Have you ever felt intimidated by other people’s remarks directed towards you? While the earth is still spinning, many situations occurring right now are dealing with unwanted sexual attention. Believe it or not, in your school hallways, passing classes, and even outside of the school campus, you might have been involved in a situation resulting in sexual harassment. Sexual harassment can occur and you may not even know it happened or caught your attention and that’s the scariest part.
A few examples of sexual harassment may include unwanted behavior or actions from someone, uncomfortable sexual teasing, jokes, or questions about sexual fantasies, preferences, or history, sexual comments about a person’s clothing, anatomy, or appearance, looking a person up and down (also known as elevator eyes), and different facial expressions. If you have been a victim of these actions, you may want to look closer into this article: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/whatissh.pds
Bascially, sexual harassment is receiving unwanted attention from someone that you may or may not know. It can get nasty, including various acts of crude behavior toward another. According to the surveys which discuss sexual harassment, it has been proven that 56% of women and 40% of men come into close contact with inappropriate behavior from another. This means that more women than men go through multiple accounts of sexual assault physically, verbally, or mentally.
That being said, it is mandatory that we, as a community, can come together and mend the disturbing comments or actions that continue to affect us each day. If we do not act and ignore the words, phrases and remarks being said, then we have no choice but to deal with this never-ending group of sexually harassed victims or the ones who have caused the devastation. Some people do it for pleasure, for example, by trying to steal a laugh about how someone looks or presents her/himself. Another reason why others may find this amusing is because the same thing happens to them, and they pass it on like a disease. Sexual harassment can lead to so many life threatening things, and that is why it is our responsibility to end this once and for all.
Most accounts on sexual harassment don’t get mentioned to the helpful ones who surround them. They usually get ignored no matter how abnormal; in some cases, they rarely get around to the ears of the most important people to reach out to during these miscellaneous situations. Another way sexual harassment can be passed around is because of the electronics being used by anyone with access to it. In the United States middle and high schools, it is believed that 36% of girls and 24% of boys get sexually harassed from the usage of electronics. The rest of the 30% is the combination of both genders (supported by http://www.aauw-ca.org/).
There is little to no positive side about the real truth about sexual harassment. Whether it happens to a male or a female, the thoughts behind the wrenching comments go completely unnoticed or unnoted. Actions speak louder than words, but sometimes words can overpower what actually gets done. If people take the time to think before they do or say something that may trespass someone’s boundaries, then problems of this topic would be disappearing and maybe even minimized. It takes more than one hand to finally lift up this weight.
