Basically in a nutshell, as Suzieonline, Lexi and Fancynancy point out, it is women who decide what is acceptable male behaviour, and what is not acceptable male behaviour.

Often there have been complaints about the oppression, sexism that women experience, yet here it is, that women actually decide what sorts of male behaviour are acceptable or not.

So the oppressed get to decide what types of behaviour by the oppressor is acceptable.

so the powerless oppressed get to choose what sorts of behaviour are acceptable to them.

JamesH <"Basically in a nutshell, as Suzieonline, Lexi and Fancynancy point out, it is women who decide what is acceptable male behaviour, and what is not acceptable male behaviour."

No James, most intelligent men know perfectly well what behaviour is acceptable to most women. If a woman does take offence at something said or done at work and decides to take it further, it is the courts who decide in the end. It is up to them to decide if a person has a case or not.

Benk seems to confuse flirting with sexual harassment.
(and yes Houellebecq,, I did make an honest mistake by calling it sexual abuse, wrong topic, same detractors).
Benk can look up the difference (again) online, but let me give you an example:

Boss Basil says (seriously) to his secretary Letitia " If you want that wage rise, you will have to agree to sleep with me?"
= Sexual harassment.

Some women may well laugh at that statement and tell Basil to stick his job, other women will take it further and complain.

Boss Basil(smiling) says to Letitia- "Hey gorgeous, you wanna go out with me sometime?"
She answers "No thanks, I have a boyfriend"
and he says "Ah well, your loss!"
= flirting.

On the other hand, if Basil had then said "Now listen here B####, you are so ugly no one else would want to go out with you!"
= Sexual Harassment.

Get it?

pelican,

'A problem like SH cannot be eliminated without the support of men - that is all the article promotes.'

Nope. For a start, it calls for *active* support. It accepts the majority of men don't harass women or encourage SH, but
it wants these men to censure those that do - Out of a sense of responsibility, a responsibility that isn't expected of women.
Perhaps the author thinks male harassers would only respond to censure from other men but if so that portrays a very negative view of men, and is basically plain wrong. He sees it as a 'mens issue' a closed circle of male social pressure.

'Hey guys, if you're not part of the solution...THEN YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM'.
'It's a mens issue'.
ie Responsibility. Men who don't speak up are responsible for the actions of other men,
and women are either not responsible for other men or else it is inferred they always speak up.

'That does not mean women can take a back seat and wait for hand holding.'

No, but you stated the author suggests that women not be afraid to speak out as well.

He blatantly did not.

Show me the quotes. Prove me wrong.

Earlier you said 'Without generalising, the assumption is that women are already anti-sexual harrassment '. (anti-sexual?.. harassment)

That is a lot closer to the mark. The author nowhere suggests women should not be so afraid to speak out,
he suggests women are assumed against SH due to their gender so have no need to prove they don't condone it.
Men, on the other hand are assumed to condone it due to their gender, so must censure other men to prove
they're 'Men of goodwill'.

lexi,

Very Foxy-esque! Steadfastly repeating the same line of how the world should be and
ignoring any nuance or complexity or inconvenient reality.

Some men here protest just a little too much, methinks.

As Flood suggests, they are part of the problem of sexual harassment, rather than its solution. There's obviously little point in arguing with them, but it's nice to see an article from a male author that obviously hits a raw nerve with the 'usual suspects'.

I think it's an indication that Flood's quite correct in this case.

Suzieonline wrote, "No James, most intelligent men know perfectly well what behaviour is acceptable to most women."

How do intelligent men, know what sort of behaviour is acceptable to most women, it is because they are told, educated, about what sort of behaviour, women find to be acceptable.

Again it comes down to the plain fact, that it is women who decide what sort of behaviour is acceptable or not.

the paradox, though is that the exact same behaviour from a man she is attracted too, maybe seen as flirtation and acceptable, and the man that she finds to be unattractive, the exact same behaviour maybe seen to be offensive and revolting.

the other paradox is the often complained about 'bad boys' and bad boy behaviour that some women seem to be fatally attracted too. Even though these male bahave in unacceptable manners, they still manage to have a pretty reasonable success rate.

Lexi

All that I took from your cop-out of an answer is that you cannot distinguish between flirting and sexual harassment yourself.

Suze

I agree that the first and third examples that you gave are disgraceful and that all decent people should be prepared to say so to the deadbeat in question.

The second example wouldn't get someone hauled before the courts, but I've seen more than a few women act as though such an invitation is as bad as the other incidents. Limits on acceptable behaviour are largely enforced by social pressure, which is why Dr Flood wants people to say more. Since men are expected to speak out against sexual harassment, I hope that you wouldn't mind speaking out against malicious treatment of blokes who have done nothing wrong.

Fancynancy

If social pressure was only ever used to stop serious cases of sexual harassment, none of us would complain. The practice of sometimes judging the innocent testing of the waters (the behaviour that is largely expecte of men) as sexual harassment is an example of unfair treatment of men. Those who defend the practice have no right to accuse others of sexism or of having a malicious mind.