benk
With respect you are not making any sense.

You are getting hung up on looks. The nature of sexual harassment is "unwanted sexual attention". If a man continues to behave inappropriately towards a woman after repeated warnings and counsellings don't you think that is "a bit rich". So what if the man is plain or handsome. If the attention is unwanted it is unwanted. If the same woman accepts similar behaviour from a man she is attracted to the it is wanted. See the difference.

Same goes for women, if a man is not attracted to you then they are not attracted to you - no more need be said.

Suze,

'While I am sure some people get together initially because of physical attraction to so-called 'cute' people, luckily many people are not that shallow, and are attracted to others for various reasons.'

Would you say someone was shallow if they were only attracted to intelligent people?

pelican,

'The nature of sexual harassment is "unwanted sexual attention". If a man continues to behave inappropriately towards a woman after repeated warnings and counsellings don't you think that is "a bit rich". '

Ah, but as Transki says, 'it is up to the person making the sexual advance to fully know BEFOREHAND whether or not sexual behaviour would be welcome by the other person in the workplace'

No warnings come into it. I actually don't know what benks on about. He's been like this before about women having different standards for attractive men. I don't see any problem with that, but I suppose he is saying how can you base a law on that. Which goes back to my point about BEFOREHAND!

PS: What do you think about a law regulating how women are to reject advances. Men get it wrong asking a girl out, and they are breaking the law. If a woman is rude or makes fun forever and a day when a guy at work asks her out, and there is no law. We must have equality before the law. Mens and womens behaviour must be regulated equally, and since it is still more likely for the man to do the asking, we are criminalising men for getting it wrong, but not women as we don't regulate rejections of propositions.

We regulate unwanted propositions, but we don't regulate nasty rejections. And with the rejections, we could base the law on the mans feelings about how he was rejected as we base the law on the womans feelings on how she was propositioned. Sound fair?

Houellebecq,<"What do you think about a law regulating how women are to reject advances. Men get it wrong asking a girl out, and they are breaking the law. If a woman is rude or makes fun forever and a day when a guy at work asks her out, and there is no law."

Are you suggesting that a man asking a woman out and being rejected, is quite the same as a woman being sexually harassed by a man?
That is taking the topic to an extreme level of silliness I think.

The sexual harassment law covers men being sexually harassed in the workplace as well. I have personally seen it happen in my workplace Houllebecq. The woman lost her job as a result, and rightly so.

These laws are not a gender war. They are merely a result of the 'good-old-days' when people got away with sexual harassment in the workplace much more easily, often leading to multiple job losses and mental illnesses as a result of a nasty form of bullying.

We don't want to go back to the days when conversations like the following were more prevalent:
"Hey, if you sleep with me I will make sure you have that promotion", or
"Stay late at the office tonight and I will personally show you my... appreciation".

I would suggest you all watch the 1960's based SBS program 'Mad Men' on Sunday nights to get a feel for why we had to have these laws.
An excellent program, I might add! :)

I cannot see what is confusing about my position. There are rules regulating the behaviour of men that are applied very inconsistently which is immoral and undermines the credibility of these social conventions.

For example, one bloke might flirt with a co-worker. She isn't attracted to him and tells him so (as is her right), but she then criticises him for flirting with co-workers. This implies that she has a moral objection to the concept of co-workers flirting. A bit later, another bloke flirts with her. She is attracted to him and they have a relationship. The sagging credibility of these rules has just taken another kicking.
If she genuinely had a moral objection to the concept of co-workers flirting, she should follow a policy of never screw the crew, under any circumstances, on principle. If she has no objection to co-workers flirting with her, as long as they are attractive, she still has the right to knock back other men, just as long as she doesn't pretend that it is because she sees any flirting amongst co-workers as sexual harassment.

Of course people will always find some other people more attractive than others. We don't even need to explain why. Obviously, people need to accept knockbacks, we just shouldn't accept the morality of our actions being criticised when other people act in exactly the same way and don't get criticised. If people want rules to govern the behaviour of society, they need to be fair and consistent.

'Are you suggesting that a man asking a woman out and being rejected, is quite the same as a woman being sexually harassed by a man?'

It can be, it depends on how he is rejected. Especially when, as Transki says, ANY approach to a woman is sexual harassment if it is unwelcome and that he should know BEFORE he asks.

So, imagine this situation...

A guy is sniggered at by every girl at the office after politely asking a girl out. He is guilty of sexual harassment, as he has asked, she has rejected, so he has made an unwelcome advance. He is the sexual harasser. Even though he is the one being harassed and being made uncomfortable in the workplace by all the girls with rumours and ridicule and even if he asked politely but was very rudely rejected.

That's a one-sided law. The mating rituals generally go along the lines of men asking women out. It's changing slowly but that's the historical scenario. Men when they ask a woman out, if she feels harassed, he is guilty. If she gets the etiquette wrong, and he feels harassed, well that's just bad luck. Her feelings are important, his are not. His behaviour is regulated by law, hers is not.

You mention sleeping your way to the top. Well, if a woman seduces or deliberately uses sexual favours in return for a promotion, nobody cares. There is no law against that. If this behaviour is wrong, a woman perusing this dynamic with her boss should be as guilty as a boss pursuing it with his employee. Of course he could just sack her if he's not interested, but then she'd probably accuse him of sexual harassment. Who do you think would be believed?

Dear Suze,

The sexual harrassment law applies equally to both
males and females it doesn't favour any particular
biological sex. If anyone is in doubt about any part
of the law
they can easily find out what is considered sexual
harassment and what isn't, and what they can or can't
do about it.

The law is not one-sided, it's simply the law.
And the reason it exists is because it is a serious
problem for many in the workforce.