Sexual Harassment (Oh My!)

Typically, I hate professional development. Luckily, I've found the key to victory: National Geographic. I have become an infinitely more knowledgeable person for reading the best periodical out there during time supposedly designated for listening to a highly uneducated somebody/nobody reading from a script about whatever the hell it is the school bereaucracy has written a script about. But the word 'sex' inevitably perks up one's ears, so the last few days after school, I left the new National Geographic featuring an article about the literal chemistry of love at home for a couple of hours each night to participate in the first-year teachers' mandatory sexual harassment training.

Sexual Harassment training?! How completely progressive! How forward-thinking! By Hercules, how could the school district possibly screw it up?

They did, and how.

Strike one: sexual harassment in Mississippi follows archaic laws by which the victim is at fault. The offense must be 'repeated and reported', meaning that a lewd act is not actually sexual harassment until the victim is forceable and aggressive in seeking an end to the inappropriate behavior. This means that I can play grab-ass all I want with my coworkers and I don't have to stop until someone complains. My first offense is a freebie, and I can continue to offend until someone stops me, never mind that I'm the asshole who's responsible. "But your honor, it's her fault I raped her! She was wearing a short skirt!"

Strike two: the room was filled with a bunch of backwards jerks who refused to admit that certain behavior may be inappropriate. They argued and argued against what was being taught in the role play scenarios and ignored the voices of any dissenters, who by some display of rational thought didn't see the need to shout the loudest to prove a point. Nonetheless, the message was clear: this training is nonsense and we don't need to listen to it. Never mind that the whole reason for the training is specifically because people fail to realize what it is inappropriate and need to be taught so that they'll change their ignorant minds. Shame on the woman running the session for being nothing more than an uncaring messenger of an undesirable and vitally necessary lesson.

Strike three: it was implied that a woman who follows through with a complaint about sexual harassment will be labelled a frigid bitch and will lose all her friends. We watched three videos of scenarios in which sexual harassment was transpiring. In the first two, the woman did not complain, and so by allowing the behavior to take place she was at fault since apparently the victim is the responsible party. But in the third video she slapped a big old law suit after numerous complaints against gentle probes for a date. Technically, she was in the right, but against, the unspoken message was clear: usually men are completely reasonable in hadnling women (Ha!), so that when a woman complains and follows through she is uptight and neurotic. So ladies, please don't complain, you'll only be hurting yourself when a guy treats you like an object.

So what did I learn from my sexual harassment training? Men are entitled to do whatever they want and women need to just grin and bear it. How progressive!