Gender Transformation and Childism

By analyzing the strategies of girl activists through the frameworks of Gender Transformative Approaches and childism, I examine how teenage girl feminist activism disrupts school-based sexual harassment. Drawing on ethnographic research with 11 girl activists in the South Korean SchoolMeToo Movement, I show how intersecting gender norms and age-based marginalization sustain sexual harassment cultures and silence schoolgirls’ resistance. My findings demonstrate that such activism not only identifies these structural conditions but also advances collective strategies for disruption that include reconstructing dominant understanding of teenage girls as sexual subjects, integrating #MeToo politics into formal political and school structures, and promoting gender-transformative and childist feminist education. By bridging these frameworks, I highlight the importance of addressing both gendered and age-based power relations in challenging school-based sexual harassment.