The Observer, March 21, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 21
Reporting sexual harassment can be complicated, fruitless
I read with interest "Science, engineering need to eliminate bias against women" and Dean Taylor's prompt response, "Reporting sexual harassment is important." Having a nondiscrimination policy in effect is a start, but policymakers seem to fail to grasp just how difficult it is to deal with harassment. Even blatant sexual harassment, such as the incident Yvette Cendes mentioned, is problematic to report. You have to look up the appropriate person, contact them, find time for meetings, discuss the event over and over, and have your "story" openly weighed against others'. You risk retaliation from the object of the complaint, deal with the constant second-guessing of outsiders that you're "overreacting," obtain departmental reputation as an oversensitive whiner or standoffish troublemaker, contend with a blizzard of rumors (and often retaliation from people not directly involved), and still do all of the normal, stressful, time-consuming activities of an engineering or hard science major. The problem is doubled if the incident happens early in your college career and you face the prospect of more required classes with the harasser in question. Is it any wonder that most of us choose to pretend sexual harassment doesn't matter to us?
Case does a particularly bad job of dealing with behavior that falls into the gaping chasm between "sexual harassment" and "acceptable behavior." Behavior that does not meet the legal definition of sexual harassment is usually assumed to be permissible, and if the professor engages in or chooses not to restrain such behavior in the classroom, there's virtually no recourse.
Consider an example: The ENGR 398 class, of which I am a member, recently hosted a guest lecturer (David Miller of Mobile Discovery on Feb. 18) for a presentation on intellectual property. The discussion was centered on the 2D barcode trial currently going on at Case and some possible applications of the technology. It may be interesting to note that one of the example "use cases" that accompanied Miller's lecture was a photograph of a topless woman posed on a chair with her rear facing the camera. The 2D barcode was photoshopped onto her ass. Presumably this was meant to show the "creative" use of bar codes in print advertising, rather than an outright misogynist reference to branding women as dehumanized commercial property. During the question-and-answer portion of the lecture, one of my less socially aware classmates decided he was going to be clever. Below is a transcript of the exchange, taken from the MediaVision streaming recording of the lecture, which captured this charming scene for posterity.
Student: "So just as a suggestion, I think you should work on a technology where I can take a picture of an aesthetically pleasing woman and then her number and…[becomes inaudible as room dissolves into laughter]"
Lecturer: "Finish, finish it?"
Student: "So I take a picture of a broad, y'know, a good-looking girl, and her name and phone number are loaded into my phone – I'd pay five bucks a month for that."
Lecturer: "[laughs] It's a great use case, and, um, ah, let's see, I'm trying to think if you could do that on your own. So, you can't scan images right now, you have to create the association…well, you could put the picture of the girl and the code underneath and you could sign up to a monthly service to get more girls like that. Ah, there's a service on Facebook called Daily Babe, and you could plug into that on the back end to make this available."
I shouldn't have to explain what's wrong with that exchange, but here are some highlights for the spectacularly dim readers: (1) taking photographs of women who don't know you without their knowledge or permission, (2) acquiring personal information of women who don't know you without their knowledge or permission, (3) slapping barcodes on women as if they were six-packs of Budweiser from the local grocery store, (4) placing women in the same commercial context as preference-matched Netflix DVD rentals, (5) using the derogatory slang term "broad," (6) using the derogatory slang term "babe," (7) the general singling out of women as a group for commercial exploitation, and (8) the complete inappropriateness of this discussion as a whole in what is allegedly a pedagogical lecture on intellectual property.
Fortunately in this case the professor (Dr. Gary Wnek) has chosen to take action, consulted with university diversity resources, and addressed the incident in class. But not all professors are so conscientious. The prevailing view is that incidents such as my classmate's feeble attempt at wit are bad because they offend people. Such an attitude completely misses the point. These comments are not unacceptable because they offend people; rather, they offend people because they are unacceptable. "Chilling out" will not solve the problem because our anger is not the problem – the problem is the pathological nature of an intellectual community that trivializes the wholesale exploitation of an entire gender group as "funny" or "harmless."
I happen to be fortunate enough to have the time, energy, and thick skin necessary to take people to task for this kind of crap, but not everyone does – nor should they have to. As long as the burden of maintaining a respectful environment falls on the victims of such trash, very little headway will be made. I'm very proud of Dr. Wnek for choosing to recognize his responsibility for the conduct of his class, both as the leader of the class and as a member of the university community. We could make a great deal of progress if each member of the staff, faculty, administration, and student body chose to do the same.
