Lots of good points fellow OLO contributors. Still don't see your point of debating against each other, putting each other down, playing the blame game like some of you do, coz that's not going to change anything.

If you have valuable knowledge, share it for others to learn. If you want to put others down, start by looking in the mirror and put yourself down first. What make one human more superior then the other? Learn how to respect yourself and who you are before you even start making an assumption on what others want to post.

We all know sexual harassment exist, it's just a fact of life. Women aren't the only ones that have to deal with this, men do as well. Look at it this way, years, and years ago, we didn't even have this much of awareness on this topic, we didn't even have much rights to take measures in order to protect ourselves against this kind of treatment.

It isn't as bad as you think, because there was more rape and more abuse if we look back in time. Those who care want it to change. and it will. because it already has. Work together to build up our society for a better future. Stop the personal attack. We all want the same thing.

I have a lifetime(pretty short) experience with sexual harassment. I know it is something I have to live with so I choose to make it as safe as possible, and I've have had to learn to accept strangers saying and doing the strangest things to me, when thy do not even know me. Should they be punished because they no not better that the should respect every female as they should respect and mother, and every male as they should respect a father. This is how it is..

hey, i bet it would've been way worse in the 50's. cheers

Suzeonline:"I am only glad the author is male, because any female who wrote the article would have been soundly flogged by the keyboards of many of our posters!"

Unlike the fulsome welcome given to the loathsome Flood. Do you ever actually read any of the responses before you post, Suzie? Thought not...

You see, Suzie, it's not the gender of the writer that matters (except to you), it's the quality of the output. Unfortunately, the quality of feminist tracts is nearly universally abysmal. Flood's work is more deeply abysmal than most.

Pelican, the Flood puffpiece is not about "bullying" it is about "harassment" and those are not synonyms. The first is an objectively assessable event - "she threatened to file a complaint of harassment against me if I didn't do what she wanted", "he withheld my promotion because I had disagreed with him in a meeting", etc. An independent third party would agree that the behaviour was purposefully designed to harm the target, by the nature of the behaviour and of the relationship between the parties.

Harassment, on the other hand, may be entirely a subjective event. The "perpetrator" has no intent to "harass", but is simply acting on the basis of expressing his own sexuality and hence, there can be no "crime".

I made the point earlier that if it is not acceptable for me to be offended by the actions of homesexuals in expressing their sexuality, then it should not be acceptable for someone else to be offended by me expressing mine.

I believe the two situations are entirely ethically congruent, yet we have laws that protect the right of homosexuals to be offensive to and of women to be offended by heterosexual males doing no more than what comes naturally. Once upon a time women correctly regarded the attentions of men as complimentary, not an insult. Perhaps the real problem is that men are too selective?

I'd really like to see a strong High Court matter on one or other of these laws. I believe the ethical contradictions are such that the Court would be highly critical.

Suze and Lexi,

'The issue under discussion is sexual harassment and it should be of concern to both genders'
'The author doesn't state anything of the sort.'

Did you even read the article. Nowhere does it mention anything about women having any responsibility for policing sexual harassment, the whole article is about men stepping up to the plate, and saying that women already do.

'trying to change their behaviours by using other men and women to shame them into behaving properly.'

Bu11shit! He only ever mentions using *men* to shame them.

'Sexual harassment will only disappear when men take an active role in ending it'

'Most men think sexual harassment is unacceptable. But too often we turn a blind eye, stay silent, or laugh along'

'I support the White Ribbon Campaign, which focuses on the positive roles men can play..'

'violence – whether harassment, domestic violence, or rape – IS A 'MEN'S ISSUE.'' (Exactly what I am arguing the author is saying!)

'Men of goodwill can play a key role. '

'Leadership from men at the top is critical.'

There is simply no way you can read the article and get 'using other men and *women* to shame them'.

You're being dishonest.

Suzieonline has already provided an excellent example of how one womans opinion decides what is acceptable to her, maybe not acceptable to another woman.

Next Suzie escalates from sexual harassement to sexual abuse.

<Luckily for victims of sexual abuse in the workplace, there are laws to protect them, and if the law upholds the fact that a crime has been committed, then that is fair enough for me.
Posted by suzeonline, Thursday, 11 November 2010 10:22:30 AM
>

Harassement and sexual abuse are two separate issues.

The use of the term 'Sexual abuse' creates images of incest, rape, sexual assault, because the use of that term, is used mainly in these cases.

If Men Have All the Power How Come Women Make the Rules?
http://www.menweb.org/ifmenhav.htm

Perhaps the only way we will ever stop sexual harassement in the workplace would be to have separate workplaces for men and women.

Now why does socalled sexual harassement occur, it comes down to gender politics, Pyschologist Toby Green used the term about men being sexually underfed, I doubt extremely strongly that this issue will ever be resolved. As Fry said recently women do not like sex as much as men.

So apart from castrating men, it will always be an issue, until society changes how it views men's behaviour.

Perhaps another perspective is that the men who are accused of being sexual harassers, just might be feeling socially incompetant. It could also be because they are acting in a bravado manner.

Anti
I acknowledged the nuances but assumed we are talking about legitimate sexual harrassment without the need to define it in minutae every time these issues come up. Sexual harrassment and bullying are part of the same behaviour - again I mistakenly used the world bully instead of harasser.

Poor Michael Flood copped an earful just because he rightly suggests that men have to be part of the solution and like women, not be afraid to speak out as well. However, the definition of sexual harassment requires the 'receiver' to make the complaint as she/he is the one who determines if the behaviour is sexually inappropriate. That does give a bit of leeway either side barring the obvious SH which includes touching, groping and constant harrassment for sex or dates when the recipient is clearly disinterested or where there is intimidation to keep one's job.

Ah bless James.

You are a beautiful sensitive soul. A 'real man':-)

As the girls would no doubt agree, while there are a few grey areas in anything, it's really not that hard to tell sexual harassment from asking a chick out. Sure clumsy propositions from nerds could be claimed as such, but most women are not really scared of men who are so obviously terrified of women.

It's about power, and no doubt the men on here don't feel and have never felt powerful in their relations with women (benk;-) so they just cant relate. I think women underestimate how many men really don't feel powerful, which is why the feminist critique of the powerful men abusing their power rankles so much.

'Harassement and sexual abuse are two separate issues.'

All these words are interchangeable these days. Just like Mr Flood articulates in this article, the jump from lewd comments to violent rape is a tiny one.

'violence – whether harassment, domestic violence, or rape'

It's all on that slippery sliding scale. See there used to be things like 'rape', but now we use terms like 'sexual assault' for purposes of inflating statistics by bringing in totally different things.

But on top of that there is a bigger game of this 'sliding scale' of 'mens attitudes' and 'mens culture' that stretches violent rape right down to looking at porn, to looking at beautiful women scantily dressed in advertising, to just looking at women, hell just being attracted to women is about to be sucked in, then hey presto, just being a man is next!

'As Fry said recently women do not like sex as much as men.'
Na he didn't. That was what was reported. Germaine took the chance to get some attention from it too.

I think women like sex as much, they just have more to lose and are under more risk when indulging in anonymous sex in secluded public toilets. I think the smell of stale urine turns them off more than it does men. Smell is important to women.