” and three in five girls do not report the sexual violence experienced in school, and less than fifty percent of sexual violence incidents are reported. In comparison to boys, they use violence to portray their strength and assert their masculinity, “this contact becomes highly ritualized and sometimes aggressive” (Kimmel 167). Because of this idea that masculinity comes from strength, they are usually victims of physical assault and suffer at the hands of other boys, which may most likely be boys in their classroom. This leads us to assume that the teachers are not protecting their students within their classes, and once they leave those four walls, the victims are even more prone to bullying outside of class times, times where no adults are present and boys are the most vulnerable. Since the government nor the educational system keep track of the violence in schools, it leads the bullies to use weapons other than their fists: forty one percent of boys experience physical violence in school and one in five boys are threatened with weapons. Both boys and girls are left unprotected by the school system, the teachers, the administration and the judicial system.

In order to decrease the violence in schools and to start acting accordingly to every different situation, schools must first talk to their students before making any decisions. The parents should be notified of any incident in school, whether it is about lice, sexual assault or physical violence. The parents have the right to know if they are sending their children to a safe place. By acknowledging the victims and keeping track of the violence present in schools, the boards would take better actions to support the victims and penalize the person inflicting harm. Safety plans and supporting movements like the “SlutWalk” would improve the students’ trust in their administration and decrease the number of assault cases.

References:

Kilmartin, Christopher. “No Man Is an Island: Men in Relationships.” The Masculine Self, Sloan Pub., 2010.

McGuire, Jennifer. “Why CBC Started Looking into Violence in Schools | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 9 Nov. 2019, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-violence-editors-note-1.5331402.

“School Violence: How to Fight for Safer Schools.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, gem.cbc.ca/media/marketplace/season-47/episode-4/38e815a-011d8f47088.

Many people can easily remember the good memories from high school, but for every good memory there are 5 bad ones. Many of these bad memories are cases of bullying. A lot of my friends have had at least one case of being harassed or bullied by another classmate. My girl friends have all been sexually harassed and my guy friends have been harassed violently. Although many schools have taken measures to ensure bullying is being stopped, it is still a very pressing matter in today’s society. The reasons why violence in schools is still very prominent is because many of these cases are not being reported, young boys are taught to fit certain stereotypes of what a man should be and how girls show dress and act, and lastly, school boards aren’t giving children the support they need to help stop this bullying. The biggest aspect to violence in schools is because society teaches young boys to be heroes and fight their own battles.

Bullying is still a very present matter because many of these cases are not being reported. According to the documentary “The Mask You Live In” one out of four boys have encountered harassment or violence, but only 30 percent report their incidents. This reason is because boys are scared that they will be considered “wusses” or “babies” for tattling on their peers. They have been taught by society to man up and deal with bullying with violence. This aggression stems from the fact that boys and young men are holding in all their emotions because society and their peers say that they can not show emotion.

Boys and men can not show their emotions because ever since human beings distinguished between male and female, there have been differences for each gender and what they are expected to do in their day-to-day lives. Women are stereotyped to be housewives and men are supposed to be the money makers. This is why violence is such a big part of a young man’s life. It has been drilled into their brains ever since birth to be violent and to not let other men step on you. It is also drilled into men’s brains from society that sexual harassment in any shape or form is okay. Rape culture is a very real concept that women must face at least once in their lifetimes.

Lastly, school boards do not do their best to help these situations. This is more of a biased opinion because there are no statistical facts to prove this, however many people, including myself, can agree to this statement. A friend of mine was sexually assaulted at my school. Usually the principal would do something more than just suspending the perpetrator. and the school board did the bare minimum to help her. They suspended the boy and that’s all. They could have done more to reprimand this boy, but they did not. These issues have not only been presented in my high school but other of my friends’ high schools. At my neighboring high school there was an incident where a boy beat up another boy and the principal did nothing other than send the boy to detention. These situations are very common in high schools but there is a mix of students not reporting and the school not doing many things to help the victims of these terrible situations.

In conclusion, the things that we need to do is to stop making violence our social norm and making the school boards stricter on these violent acts. There are some possibilities that these boys are suffering, and they release their tension an anger by violence. It is not okay for these people to do this but if they were helped, they would not do these terrible acts. If it were a social norm for boys and men to be emotional then our lives would be so much more different than how it is right now.