Sexual Harassment Essay, Research Paper
Injustices in this world infect people’s lives like diseases. One in particular has not only developed over the years, but cases spring up in the most unthought of places. This injustice commonly known as sexual harassment affects women, children, and occasionally men all across the globe. There are many aspects when it comes to sexual harassment including its background, opposing viewpoints on the popular belief, the popular viewing, sexual harassment in today’s society, solutions to the problem, and what the future would be like without this injustice on the world’s hands.
Sexual harassment has existed since the beginning of mankind. It was never considered a problem as it is in today’s society because values and principals in the past were extremely different. This injustice is just recently, in the past fifty years, becoming known as a problem, so it may seem as if it has come out of nowhere. In fact it has always existed, just never addressed. Up until the 1960’s women were only thought of as house wives and never had the right to think for themselves. Women began to stand up for rights in the sixties and feminism soared during this decade. By the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, this injustice was made illegal. In this proclamation sexual harassment is ‘clearly’ defined as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affect’s on individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment” (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). Harassers are known to be anyone, but the public seems to target teachers, professors, and employers as common offenders. Harassers can do a lot more than just physically hurt their victims. The embarrassment, shame, anxiety and other emotional problems that inevitably occur from being sexual harassed is disturbing and infuriating. Sexual harassment occurs anywhere a person could go; is that not a scary thought to people, especially women, everywhere? Knowing this statement is true makes sexual harassment an injustice that needs to be stopped.
People refute sexual harassment as an injustice and claim behavior is just a part of human nature. Sexual harassment “…is everywhere, whether it is there or not” (Willis). People who believe this statement add that it is futile to attack behavior that is in the range of normal human response. A theory concerning a man’s need to pursue a woman in order to rise from rejection to acceptance in repeated trials is what opposing views claim. Woman also are said to want this type of attention and reject only to stimulate either or both of the two involved. Therefore concluding that sexual harassment is among people in daily situations, and conflicts such as the one exampled, should not target harassers for the over-dramatization of the victim.
It seems incomprehensible excuses are made for sexual harassment, but that is all they are excuses, not reasons. This injustice puts victims into a wave of emotional distress. “Woman know what sexual harassment is. It’s when your neck hairs stand up…when you feel like you’re being stalked” (Kantrowitz 35). People making claims that human nature should not be illegal must not know or have someone close to them be a victim of sexual harassment. Men should know when women cry out NO! they are not secretly meaning yes. Not to mention sexual harassers may openly provide better grades, job opportunities, etc, if the women would grant him a sexual favor. Hence, sexual harassment indeed is an injustice and excuses in opposing viewpoints can clearly be refuted.
If anything, sexual harassment is assumed to have increased over the years and has become rampant in schools. Victims and people involved are actually fit into categories in how he or she handles the problem, which leads to why sexual harassment is an injustice that keeps growing. The victim may tell herself she can handle the situation and to others it may look as if she can handle herself or maybe she is too scared of running her mouth. Strange enough, “some people are jealous of the attention the victim is getting or think it is just some big joke” (Black 46). Occasionally in the school sense, parents interfearing can make things worse and the child coming off as a ‘baby’ or a ‘coward.’ Sometimes parents are shocked and do not believe their child. “Accounts of sexual harassment in schools are not atypical. They are repeated daily across the country in every kind of community, from urban to rural areas” (Stein 26). In fact, “it is estimated that more than sixty percent of girls and forty percent of boys in the teenage years have been sexually harassed in some way, shape, or form” (Charen 52). Today’s children are the world’s future. Our future is hopeless if sexual harassment is an obstacle they must face. Which yet adds to the list of why sexual harassment is an injustice that needs to be stopped.
Sexual harassment can be erased. There are solutions to this problem that are being used but others are harder to come across. A clear definition of sexual harassment needs to be addressed so no excuses or exceptions can be found within the lines of the law. A policy statement indicating the intolerance of this injustice needs to be at a point in which the public understands this. Effective communication with those involved would be an ideal goal to stop sexual harassment. Also needed is the education for everyone, especially children. For the aftermath of a crime, an accessible grievance procedure for the victim would be objective. Sexual harassment is everywhere. Sexual harassment carries on from elementary, to junior high, to high school in elevating dramatic episodes. Now so-called intelligent professors in college victimize students for giving the incentive of a better grade. This is quite similar with teachers in previous educations, but now added to this whole spiel are bosses in the employment regions. Sexual harassment is a “threat to the social stigma, and there is a need to protect the integrity of the institution and the well-being of students, faculty, and staff” (Holub). These possible solutions need to be addressed in order to stop cases of sexual harassment. This injustice affects us still today, but hopefully methods and solutions can stop it.
The future would be rid of one of its greatest weakness, the discrimination of a human right, which realistically would simply be put marvelous. The declination of sexual harassment will inevitability be just the start of ending several injustices worldwide. If victimizers stop harassing and respecting the right a human possesses, other human rights will also shine through. Imagine a world where children are not scared to go to school and women are not afraid of going to work. A life without the stress and degradation of sexual harassment would leave us in a closer to perfect world.
Sexual harassment, one of the most unappealing injustices in this world, has many aspects to which people need to be educated on. Though not only the knowledge of main facts can stop the growth of this injustice. It is the way people take their knowledge and act upon it that will gradually eliminate the thought of sexual harassment from the minds of everyone. It is imperative that people strive to terminate this unruly injustice to make the future a brighter and happier place.
Bibliography
Reference:
Black, Beryl. Coping with Sexual Harassment. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 1987.
Charen, Mona. “Sexual Harassment Is Just Vulgar Behavior.” Conservative Chronicle 16 June 1993: 52-54
Holub, Johnathon. “Addressing Sexual Harassment On Campus.” Las Angeles: ERIC Digest, 2001 http://www.ed.gov/databases/ERIC_Digests/ed400002.html
Kantrowitz, Barbara. “Striking a Nerve.” Newsweek 21 October 1991: 34-37
Stein,Nan “What Is Sexual Harassment?” The School Administrator January 1994: 26-29
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “Facts About Sexual Harassment.”
http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-sek.html
Willis, Paul. “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.” Las Angeles: Erikson Publishing Co., 2000
http://www.arguments.harassment/sexualnature/Erikson/ed350800.html