Photo by SupportPDX on CCWhile I was in graduate school, I encountered several tense situations where students experienced sexual comments or sexual touch from another student or from a faculty member. Most of the time, I was not a direct witness, so these situations aren’t ones where I can serve as a witness.
I did, however, witness many students reporting an inappropriate comment. When I was studying at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, several graduate students reported the same comment from a faculty member. At the start of an academic conference, one of the tenured faculty members who organized the event stood at the podium.
She launched the conference by telling a “joke” that her sexual preference was graduate students.
There was audible laughter from several of the visiting scholars. The faculty member said this with over a dozen graduate students present in the plenary session.
Not good.
This resulted in several conversations in the graduate carrels about how students felt threatened by her, given that she had a lot of power over her students as a teacher, dissertation advisor, and potential reference for obtaining a job in the field.
I was, however, a direct witness to other awkward, tense, or threatening situations.
During the 1980s, I was taking a parenting class at Brigham Young University, taught by a graduate student. She was very articulate, confident, and calm. However, she was single and was not a parent. The course materials were very good. She amplified them in a responsible way, so I tried to absorb as much content as possible. In our class of 25 or so students, we didn’t have any parents that I remember. But we did have a couple of very animated students, including a handsome young man from the East Coast who had a charming dialect who was about the same age as our teacher–mid to late 20s.
During that semester that he and I were both enrolled in this parenting class, I attended a Sunday night devotional in the Marriott Center. This was a popular first date activity, since it was low cost, convenient, and affirmed the shared values of the church-sponsored school. I went solo to this particular devotional. When I took my seat, I saw just about four seats away from me, this same young man and our teacher sitting together, leaning towards each other and whispering now and then to each other.
Not good.
About a two years later, I was working at BYU as a researcher on a team with about five other graduate students who were all within about five years of my age. We all had some kind of background in religious studies or Near Eastern studies. We spent a lot of time in the special collections room, going through the volumes of writing by Catholic fathers in the first few centuries CE.
After I finished checking quotations in one chapter of a manuscript, I would get the next chapter from the project manager, a part-time employee who reported to a tenured faculty member in the Religion Department.
This project manager was fifteen years older than I if not more. He had been married and divorced a couple of times. Normally, this wouldn’t be a concern for me, but he talked about his previous marriages quite a bit. He also talked to me at work about his ex-wife being frigid.
This made me very uncomfortable, but I just ignored him and focused on picking up the work, checking the sources, and returning the work.
Over the next few weeks, he continued to approach me when no other members of the research team were present. He would make personal comments. Then he started asking me to meet him at his apartment after dark to pick up more work. He had soft jazz music playing in the background. He also asked me directly, “What are your attitudes about sex?” I caught him more than once looking at me from head to toe.
I now found working with him unbearable.
The next time I was in the special collections room with two of the researchers with whom I had socialized the most frequently. I told them about the comments the project manager was making to me. I expressed concern, vulnerability, and fear. Their response? They both laughed at me and repeated some of my comments in falsetto: “Oh, I was so scared. Oh, he’s making threatening statements.”
I was stunned. Both of these young men were pursuing degrees in religious studies, they were focused on developing ethical frameworks based on a combination of study and faith, and they were aiming to publish and teach in the field of religion. And they were laughing at me.
My discomfort while working on this project only increased. I next reported the project manager’s comments and “mood music” behavior to the tenured faculty member from the Religion Department. His response? He sighed and then was quiet for a long time. I hoped that he would correct the project manager at the very minimum. I wasn’t sure if this was enough to replace him with someone who wouldn’t make comments about sex to me at work. Is that what happened?
No. Instead, the faculty member took me off the project.
Not good.
A few months after this situation, I was working as a faculty member on a one-year appointment at BYU. One of the single female undergraduate tutors reported to me that another tutor asked her to come to campus after hours to help him with a homework assignment. He was also an undergraduate and married. They met around 9 pm in an empty classroom where he then asked her to have sex with him.
Not good.
She froze. She declined and left soon after, but she spent the next 12 hours wondering what she did to provoke his proposition.
When she was talking this over with me, she kept blaming herself. She was even trained to work on a rape crisis hotline, but she still spent more energy blaming herself than the student who lured her to an empty classroom to proposition her.
When the supervisor above me found out about this after hours meeting between two tutors, he rolled his eyes and said, “Oh, this isn’t really a significant form of sexual harassment. Nothing really happened.” But when the supervisor above him found out, the student–who made the proposition to an employee of the university on school grounds–was immediately fired.
Good.
It’s been over twenty years since these four situations occurred, but it’s given me a chance to consider how to respond in ways other than freezing, being stunned, or reporting to unsympathetic ears.
