Question Sexual harassment is often defined as "unwanted sexual attention." Isn't the idea that all sexual attention must be "wanted" by a women for it to be okay simply a perpetuation of the idea that women have no independent existence outside of the wants and needs of men? Don't women have the right to be indifferent to sexual attention? And don't women have the right to interpret unwanted sexual attention in other ways other than thinking of it as harassment? Basically I find it incredibly ironic that one of the the pillars of modern feminism has such a weirdly sexist underpinning.

Accepted:
August 4, 2011

Comments

I just answered a question very like this one. It isn't sexual harassment to express interest in a woman in a social circumstance, at least in the first instance. There are lots of ways of doing this that are rude, crude, and stupid, of course. But it is only "harassment" if it continues after a clear expression of non-interest has been conveyed by her. If I go up to a woman in a bar and express sexual interest, it is not harassment, even if I am clumsy about it. That would make me a loser, maybe, but nothing in feminism (or in the legal concept of harassment) makes it harassment in the first instance. If I continue after she has told me to take a long walk off a short pier, well, then, it starts at that point to become harassment, and yes, women (and men) have a right not to be pestered and...well, harassed!