Flight Pundit

Sexual harassment. The big bad crime of our work life. A by product of the rabid feminist movement. And once again it’s men who get hurt the most with laws and policy regarding anything sexual. And anything not sexual. While I don’t condone the quid pro quos bulloney, almost all the other “cases” involving harassment are bogus…

Most people assume sexual harassment is about reining in cheesy lotharios who grope their colleagues in the mailroom or traffic in sexual quid pro quos. However, sexual harassment law goes far beyond such behaviors, which most of us agree obviously need to be discouraged and punished. But because of the subjective elasticity of the terms used in sexual harassment law, a whole range of other behaviors, many not having much to do with sex per se, are now subjected to the investigative and punitive powers of the state.

Yes…many of the charges and investigations are stupid and totally not about true harassment. The boss walks by and he says- “Good morning Miss”— could land him in hot water. Or he could do something really BAD like strike up a conversation with a woman, OR even worse, compliment her new haircut or outfit. SIN. Just sin.

Consider the following, from the Chancellor of the California State University system Charles Reed’s Executive Order 927, issued in January “in response to recent legal and legislative developments in the area of anti-harassment laws”: “Harassment occurs when unwelcome conduct is engaged in because of a protected status of an individual, which include [sic] race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, veteran status, physical disability, mental disability, or medical condition.”

Working with so many people who have rules like this to deal with will serve no purpose. Our society will become full of festering women who always seek to be the victim of some seen or unseen crime; men will become robots who dare not speak, look, touch or even think about their female co workers.

“Severe,” “pervasive,” “reasonable,” “intimidating, hostile, or offensive”––interpretations of the meaning of these words will be as numerous as the number of people in your office. Such terms are subjective, relative, contingent, and even arbitrary, their force dependent on nothing other than the perception of the alleged victim. This person can be hypersensitive, neurotic, stupid, or vicious, yet his or her definition of the law will set the standard for tripping an investigation.

It’s not just about this though. What’s more dangerous is the fact that people can use the words and activities of others as a basis for a claim: A few years back we were out on a break at my work. A couple of women (me and Kim) and a couple of guys…we were off in our own area joking about somethings and having a fun time just talking. Not one part of our conversation had anything to do with sex, with men or women AT ALL. Another co worker was nearby, maybe 100 feet away so she couldn’t really hear us…BUT she filed a complaint against US because our laughter made her uncomfortable. It intimidated her. It made her feel offended and nervous. Of course in the end she ended looking like a fool because the whole “case” got tossed. But think about it. Having a simple converation can land us all in trouble. Because of stupid laws like this.

Given that harassment lies in the eye of the victim, the course recommends that all employees constantly monitor and fine-tune their conversations and behaviors in order to avoid anything that could remotely be construed as objectionable to anyone in the “protected” categories. This advice, of course, is useless, given that there are so many subjective definitions of what’s objectionable that the only viable solution is to avoid most conversation or reduce one’s comments to banal pleasantries. In workplace discussions individuals will have to continually practice self-censorship to insure that their personal way of expressing themselves––with irony, sarcasm, or humor, for example––is not interpreted by the thin-skinned, the crazy, or the malignant as “harassment.”

At my work everyone takes “Sexual Harassment” training courses too. It’s 16 hours of bullshit. Women are told what they can consider to be harassment- anything goes: Being stared at, being bumped into, conversations. Yet men are told not to so much as say GOOD MORNING to one woman (it’s safer to say those things in a meeting where everyone else is present)…WHAT BULLSHIT. Men are told not to look at women. Those who are supervisors are warned about meeting with women without a witness in the room. They are told not to shake the hand of a woman, to never LOOK at a woman, not to EVER say anything about a woman’s appearance….on and on. It’s so unfair.

Sexual harassment law takes this responsibility for managing our free speech and its effects away from individuals, and so reduces us to children who require institutional nannies to monitor our behavior and protect the tender sensibilities of people no matter how unreasonable or neurotic their private standards of offense are. As such, current sexual harassment law is an insidious threat to freedom, one much more serious than the temporary intrusions on the privacy of people suspected of communicating with terrorists. And that threat, enshrined as it now is in law and legal precedent and backed up by state power, will be with us for a long time.

The normal everyday converations and meetups with people some of us thrive on. The standards of these sexual harassment rules apply only to work places…whats not acceptable here is perfectly ok in the town diner or the gym or when we’re out exercising or shopping. If a man walks up to a woman in a supermarket and tells her she looks good, it’s a compliment. But at work it’s sexual harassment?? I don’t think so. And I don’t even want to hear about any men who pull this on women they work with. A man who files a complaint against a woman is GAY and weak.

It seems to me that women who file these charges have an ISSUE with themselves; they have little self confidence and take that out on others. They use their “status” of being a woman to punish men. For being men. Men look. They like to be around us. They are social creatures too, who thrive on attention and conversation. If a man is paying attention to a woman she should take that as the ultimate compliment and accept it for what it is: Human nature. Not turn it into something unnatural and negative and phoney. Women should be proud of what and who they are, the power they do indeed have over men, instead of using it against them.
I am honored when I walk into an area where all men work and I see posters of women, a few lewd words etched into a wall, and get gawky looks…it doesn’t bother me. Because I am a woman, it’s a good thing that men take notice. Why anyone would be offended by this is above and beyond my understanding.

Cross Posted @ ARS

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