Sexual Harassment.
A subject that has been spoken about since human beings had a set of morals and laws.
A subject that is also very fragile, to both men and women.
To dive into Sexual Harassment, we have to understand what Sexual Harassment is; and by definition, Sexual Harassment is when a person makes unwanted advances onto another person in social situations or in a professional setting (i.g. work or school) via physical harassment or obscene statements. Of course, this topic is important, but I have to ask you what you think about when you hear or read "sexual harassment,"?
Maybe a man groping a woman at her job or at a club?
Or a man catcalling a woman off the streets, from things as minor as "baby" to as major as vulgarities that I prefer to not mention.
Perhaps issues resurfaced recently in 2018, Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby are two prime examples at the moment with news surfacing of allegations of rape, sexual assault and harassment, etc.
Maybe you didn't think about something not involving you and instead something directly involving yourself. Maybe a man making a remark at you, or maybe you made a remark at a woman. Maybe the roles are reversed, and that is one topic I want to discuss.
The idea of the roles being reversed is definitely not unheard of in 2018; in fact, there's movements and hashtags for male victims of sexual assault, but for many people, the idea of men being assaulted, harassed, raped, etc is still somewhat confusing and strange. Men are supposed to be strong, men are supposed to be in charge, men are supposed to do the assaulting. That last statement definitely raised some eyebrows right? But why? When we think about sexual harassment, a lot of us think of a man on woman case, but then when I say men do the assaulting it's concerning, right? That's because it is. It's incorrect and concerning. As a society, we are conditioned to believe men are somewhat "wired" to do this harassment, the rape, the assaulting, etc. Whether we condemn them or we applaud them, this, of course, impacts people. Boys believe they are supposed to do those things to girls, it's okay for them to do that in their minds because other men do it and get applauded. We are conditioned to a point where when a boy gets assaulted by a girl, he either won't say anything or if he does he is called names like "pussy" or "faggot". As a society, we think that a man getting assaulted by a woman is bullshit. He should've enjoyed it, or he isn't a man. A man grabbing a woman's crotch is obscene and illegal, but a woman grabbing a mans crotch is considered flirting and sexy. Of course, both instances are just as bad but one instance is punished more often. Well, we don't hear about these cases of men being harassed often, it's not unheard of, but why isn't it reported? Simply because of the stigma surrounding being a male victim of harassment. You get called the names I listed earlier, radical feminists may call you names, nobody takes you seriously, etc. When a woman does to you what a man does to a woman you are considered weak and pathetic. Why? Because when you're in a woman's place your value as a person depletes. No, I'm not here to go on a feminist rant, I'm here to make a point. Almost everywhere in the world, women have a role to be subservient to men. Women are to be dominated and controlled, they are to please men. Women are weak, submissive and small, men are strong, dominant, and big. In some places, a man assaulting a woman isn't punished because that's what a man is to do because that's his role. Some places are beside that, a man harassing a woman is punished. Again, it boils down to gender roles. When a woman harasses or assaults a man, it's not punished because of those roles. Some people don't believe the man was assaulted, he's complaining or he's lying. Some believe he was lucky to have a woman come to him for sex instead of him having to work to seduce her. Men being in what's believed to be a woman's place means he is pathetic because women are supposedly pathetic.
YOU ARE READING
Painfully Realistic
General FictionThis book isn't Fiction. This book isn't Nonfiction. This book is about things that we see happening every single day but don't talk about. About things, we see at school. At work. Down the block. At the coffee shop. Things we see everywhere...
