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Originally Posted by Frosstbyte
I've typed and re-typed a response to this thread and I seem to devolve into hyper-specificity. Essentially, I think people need to develop thicker skin and need to be able to stick up for themselves. A compliment, particularly in the workplace, can be just a compliment. People should be astute enough to differentiate between conversations, compliments, casual flirting and inappropriate behavior and the first step should be to try to take care of it yourself. Defining harassment in the workplace as "any unwanted contact" forces people to make ridiculous guesses about what will be wanted and what won't be and removes from the equation any responsibility on the behalf of the person being approached to make it clear to the other person that the behavior should stop.
If it continues AFTER an initial inappropriate conversation, that's much more what I would call harassment. Isolated incidences don't seem to fit that definition to me. Unless there is some power pressure in play (i.e. a boss threatening to fire you if you don't sleep with him) or an obvious inappropriate sexual reference, I think that the flirting should be the time for the other party to step up and say that they aren't interested. For most people, I think that will be that. Maybe I have too much faith in people not being douchebags.
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I SO used to agree completely with this. That is until a fairly new female employee went not just to the owner of the company to report someone for sexual harassment, but to hire legal council and actually persue the matter in court. I dealt with the man involved on a regular basis. He was a nice family man. MADLY in love with his wife. He regularly dealt with a great number of fantastically beautiful women. I was one of the large group of women that got together and went to bat for him. he easily won the court case, but ended up having to leave the company because they were afraid to fire HER because she had already established herself as someone quick to jump to legal action on things.
The man in question was LEFT by his wife. The woman he would go on and on about all day because she believed the crazy woman that charged him with sexual harassment.
I'm sorry, but if you think "well good morning, thats a lovely outfit Jane" is sexual harassment, you need to stay the fuck home and not go into the workplace with men.
You'll get a hell of a lot worse out there. Jesus.. I've been groped, poked, goosed, grabbed, what do i do? Smack the perv, and go on about my business. If it keeps up, I'm sure i'd do something else about it, but sheesh - I'd talk to the other women in the workplace if they had been bothered first before doing anything that could screw up the persons job or life.