The Nature of Sexism

I saw an article recently that gave me pause: 3 in 4 boys on B.C. street exploited by women. I've never been fully comfortable with feminism, especially as a female with a circle of friends that's 90% male. I don't dislike men, nor do I consider it in their nature to abuse any more than I consider it the nature of women to receive abuse (as some parents apparently believe). But this article moved me, for the second time in recent memory, to comment on sexism.

Please click the link and read the original article. The findings are interesting, though I have many quibbles with the method of sampling and data collection, as well as the method of reporting the findings. The Vancouver Sun seems to have written most of their article through copy-and-pasting from this press release. Next, if you like, read the 64 page PDF reporting the study's results. Incidentally, the research did not involve an original survey: Data sets from the McCreary Centre Society were used.

I noticed two things about the Vancouver Sun article:

1. The first statistic related to the abuse of females was buried 10 paragraphs down.

2. The headline is inaccurate. The headline reports that 3 in 4 B.C. boys on the street were sexually exploited by women. The actual statistics differ somewhat:

From the PDF:

"Around 1 in 3 street-involved youth indicated they were sexually exploited. Among the
younger street-involved youth in both surveys, a higher percentage of males than females
were sexually exploited (33% males vs. 24% females in 2000, 34% males vs. 27% females
in 2006). In contrast, among the older street-involved youth in 2001 in Vancouver, a higher
percentage of females identified as exploited (53% vs. 32% males)."

Using the most recent numbers, 36.5% of street-involved youth were exploited, making it impossible for 75% of all street-involved males to have been exploited, even if only males had been exploited. Let's find an accurate headline. From the Sun:

"Some youth in each gender were exploited by women with more than three out of four (79 per cent) sexually exploited males reporting exchanging sex for money or goods with a female."

So, a total of 33% of males surveyed were exploited. Of these, 79% were exploited by females. In other words, 26.07% of male street-involved youth surveyed were exploited by females.

Accurate Headline:

1 in 4 B.C. boys on street sexually exploited by women

However, this headline still sounds more like a press release than accurate reporting of the results of an important study. In addition, it's still sexist. Does the abuse suffered by girls have less import because, according to the report, it's more expected? I mean, really. Because we expect girls to be abused, let's report only on the abuse suffered by boys?

It's not impossible to report such results in a gender-neutral way. In fact, I'll demonstrate. The following is my version of the Sun article:

More than 1 in 3 B.C. street youth sexually exploited

Study says most abuse comes from opposite sex

VANCOUVER - Canada's largest study into the sexual exploitation of street-involved youth, including runaways, couch-surfing youths, and youths involved in street-based activities such as selling and purchasing drugs, has found that 36.5% of street-involved youth in British Columbia have been sexually exploited, with 86.5% of exploitation overall perpetrated by members of the opposite sex.

Boys and girls were equally likely to suffer from sexual exploitation, with 40% of males and 33% of females overall reporting that they had traded sexual activities for money, drugs, gifts, food, services, shelter, transportation or anything similar. Among younger street-involved youth, more males than females were exploited. Among older street-involved youth, females were more likely to have been exploited.

Elizabeth Saewyc, associate professor of nursing at the University of British Columbia, served as principal investigator for the study conducted by Vancouver's McCreary Centre Society.

The results were drawn from interviews with 1,845 youth - some as young as 12 - in surveys taken across the province between 2000 and 2006.

Sexual exploitation is defined as youth under 19 trading sexual activities for money, drugs, gifts, food, services, shelter, transportation or anything similar. This can include work in brothels, escort services, pornography and Internet sex but it also includes what's described as "survival sex," where a child provides sex in exchange for a place to sleep, a meal or a ride.

The study found that around one in every three children living on the street have been sexually abused, although many did not appear to feel that they had been exploited, said Saewyc. Some of the youth surveyed considered the persons exploition them to be friends or romantic partners.

"It's a shocking number. The law is clear: any adult who has sex with children for any form of consideration is exploiting them and it's illegal," Saewyc said.

The study found 94% of exploited females reported they had been sexually exploited by men. Of exploited males, 79% were exploited by women. Of the report's findings that 79% of exploited males were exploited by women, Saewyc said, "I must admit it wasn't something we were expecting."

The study says the social systems in place to deter and prevent sexual predation were only designed to help females and the criminal justice system wasn't concerned with what was happening to young males.

Saewyc said the findings were indicative of prevailing myths about sexual abuse, including the perception that most victims are girls and most abusers are men.

"Part of the challenge is that young males are not seen as being exploited because they are not coming to the attention of the police and the police aren't out there picking up the perpetrators. The system is set up to handle the sexual exploitation of young women, not young men," she said.

Community research associate Jayson Anderson said most of the programs to deal with sexual exploitation were designed by women for women. "There's really nothing out there for males. So we need programs for young boys," he said.

The study showed that the following youth were most likely to suffer from sexual predation:

- those who were lesbian, gay or bisexual
- Aboriginals
- those with physical or mental health issues
- those who had been abused by family members
- youth that had been in government care.

It's possible to report the findings of a study that involved gender-- even surprising findings about gender-- without sexism. It's possible to report the abuse of boys without disclaiming the suffering of girls.

It's possible to call for changes to the criminal justice system without forgetting that the current system is in place for a reason. It's possible to help boys without forgetting girls, and to help girls without leaving boys out in the cold.

Unfortunately, the nature of sexism is to expect that to extend opportunity to one gender, one must disenfranchise the other. It's unfortunate that in order to call attention to a study about sexual exploitation, authors must emphasize the results relating to boys and bury the results relating to girls. It's unfortunate that journalists accept the sexism in press releases and publish them nearly verbatim. But most unfortunate of all is that, if programs serving abused females are attacked as sexist, it's not sexists who'll suffer; it's abused girls.

The experience and expertise of professionals who treat female victims of sexual abuse must not be thrown away as sexist merely because boys and girls respond in unique ways to receiving abuse. The knowledge present in programs that focus on the treatment of females must not be denied because those programs have failed to adequately serve abused boys. It's that experience and knowledge that should advise a developing system of treatment for male victims of sexual abuse. Caring for sexually abused boys is a new and evolving science, and young professionals interested in this occupation will need the mentorship and oversight of persons experienced in the treatment of survivors of sexual abuse.

Make new programs, but keep the old. Don't reduce resources available to female survivors in order to increase resources available to male survivors of abuse.

Equality isn't everyone getting the same thing. It's everyone getting what they need.