Technology-facilitated sexual violence perpetration as a tool for gender policing in secondary schools

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

This research examines student, teacher and administrator experiences of tech-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) in secondary schools in Ontario, Canada. TFSV includes a range of acts where digital technologies are used to facilitate virtual and in-person sexual harms. Data were collected using in-depth semi-structured interviews with 9 in-service teachers and 4 administrators as well as 16 recent secondary school graduates. Findings demonstrate that TFSV serves as both a mechanism for gender policing and a means of aligning with hegemonic masculinity and manosphere ideologies, with schools functioning as institutional contexts that enable the perpetration of these harms. Boys use TFSV to assert masculine dominance, gain peer approval and police gender norms, particularly by targeting girls through slut-shaming and image-based sexual abuse. Schools, prioritizing reputation over accountability, normalize these harms by downplaying disciplinary action and failing to address the structural forces sustaining digital gendered violence.