Comment Sexual harrasment is what you get... (Score 1) 806
...when a society promotes job performance as an almost absolute value over every other aspect of life. First, you de-humanize your working environment with over-regulation about what people are and are not supposed to do - mostly in order to attain performance goals - then, when people start breaking over pressure and overreact or start abusing other people, you try to cure these symptomps with even more regulation.
I live in Europe, and I always get amazed by some cultural differences between Europe and US people. You sometimes seem to be overreacting, get extremely sensitive, or taking extreme approaches at several subjects (on the other hand, I also understand that we Europeans may seem to US people as lazy and indifferent).
Our societies were mostly constructed around our basic needs - and these involve amongst others companionship, friendship, creativity, love, sex, survival, laziness, emotional and physical security, etc etc. Try to severely fiddle with these needs and you GOT to have problems.
In *every* close man-woman relationship, there exists an underlying erotic/sexual aspects, whether it is expressed or not (you get these even in same-gender relationships, though we mostly suppress them). We are just built by nature to like each other, and this is crucial for human survival. You are going to eventually like a boy, or girl, usually a multitude of boys or girls, and you have the need to express that. And, conversely, you also have the need to be admired.
When you start over-reacting trying to show your affection, or being over-sensitive to the affectionate reactions of other people, and try to externally regulate these over-sensitivities rather than trying to internally manage your feelings and emotions, you get the mess you Americans are currently in with sexual harrasment practices.
Here in the other side of the Atlantic, we seem to get a more relaxed approach on these subjects. I work on a usual IT shop - mostly males with a relatively small number of females. Our interactions are mostly free. You get the occassional chat with everybody. You get to hear or tell jokes, even tasteless ones. We sometimes go for lunch all together or in small groups. You get to invite somebody out or get invited. You sometimes comment the outlook of others, or get commented at, positively or negatively.
You even get to have a light flirting sometimes, and that is mostly regarded as normal from both sides. If you try to break the barrier of what the other person considers annoying, you get politely reminded of that, directly or indirectly, and this is sufficient for the vast majority of people. When you start to feel harrased by others, you get to show them just that, and most people stop being annoying. There is no need for external regulation or written-down practices for human interaction.
People often form friendship relations in workplaces, and they manage them so they don't heavily interact with their jobs. The occassional mishappen is always there, but that's life. It's usually a bad move to have romantic or sexual relationships with coworkers, but people even have these with no serious problems - it only gets really bad when you break up and still have to interact with your ex at work, but people sometimes successfuly manage even that.
On the other side, real sexual harrasment can happen, and it sometimes happens. Sometimes people abuse their position or power to gain advantage over others (sexual, monetary, or whatever). This is ofcourse considered wrongful, and gets dealt with. The occassional wrongdoer sometimes gets away with it (as it happens sometimes with all wrong-doing or illegal behaviour, but, again, that's life).
I live in Europe, and I always get amazed by some cultural differences between Europe and US people. You sometimes seem to be overreacting, get extremely sensitive, or taking extreme approaches at several subjects (on the other hand, I also understand that we Europeans may seem to US people as lazy and indifferent).
Our societies were mostly constructed around our basic needs - and these involve amongst others companionship, friendship, creativity, love, sex, survival, laziness, emotional and physical security, etc etc. Try to severely fiddle with these needs and you GOT to have problems.
In *every* close man-woman relationship, there exists an underlying erotic/sexual aspects, whether it is expressed or not (you get these even in same-gender relationships, though we mostly suppress them). We are just built by nature to like each other, and this is crucial for human survival. You are going to eventually like a boy, or girl, usually a multitude of boys or girls, and you have the need to express that. And, conversely, you also have the need to be admired.
When you start over-reacting trying to show your affection, or being over-sensitive to the affectionate reactions of other people, and try to externally regulate these over-sensitivities rather than trying to internally manage your feelings and emotions, you get the mess you Americans are currently in with sexual harrasment practices.
Here in the other side of the Atlantic, we seem to get a more relaxed approach on these subjects. I work on a usual IT shop - mostly males with a relatively small number of females. Our interactions are mostly free. You get the occassional chat with everybody. You get to hear or tell jokes, even tasteless ones. We sometimes go for lunch all together or in small groups. You get to invite somebody out or get invited. You sometimes comment the outlook of others, or get commented at, positively or negatively.
You even get to have a light flirting sometimes, and that is mostly regarded as normal from both sides. If you try to break the barrier of what the other person considers annoying, you get politely reminded of that, directly or indirectly, and this is sufficient for the vast majority of people. When you start to feel harrased by others, you get to show them just that, and most people stop being annoying. There is no need for external regulation or written-down practices for human interaction.
People often form friendship relations in workplaces, and they manage them so they don't heavily interact with their jobs. The occassional mishappen is always there, but that's life. It's usually a bad move to have romantic or sexual relationships with coworkers, but people even have these with no serious problems - it only gets really bad when you break up and still have to interact with your ex at work, but people sometimes successfuly manage even that.
On the other side, real sexual harrasment can happen, and it sometimes happens. Sometimes people abuse their position or power to gain advantage over others (sexual, monetary, or whatever). This is ofcourse considered wrongful, and gets dealt with. The occassional wrongdoer sometimes gets away with it (as it happens sometimes with all wrong-doing or illegal behaviour, but, again, that's life).
