To the panelists:
Sexual harassment creates lingering personal, financial, and
professional consequences.
In order to end sexual harassment in our schools and workplace, it is
necessary to change our perceptions about gender, gender expectations,
gender roles, and gender interactions. Change, necessarily requires
awareness. In making people aware that some words and actions are, at
minimum, inappropriate or , at the extreme, wrong (morally and/or
legally), the listeners' tendency is to resist change and to become
defensive.
For example, the words "sexual harassment" are enough to trigger an
attitude:
It's not happening here.
I'm not harassing anyone.
If we don't talk about it, it'll go away.
Don't be so sensitive.
My question is whether there is a way (ways) to foster change in
attitudes, behaviors, and polices regarding sexual harassment that is
more palatable? That is, what are "user-friendly" ways to educate others
about sexual harassment that will minimize their resistance to change?
Sharon Hushka
sharynh@earthlink.net
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