I am also encouraged by the training all university employees now receive on how to behave appropriately as members of a campus community. I have worked for five other universities since the 1980s, and the online training includes a mix of principles, laws, case studies, and quizzes—all designed to increase sensitivity and awareness so that incidents are avoided in the first place, and if they happen, members of the campus have a better understanding how to report sexual harassment of any form or degree.
I have recently tried to have a conversation about other ways to respond to harassment other than freezing, looking down, saying nothing, or reporting after the fact. I got shot down by feminists who think “it wasn’t your fault” is the only conversation needed, and I was repeatedly told that I was “blaming the victim.”
I think it is time for feminists to already know it is never the victims fault and, well, yes, if there is a victim who is blaming herself or wondering what she did or said to make the guy think she was open to inappropriate sexual comments or unwanted sexual advances, well we assure her it was not her fault. But for the most part, don’t we know that male behavior starts with the male, and can’t we move onto another conversation about how not to reward or reinforce that male behavior.
We feminists have had this conversation with flashers. They are looking to shock and scare us. They think our being scared is related to them being a big macho male and they feel powerful. So, if we act bored to see an exposed male member, or comment in a way that takes their power away, then we do not reward their behavior. So, not reacting is better in this case than running in fear. Telling him that you have seen better is an even better response, because it deflates his ego.
We can still report of course, but often reporting does no good. The police simply don’t find it worth their time unless we can identify the man or there have been multiple cases with the same perp.
I was in high school when I encountered a flasher. I was in the same relatively isolated spot, the same time every day, and for several days this young man had been too. But then he flashed me. I looked at him and shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t want to say anything because I had male class mates that were most likely within ear shot. He visibly deflated, like a balloon with a leek, he just kind of shriveled. I never saw him again, so I’m guessing my response at least did not reward his behavior so he would be more likely to repeat.
But I have never heard a conversation on how women can handle sexual comments or harassment in ways that empower women and take the power away from the harasser. Sure, it might be more complicated than a stranger flashing. But I would still like a conversation about how women can respond in various situations that does not reward the harasser, but teaches them that their joke, their comment, their talking about sex was not appreciated and that we will not put up with that kind of behavior.
Anna, I totally agree. Telling women how to protect themselves or how to take control of a situation is not victim shaming. I once read that you can decrease the chance of becoming a crime victim simply by the way you carry yourself. That surely doesn't mean if you get attacked its your fault, it just means there are protective measures that can be taken.
20 years ago when I first started working as an attorney at a law firm, another attorney (male) started calling me a nickname that seemed to me to be harmless. I was informed by a female attorney in the firm that the name was actually another word for "slut". I immediately went into his office and chewed his butt off telling him not to ever call me that again. He quickly spread the word around the firm that I didn't like it and not to use it. Problem solved.
As a 12-year-old I was groped by an older male relative. I beat the crap out of him (old man – 70+). I threw our bodies onto the ground and slammed his back against the floor. I never did tell anybody (literally until this post), but it never occurred to me that I had to put up with that behavior and that I wasn't totally within my rights to protect myself. Nor, did I ever think it was my fault or feel any guilt.
Am I just a weird girl? How come other women don't feel like they can fight back or speak up?
This article?
Good.
Anna: I agree that everyone involved should take a 100% responsibility role. The people in position of leadership who did harassing acts should have not abused their position of power by making comments that were sexual and by dating or seeking to date or be sexual with students / employees. The people in supervising positions should have taken greater steps to correct offenders, protect the vulnerable, and to train employees and students to have greater awareness of boundaries that need to be firmly respected. The victims should receive training on to whom they can report (two or three deep if the first person is not responsive, as was the case the "eye rolling" supervisor and the "you are off the project" supervisor). If the analysis of a problem focuses only on the action of the victim to empower herself, then the administrators and the aggressors are let off the hook. Everyone has 100% responsibility to do what their role allows to prevent, intervene, report, and discipline. Even people outside of the situation can adopt language and behaviors that shines a light on how all can err on the side of caution to educate, prevent, inhibit impulses to sexualize work spaces even through the most (seemingly) innocuous jokes or flirtations, challenge, report, and discipline. Every Body.
Anna and Lily: I am sorry about the flasher (Anna) and the salacious nickname (Lily). I am glad your interventions worked. It's hard to predict which interventions will deter and which will escalate or actually backfire for negative consequences on the person asserting his or her boundaries. Thank goodness your interventions worked.
Emily: I feel compelled to witness. It's silence that enables / escalates these situations and acculturates people to accept these misdeeds / crimes as cultural norms.
Karen, I'm grateful for this post. I face palmed while reading this until the very end when at last (huzzah!), someone is held accountable for their sexual harassment. Let's call it what it is. And continue to encourage education on this matter everywhere.