If you witness sexual harassment in public, would you take action to stop it?

[davidn3600]

A few years old so maybe some of you all have seen it. But this is a pretty interesting video....

Two actors play a manager and a hostess. The manager commits obvious acts of sexual harassment on the hostess in front of customers who don't know they are on a hidden camera show. You can see the reactions...

They then even change the hostess's outfit to see if it makes a difference.

[Behind the Aegis]

1. I like watching that show, though it is getting repetitive.

This is a really old one which I hadn't seen. They have re-done the scenario a few different times. It is pretty much the same. In one of the more recent incarnations, a female boss sexually harassing a male employee is never confronted (that they show).

Being sexually harassed sucks in a big way. Some people think it is easy to file a claim or demand it stop, but it doesn't work that way, in reality, even in this day and age.

[merrily]

2. Just ask Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

[Behind the Aegis]

3. huh?

What does that have to do with my comment? He wasn't sexually harassed as I recall.

[merrily]

4. But Anita Hill was. So were others. Their harasser did not suffer noticeably,

though.

[Behind the Aegis]

5. And that had what to do with what I wrote?

The system usually does not favor the victim.

[merrily]

6. It was my reaction to the last couple of lines of your post.

Being sexually harassed sucks in a big way. Some people think it is easy to file a claim or demand it stop, but it doesn't work that way, in reality, even in this day and age.

And this was exactly my point: "The system usually does not favor the victim."

With the addendum that complaining may hurt the victim, while not disadvantaging the harasser so you would notice.

Anita Hill went through a pretty hard time in those hearings and after. Thomas, not so much.

[Behind the Aegis]

7. Oh, OK.

The harasser can "suffer", but it usually doesn't work that way, of which I am aware.

[merrily]

8. It sure didn't where I worked. The harassers there were the partners who owned

the place. No female was safe, whether she worked making copies or she was one of their supposed professional peers.

[Behind the Aegis]

9. It didn't work that way for me either.

There are those who think you can't sexually harass a man.

[merrily]

10. You can harass anyone, and, in general, few

have had to put up with more harassment than gays. The amount of shit gays have to put up with on a daily basis, start with school days, boggles my mind.

[Behind the Aegis]

12. I was sexually harassed when I was in HS.

She was the regional manager. There wasn't much I could do, until I found out she was embezzling. I was 16 and it was my first job, so I didn't really do anything. I was accused of sexually harassing a candidate. The thing was I knew I didn't do it, but I got punished for it. It took three years, but eventually it came out that I wasn't the one who had sexually harassed the candidate, it was the person who accused me (I wasn't actually ever accused by the person, I was TOLD by someone else)! He eventually got his, for...wait for it...embezzlement. I don't know if that is irony or what, but boy did people trip over themselves to apologize to me. However, the damage was done. It, my being accused, was actually a form of harassment because I was gay and out.

No one should ever have to be at the receiving end of harassment. It is demeaning, demoralizing, and embarrassing. Well, I am preaching to the choir, aren't I? Do you know if the harasser ever got any type of retribution?

What is really sad is that some try to find reasons to blame the victim (the way s/he dressed (see the first video), who is harassing whom, power plays). G-d forbid, someone prove some falsely accused someone of sexual harassment, and suddenly all claims of sexual harassment are bogus.

[merrily]

13. I am sorry that you had to suffer through that,

on top of everything else gays suffered through then. It's better now, but I know it's far from over. But, at least there's movement at long, long, long last.

[Behind the Aegis]

14. I apprecaite it. It forged me into who I am.

I am sorry you had to suffer the indignity of being harassed. If someone hasn't been on the "receiving" end, it can be really hard for someone to understand. Like women, it seems every time GLBT people make a step forward, we get slapped in the face to "remind us" where we really stand!

[merrily]

15. Thanks and I get it.

Sometimes, the things that cause us the most pain also cause the most growth and joy.

But, jeez, it seems to me that gays have had too much more than their share of the kind of joy that comes from triumphing over pain.

[Sherman A1]

11. I have in the past

on at least three occasions at work over the years. Pissed off one guy in doing so really bad, but probably saved his job at the same time in doing so.

I have found that using what I call an oblique approach to the harasser gets the job done in some cases and using the Fatherly approach works in others.

Don't know if it stopped them entirely, but it ended the business in the area where I was and that was the best I could hope for at the time.