The Observer, March 28, 2008
Volume XL, Issue 22
Reporting sexual harassment – what do you want?
To the Editor:
I am an engineering woman, and I certainly agree that sexual harassment and discrimination are serious problems. But what can Case do about it? Certainly the process of reporting would be difficult. The victim has to back up her story and prove that she isn't "overreacting," but that's because the accused has exactly the same rights that she does! The author of last week's article seems to think that if a woman accuses a man of sexually harassing her, she should not have to go through the full process of reporting the incident. She seems to think that the accuser should just be taken at her word and the accused should not be allowed any rights at all.
On another note, the author takes feminism way too far. Would anyone care if a presentation included a picture of a hot guy with a barcode on his ass? No! Girls would think "Ooo, that's nice!" and most guys would ignore it or joke about how sexy he is. And as for "acquiring personal information…without their knowledge or permission," that's ridiculous. If this student's idea were to come to fruition, a woman could not be included in it without giving her consent (otherwise it would be extremely illegal).
This probably makes me look bad in the eyes of other women, but I simply feel that when we get riled up about things that, in the big picture, are fairly insignificant, it actually hurts the cause of feminism. Sure, I disagree with the idea of slapping a barcode on a woman's ass, but that was not the purpose of that lecture slide! Sex sells and it always will, so either society as a whole needs to change, or we need to get over it. And the student that was quoted could probably be more "socially aware," but is portraying him as an idiot to the entire Case community going to achieve that purpose?
Anyway, what really bothers me is that when we women get upset about an offensive image like this, we reinforce the idea that we're "weak" and need "protecting" from that kind of thing. When you assume that everyone's mind jumps from "objectifying women" to "women aren't equal to men," you convey the idea that our minds should make that jump. So while we can freely objectify men, I think it only hurts us to complain about objectifying women.
Kathy Ward
Undergraduate student
