Reply #75: Harrassment is Harrassment. It doesn't matter who is the "er" or who is the "ee". [View All]

It's wrong. ARGUE WITH THAT. Upthread, someone responded with "Cry me a fucking river" after another poster detailed the kind of harrassment and stalking he had been subjected to. Sexual harrassment is the same as bullying in my book. Some fucked up people bully others because they know they can get away with it, mostly because they believe that the bullied won't/can't do anything about it. I know, because I have personal experience with bullying. In elementary school (oh so long ago), a kid in the next grade picked me (why, I never knew) as the pussy whose lunch money he would take every day. He was bigger and stronger than me. I gave up my lunch money in shame for the whole of my fifth grade year. I got him back (the details of how aren't important in this forum), when I finally decided to stand up for myself. When I did, I found out that he wasn't so bad and it was HIM who went home crying that day. The empowerment I felt after standing up for myself changed my life in so many ways I can't count.

Harrassment is Harrassment. It doesn't know gender, race, size, or strength. It's just harrassment. And it's wrong. Stating in a discussion that women have been harrassed since time began so men should put up with it now is the equivelant of the childish "I know you are, but what am I?" statement heard on playgrounds the world over.

I'm going to make a statement here that will surely get me flamed, ignored (by those who don't have me on ignore already), and possibly even tombstoned:

It's a WOMAN'S WORLD. How does that statement make you feel? Are you laughing? Angry? Let me tell you why I'd make a statement so outrageous as that...

There are more females of voting age in this country than there are males. No lightbulb yet? Let me continue... If WOMEN banded together, and got over their OWN differences, they could run for and get elected to EVERY elective office in this country, and there is NOT ONE THING that men could do about it. Don't believe me? Go back and read the first sentence in this paragraph once more. I for one would WELCOME the end of patriarchal rule in the world. It hasn't worked.

Saying that men shouldn't feel indignant about being harrassed in the workplace because WOMEN have been harrassed at the hands of men is a notion I CANNOT WRAP MY SIMPLE MALE MIND AROUND.