Why Do We Need This Help?
Sexual harassment is exhausting because you never know when it is going to be over with, or when the person who is bothering you is going to move onto someone else. If you ask every single woman you know what her life experiences have been, many of them will describe being sexually harassed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment) without even realizing that that is what they are describing at the moment. They are so accustomed to being treated a certain way by the men in their lives that they are thrown for a loop and find themselves in utter and complete shock when you reveal to them that they have been the victims of prolonged sexual harassment.
The other thing that tends to shock folks is that you can be bothered and treated poorly by someone who has professed to love you. For example, there are many men who do not believe that marital rape can exist, and they think that if they are married to a woman that that woman owes them sex any time, they ask for it or want it. Many men interfere with their wives in ways that are inappropriate and unwanted, but many women believe that they are unable to say not to these types of advances because they are wedded to both the man and his poor behavior, regardless of how they are feeling in the moment that they are being treated poorly.
Here is the other thing that tends to shock people: women can sexually harass men as well! In many countries, the actual sexual harassment legislation that has been created in the last several decades is relatively new, because it has only recently been amended to address women harming and bothering men in similar ways. The concept of a woman even being able to achieve this task is actually visible quite regularly, as there are videos regularly going viral featuring women stalking and bothering men. In fact, right now a video is trending of an African-American man trying very hard to thwart the advances of a white woman, whose (also white) boyfriend is trying to restrain her.
She visibly mouths to the man, “I love you!” and tries to grab him multiple times, wrapping her arms around his neck, hitting her head into a door and being hauled off by security, all while focused on the target of her harassment and ire. Setting the very obvious racial elements of implied entitlement and white privilege aside, it is a disturbing video because his friends are simply laughing as he is being bothered and objectified for his physical beauty by a woman who likely has always been able to secure the attention from men, she desires by simply bothering them in this manner.
Sadly, had the thirsty woman in question benefitted from the Clear Law Institute, she might have known that pestering and physically choking a beautiful man in a bar so that he might come physically closer to her was an ineffective way of having her romantic desires fulfilled. Even if the man if your desires is a known philanderer who does not adhere to any of his own principles, he can still be victimized by others in turn as hie victimizes people. There is no linear delineation between the type of person who can be harassed and the type of person who harasses, as anyone can fall into either category.
A History of Bothering People
One of the reasons that this is critically important to think about in the context of living in California is the Hollywood industry that perpetuates this type of behavior pretty regularly. If you have never heard of the concept of a “casting couch” consider yourself blessed, as this is the way that many Hollywood executives have populated their movie and television projects. Baked into the concept of the industry is that young women and men are available for exploitation if you are in a position of power in California.
In this way, this type of exploitation has been a regular part of how many men and women became famous actors and actresses in the United States of America, as California has been the blueprint for this type of behavior for many decades. This is why California is an important place to really hone in on the changes that are needed in society to make sure that folks are treated better, especially at their workplaces. For many decades, women who serve as actresses in music videos have talked about the music artists not treating them with respect and assuming they were there for their personal exploitation and harassment!
Solutions For You
It may seem shocking that so many Hollywood executives have been arrested for this behavior recently, but can you imagine how many executives we have not heard about from previous decades? If you want to learn more about this incident, you should probably read more about it online than simply reading this blog, because there is so much more information out there about how people are treated in the industry of entertainment, which has a greater supply than demand for professional actresses and actors and singers and dancers. Because so many people want to make it as successful talent in the industry, people with power are comfortable with these actions.
People make really ridiculous decisions when they think there is no one watching, but integrity is how you behave when there are no consequences for your actions. Many people do not possess this integrity because they have been socialized to see other people (especially women)’s desires as beneath their own and thus bothering women is an action that is there for the taking. We must push back against these misconceptions and hold folks accountable, which we can accomplish with training and help.
