4 ms·

I know this will never happen but I'd love it if people broke the terms "sexual harassment" or "sexism" into 3 different more specific descriptions of what happ

I know this will never happen but I'd love it if people broke the terms "sexual harassment" or "sexism" into 3 different more specific descriptions of what happened to them: (1) I got hit on (2) I was discriminated against (3) I was sexually assaulted or coerced (1) is a lot different than (2) and (3) and a lot of the stories coming out lately basically boil down to (1), a dude was sexually attracted to a woman and he let her know he wanted to hook up with her (not including examples where there were threats or leverage was applied which would fall into (3)). (2) and (3) are clearly 100% unacceptable and should result in immediate firing and criminal investigation for (3). (1) OTOH reflects a normal and healthy human reality: men want to have sex with women. Men and women hook up via work intros all the time. That is ok and even good IMO. If we talk about (1) separately and without inflammatory language maybe we could as a society even come up with a set of appropriate norms and rules for how people should act on their attraction to each other.

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TheCoelacanth 9y ago
I have never heard anyone call (1) sexual harassment as long as it was handled in an appropriate manner, i.e. a. There was no power relationship involved. Don't try to hook up with your subordinates. That is extremely inappropriate. b. It was not excessively crass. Asking someone out for a drink is okay; asking them outright for sex is not. c. It was not done repeatedly in the face of rejection. Hitting on someone once to see if they are interested is okay; continuing to hit on them after you have been rejected is not.
- eagsalazar2 9y ago
  I agree with your definition of inappropriate 100%. Don't agree that failing to be appropriate == sexual harassment. That there is a gap there is exactly what I'm calling out. Anyway, I never said (1) was always appropriate, I just said it was different than (2) and (3) and lumping them all together is polarizing and inflammatory. If I excused (1) at all the place I'm coming from is that the desire is healthy and normal and demonizing it and suppressing any sexual expression in the workplace is not productive and is simply not going to work in any case. If we talked about (1) separately without the polarizing language yeah there are definitely tons of ways idiots misbehave or nice guys just screw it up that we could probably improve on.

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TheCoelacanth 9y ago

I have never heard anyone call (1) sexual harassment as long as it was handled in an appropriate manner, i.e. a. There was no power relationship involved. Don't try to hook up with your subordinates. That is extremely inappropriate. b. It was not excessively crass. Asking someone out for a drink is okay; asking them outright for sex is not. c. It was not done repeatedly in the face of rejection. Hitting on someone once to see if they are interested is okay; continuing to hit on them after you have been rejected is not.

eagsalazar2 9y ago
I agree with your definition of inappropriate 100%. Don't agree that failing to be appropriate == sexual harassment. That there is a gap there is exactly what I'm calling out. Anyway, I never said (1) was always appropriate, I just said it was different than (2) and (3) and lumping them all together is polarizing and inflammatory. If I excused (1) at all the place I'm coming from is that the desire is healthy and normal and demonizing it and suppressing any sexual expression in the workplace is not productive and is simply not going to work in any case. If we talked about (1) separately without the polarizing language yeah there are definitely tons of ways idiots misbehave or nice guys just screw it up that we could probably improve on.