"Boys will be boys" and everyday sexism
Exploring ‘Everyday Sexism’ and the Generational Normalisation of technology facilitated abuse
Connie Copley
During summer 2023, I undertook a qualitative research project through the Sheffield Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) scheme titled ‘Exploring ‘Everyday Sexism’ and the Generational Normalisation of Technology Facilitated Abuse’. Technology facilitated abuse (TFA) is a growing form of violence against women and girls (VAWG), too often hidden in plain sight and orchestrated digitally. It is defined as criminal or harmful sexually aggressive, harassing, or coercive behaviours, perpetrated technologically (Henry and Powell, 2015). My research focused specifically on cis-women’s past experiences of TFA in secondary school, exploring whether there is culture of normalisation around such abuse, and how ‘everyday sexism’ impacts this normalisation.
Understanding the relationship between TFA and ‘everyday sexism’ uncovers a series of processes which intersect to create, maintain, and normalise sexism. I conducted six in-depth interviews, exploring these intersections, and to understand the interviewees' lived experiences through these processes. The conversations that emerged reflected the harsh realities of sexism and lad cultures in secondary schools, outlining the lived experiences of receiving unsolicited dick pics, pressure of sexting, and how girl’s nudes are too often used as ‘trophies’ in lad circles. A key issue which emerged from my research was the importance of education and open conversations about TFA and sexism in schools, with calls for improvements to be made to secondary sex education. Discussions also raised concerns of the lack of regulation of social media content, with misogynistic content being filtered into mainstream media.
Speaking about ‘everyday sexism’, one interviewee stated, “it’s just embedded in society because we’ve grown up on that idea”, echoing the normalisation of sexism in society, as Laura Bates’ (2014) Everyday Sexism Project uncovers. With the growth of technology and social media, sexism has infiltrated the digital sphere and, with the combination of lad cultures in secondary schools, created a culture where technology facilitated abuse is able to play out. Lad cultures or ‘laddism’ is defined as ‘banter’ adopted by boys and men to express masculinity; a disguise for sexism (Nichols, 2018). I found that (in the cases of my participants) this lad ‘banter’ was often disregarded through the phrase ‘boys will be boys’; “they just get told ‘boys will be boys’, [and] they think it’s normal”, excusing and further normalising sexist behaviour. My research was specifically centred around sexting and unsolicited dick pics, two forms of TFA which frequently take place in secondary school (and beyond). The interlocking factors of lad cultures, normalised sexism, and digital media allow these to take place, and often go unacknowledged.
Sexting (the act of sending nude or intimate images or messages) allows boys to navigate being a ‘lad’, with girl’s nudes acting as trophies of masculinity (Ringrose, Regehr and Whitehead, 2022). This is stated by a participant, “nudes would have been used as a trophy cabinet”, demonstrating this lad culture of boys being ‘cool’ if they are sexually active, which is also applied digitally, where boys are ‘rated’ if they receive nudes (Ringrose et al., 2013). Nudes often become symbols of proof that boys gain access to girls’ bodies, as well as securing their status as a ‘lad’. This sexual objectification of girls can be referred to as homosociality; objectifying girls to prove masculine status (Hunehäll Berndtsson and Odenbring, 2021). Unsolicited dick pics (sending unwanted sexual images, also called cyberflashing) can reflect male sexual entitlement, where unsolicited dick pics can be an expression of male dominance, or in hope of a positive response (Amundsen, 2021). They can also be used to initiate a nude transaction, a coercive idea that women owe one back. This pressure for girls to reciprocate is echoed throughout my interviews, with one participant saying, “I think girls are more pressured into sending them”. This imbalance in sexual image exchange represents the normalisation of sexism, where girls and women are not only reduced to a sexual object and are pressured into sending sexual images, but the double standards of boys being ‘lads’ when girls are ‘sluts’ for the same activity, is a form of ‘everyday sexism’ (Hunehäll Berndtsson and Odenbring, 2021).
From early socialisation, girls are expected to be attractive and feminine, developing into harsher forms of sexualisation as they grow into women, while the ‘boys will be boys’ narrative endures throughout. ‘Everyday sexism’ grows from childhood gender inequalities, fore-fronted in secondary school through TFA, and is maintained throughout adult life. This research project highlights the impact that ‘everyday sexism’ has on TFA, and vice versa, showing the dangers of “boys will be boys” and lad cultures on girls in secondary schools. A key message that I found synonymous across all the interviews was the importance of a better education in schools on TFA, and more open conversations on sexism.
FURTHER RESOURCES
https://everydaysexism.com/ - Laura Bates’ Everyday Sexism Project
References
Amundsen, R. (2021) ‘“A male dominance kind of vibe”: Approaching unsolicited dick pics as sexism’, New Media and Society, 23(6), pp. 1465–1480. doi: 10.1177/1461444820907025.
Bates, L. (2014) Everyday Sexism. London: Simon & Schuster.
Henry, N. and Powell, A. (2015) ‘Embodied Harms: Gender, Shame, and Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence’, Violence Against Women, 21(6), pp. 758–779. doi: 10.1177/1077801215576581.
Hunehäll Berndtsson, K. and Odenbring, Y. (2021) ‘'They don’t even think about what the girl might think about it’: students’ views on sexting, gender inequalities and power relations in school’, Journal of Gender Studies, 30(1), pp. 91–101. doi: 10.1080/09589236.2020.1825217.
Nichols, K. (2018) ‘Moving beyond ideas of laddism: conceptualising “mischievous masculinities” as a new way of understanding everyday sexism and gender relations’, Journal of Gender Studies, 27(1), pp. 73–85. doi: 10.1080/09589236.2016.1202815.
Ringrose, J. et al. (2013) ‘Teen girls, sexual double standards and “sexting”: Gendered value in digital image exchange’, Feminist Theory, 14(3), pp. 305–323. doi: 10.1177/1464700113499853.
Ringrose, J., Regehr, K. and Whitehead, S. (2022) ‘“Wanna trade?”: Cisheteronormative homosocial masculinity and the normalization of abuse in youth digital sexual image exchange’, Journal of Gender Studies, 31(2), pp. 243–261. doi: 10.1080/09589236.2021.1947206.