Several generalized assumptions about women inform social attitudes toward both rape and sexual harassment. They say women don't know what they want. This is a very common male fantasy. Sexual harassers likewise claim that women secretly like the attention they get from the harasser. In fact, harassment usually continues or escalates when the victim has given no positive or negative response.
Rapists use victims' lack of resistance as an argument that the woman really wanted it.
Similarly, if victims of sexual harassment don't report the behavior because they are afraid of losing their jobs, the harassers can argue that the women must have liked the behavior or they would have resisted or objected. They way she was a willing participant but changed her story afterward. Similarly, accused harassers often argue that women lie about sexual harassment in order to get men they dislike in trouble. Managers at a food processing facility in Maryland were charged by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission with the harassment of 22 female workers from Central America. The violations included the demanding of oral sex, touching of the women and exposing themselves.