From Back Off! How to Confront and Stop Sexual Harassers, by Martha J. Langelan:

One of the best ways to help children protect themselves is to teach them to stand up for themselves in all sorts of situations, including casual harassment at home, at school, or in the neighborhood. Because sexual abuse is so common, learning how to stand up to sexual harassment is important training for self-defense as well as self-esteem. Here's a good example of an eight-year-old girl who successfully confronted territorial harassment by boys on the playground:

"My name is Anna Marie. I am eight years old and I live in Maryland. I think girls have rights, too. This summer, I was playing on the big slide at my school. Two boys came over. They said, 'Get off the slide!'

"Then they said, 'You're a dumb girl, get off, we want to play.' I didn't say anything. I stayed on the slide. Then they called me a dumb girl again. I didn't like it.

"Then they started singing a stupid yucky song: 'I see London, I see France, I see Annie's underpants.' That made me so mad!

"I called my grandmother to come over here please. She was sitting on the bench by the sandbox. She goes to marches for women's rights. She took me to a big march once in Baltimore; it was neat. She was busy and didn't hear me, so I went to get her. I told her what the boys did. She said, 'You go right back and tell those boys to stop harassing girls.'

"I went back and they were on the slide. My grandmother was watching me. I said real loud, 'YOU STOP HARASSING GIRLS! THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT BOYS' UNDERPANTS! THERE'S NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT GIRLS' UNDERPANTS! THAT IS A STUPID SONG! GIRLS HAVE RIGHTS, TOO!'

"They looked so surprised! They got off the slide and ran away. I was proud of myself. My grandmother was proud of me, too!"

Note the specifically gender-related nature of the harassment—the comments about "dumb girls" and the targeting of the girl's underwear were both intended to humiliate her as a female. When this kind of language is used, the interaction is not simply a matter of routine playground sparring among kids; this is an incident of gender-specific, sexist harassment.

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