Untitled document (2) Essays - Human Sexuality, Humans,

High School Students and Slut Shaming The topic which my study is conducted on is "Slut Shaming". The main question I hope to answer in my research is: What agents of socialization influence students in high school, to become culturally accepted towards the idea of slut shaming? During adolescence, individuality is increasingly important and social relationships that extend beyond the family are flourishing. In adolescence, peers and social media contribute more than ever to a young person's understanding of the world and their influence helps to shape and form individual social values and attitudes. Slut shaming by male high school students that are directed at female students, is very common, that the literal meanings of such sexist words have been overlooked. The derogatory name-calling has now become a ubiquitous language used to insult any female about their sexual history, women who have an opinion, and their style of dressing. I argue that, through the influence of peers and social media, such acts hav e led to the cultural acceptance and agreeance of the double standard between men vs women, by teenagers, by incorporating such language into their pre-existing colloquial vocabs. What I would like to know is what drives teenagers, both male and female, to behave this way and what influences them to use such language stated above. The research method that I conducted to finding primary research was a survey. I used a survey because I found it effective in confirming my findings, and it also helped me gather more quantitative information on my study. I had collected data by distributing my survey digitally, to samples of twenty-four students, twelve which were male and the other twelve females, from whom I had received consent and agreed upon completing my survey. My survey group were my classmates, aging from the range of sixteen to seventeen. Since my study focused on teenagers, I thought it would be appropriate to survey students in that age range, also to see whether the values and beliefs of slut shaming resulted from different cultures, I had surveyed more than six different ethnic groups. To answer my research question, the survey focused on other questions such as: Which sex do you believe participates in slut shaming the most? What agents of socialization influences you the most during your ado lescence? What are some reasons you think, why people slut shame females? Do you think when people use sexist words, they use it for their literal term, or they mean something else? In total, I had eleven questions, based on the answers from these questions I could make appropriate conclusions on my study. After conducting my research, I analyzed the data to find that most of my theories were confirmed by the results of my data. When asked the question: Which sex do you believe participates in slut shaming the most? 41.7% of students believed that both sexes participate in slut shaming, 29.2% believed it is females, and only 16.7% believed it were males. (Figure A). It is well known throughout history that men were considered more "superior" then women due to certain circumstances, and were the primary instigators of slut shaming, but as a teenager myself, I feel and have observed that most male and female teenagers within society now, have accepted the act of slut shaming, not necessarily because they think it is morally correct, but they have conformed to this type of negligence, if this is how it has always been. According to Elisa Tate's report on The Frequency of Slut Shaming in Social media, "Online threats are often considered an accepted part of culture. Thus, there is often little legal consequences for participation in slut shaming, and feminists may become afraid to promote their social causes in public internet spaces" Women who are afraid to express their opinions not only affect themselves, but affect the lives of younger female generations to believe that the already pre-existing norms and values to be "right". What do you think is Slut shaming? majority of the students answered that slut shaming revolves around a women's appearance, clothing, sexual history and their opinions. This is supported by Elisa Tate's report, where it is stated that "slut shaming is a cyberbullying technique