From: bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Re: individual men vs. "patriarchy" and individual women vs. "feminism"
Organization: Motorola, CCR&D, CORP, Schaumburg, IL
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 16:05:52 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.210729.16966@Veritas.COM> rdh@Veritas.COM (Robert Hartman) writes:

Re: sexual harassment

)Her view on this is that the man is indeed entitled to that, but that
)he should not expect to get either the explanations or the emotional
)support from the particular woman raising the issue.  First, since the
)woman is already upset, she might not be able to give it.  Second,
)that's not typically in her job description.  His HR representative
)should be the one to provide that for him.

My view on the topic is that the law is very unclear, and that this tends
to lead to unfair and biased enforcement practices (because of the extreme
vagueness of the term 'hostile, intimidating, or offensive environment'.)
This leads to the 'unfairly jumped on' scenario you describe.

[I assume Mara still is not interested in a debate or discussion on soc.men
and that you are seeking to clarify your own thoughts wrt sexual harassment,
BTW, and that Mara is 'out of the loop' at this point.  If I'm off the mark
here, it'd be nice if whomever would let me know.]

I agree with you that a man has a right to fair treatment, and not to be
'jumped on' for things that he didn't intend to be harmful.  The solution
as I see it is to make the law clearer, and, among other reforms, to get rid
of the notion that 'good intentions are no defense' when it is not
appropriate.

Some comparison of the definition of 'sexual harassment' with more
traditional forms of harassment would probably be instructive.  Though I
don't know as much about this issue as I would like, I do have the folowing
that was posted from Black's law dictionary:

According to Black's Law Dictionary:

	"A person committs a petty misdemeanor if, with purpose to
harass another, he:  1) makes a telephone call without purpose of
legitimate communications 2) insults, taunts or challenges another in
a manner likely to provoke violent or disorderly response  3) makes
repeated communications anonymously or at extremely inconvenient
hours, or in offensively coarse language  4) subjects another to an
offensive touching 5) engages in any other course of alarming conduct
serving no legitimate purpose of the actor."

Note that some things are defined as harassment regardless of intentions -
and that the vague 'catch all' of 'alarming conduct' does allow the
'good intentions' (actually 'legitimate purpose') defense.  I think something
similar needs to be done with 'sexual harassment'.  For that matter, perhaps
some of the things that are currently called 'sexual harssment' could use
a more accurate and descriptive name, perhaps breaking up this over-broad
word into different and more clearly defined categories.

To sum up my view, the law is very poor, and needs to change so that vaguely
defined things are not 'illegal' and men are not unjustly 'jumped on' for
anything that isn't clearly out of line in a way that can be communicated
and understood in a reasonably unambiguous manner beforehand.  There will
probably be some need for a 'catch-all' of some sort - (I still think the
current one is too broad even for a catch-all.)  But a broad 'catch-all'
requires an equally broad defense - something that is very notably lacking
from the current standpoint of 'sexual harassment' regulations.

BTW - as sort of an aside - it is rather humorous, in a black way, that
people against 'patriarchy' would support such meddlesome,authoritarian
and intolerant interference by 'the system' in individuals life to the
extent that what sort of posters a person chooses to display in their
workplace becomes an issue for the federal Supreme Court!  If the 'Supreme
Court' isn't "patriarchial", what is?

Xref: sparky soc.men:17517 soc.women:17523 misc.kids:25630