Yasmin Behbehani had just walked into her third-period health class when her friend asked her if she had seen the list.
“There’s a list of the girls’ names,” her friend Nicky Schmidt, a fellow senior at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland, said. “And we’re ranked.”
It included the names of 18 girls in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School’s International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, ranked and rated based on hot they looked, from 5.5 to 9.4, with decimal points to the hundredth place. There, with a number beside it, was Behbehani’s name.
A group of male students in their program created the list more than a year ago, but it resurfaced earlier this month, through text messages and whispers during class. One male classmate, seeing the name of his good friend Nicky Schmidt on the list, told her about it, and within 24 hours, dozens of girls had heard about the list.
They felt "violated" "objectified" by classmates they considered their friends. They felt uncomfortable getting up to go to the bathroom, worried that the boys might be scanning their bodies and “editing their decimal points,” said Lee Schwartz, one of the other senior girls on the list.
But there is power in numbers, too. Dozens of senior girls decided to speak up to the school administration and to their male classmates, demanding not only disciplinary action in response to the list but a schoolwide reckoning about the "toxic culture" that allowed it to happen.
That same Monday, a group of girls reported the list to an administrator, who encouraged the students not to talk about it around school, Schmidt said. The next day, the girls learned that after an investigation, school officials decided to discipline one male student with in-school detention for one day, which would not show up on his record.
The girls and administrators agreed that they should have a large meeting with the male students in the program, including the boys who created and circulated the list. That Friday, on International Women’s Day, almost all of the students in the IB program — about 80 students — met in a large conference room for what was supposed to be a 45-minute meeting during fifth period.
“There’s a list of the girls’ names,” her friend Nicky Schmidt, a fellow senior at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland, said. “And we’re ranked.”
It included the names of 18 girls in the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School’s International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, ranked and rated based on hot they looked, from 5.5 to 9.4, with decimal points to the hundredth place. There, with a number beside it, was Behbehani’s name.
A group of male students in their program created the list more than a year ago, but it resurfaced earlier this month, through text messages and whispers during class. One male classmate, seeing the name of his good friend Nicky Schmidt on the list, told her about it, and within 24 hours, dozens of girls had heard about the list.
They felt "violated" "objectified" by classmates they considered their friends. They felt uncomfortable getting up to go to the bathroom, worried that the boys might be scanning their bodies and “editing their decimal points,” said Lee Schwartz, one of the other senior girls on the list.
But there is power in numbers, too. Dozens of senior girls decided to speak up to the school administration and to their male classmates, demanding not only disciplinary action in response to the list but a schoolwide reckoning about the "toxic culture" that allowed it to happen.
That same Monday, a group of girls reported the list to an administrator, who encouraged the students not to talk about it around school, Schmidt said. The next day, the girls learned that after an investigation, school officials decided to discipline one male student with in-school detention for one day, which would not show up on his record.
The girls and administrators agreed that they should have a large meeting with the male students in the program, including the boys who created and circulated the list. That Friday, on International Women’s Day, almost all of the students in the IB program — about 80 students — met in a large conference room for what was supposed to be a 45-minute meeting during fifth period.
