<p>So, which of the following is OK, which is just teasing, and which is sexual harassment–and what additional information would you need to know how to classify them:
I like the way that shirt shows your b**bs.
That shirt makes you look hot.
I like your shirt.
I hate your shirt.
That shirt makes you look fat.
You are fat.
You are a fat, ugly hog.</p>
<p>Does it matter who’s saying it? Whether it’s a boy or a girl? What the context is? What the relationship between the kids is? What the intention is? Etc.</p>
<p>My point is that a survey like this is an awfully crude tool.</p>
<p>
See, I can’t tell whether that’s a serious suggestion, a playful joke, or a really offensive comment at the expense of autistic people. Perhaps your intention matters?</p>
<p>If somebody says something and I tell them to stop and they continue? That is not playful. It is harrassment.</p>
<p>Some guy might think he is playfully slapping a female employee on the rear end. Who gets to decide if this is playful?</p>
<p>I mean, the only reason this is even a question is because it is still considered acceptable to objectify women. There was a time when it was also all right to be racist. It’s the same thing.</p>
<p>I think “within reason” is an interesting caveat.</p>
<p>I mean, I don’t even know what that means. I mean, do you think a white person could jokingly put on black face, or use racist terms in a “teasing” way, and then, the african american would get to decide “within reason” if that was racist? How bizarre.</p>
<p>ETA: if a white guy makes racist comments to an african american, do you think he will be punished? I do.</p>
<p>You know, they used to say there was nothing they could do about bigger guys beating up smaller guys on the playground, too. So many of things we no longer do in our culture, which we consider appalling, used to be considered de riguer and unchangable. So, yeah, I don’t really buy it.</p>
It means that it is possible that some people may be offended by things that a reasonable person wouldn’t find offensive. For example, if I were an employer I might not think that people who said “Merry Christmas” to other employees were harassing them based on religion–but somebody might feel that way. There was a case I remember in which somebody was offended because another worker was reading a book that had a picture of a burning cross on the cover–the book was not a pro-Klan book. I thought that was unreasonable. So yes, the recipient gets to determine if the words or actions are offensive–within reason.</p>
<p>Please define “punching someone in the stomach.” How hard does it have to be to be classified as a punch? Do you really mean to maintain that roughhousing boys do not frequently punch one another in the stomach?</p>
<p>We should. If an employer tolerated the sort of nonsense that goes on in a typical middle school, it would end up with a “hostile environment” claim against it. Without intervention, these boys will grow up to behave like Bill Clinton or (allegedly) Herman Cain. </p>
<p>Remember Phoebe who killed herself in Hadley, Mass? A lot of the bullying was sexual harassment. A LOT of bullying is. </p>
<p>It’s straight out of “Lord of the Flies” in some cases.</p>
<p>And, Hunt, if someone copies homework, that’s cheating. If someone bubbles in another answer after time is called, that’s cheating. If someone hires someone to take the SAT for him or copies a term paper from the web, it’s still cheating. So, if we were to ask students if they cheated in the last semester, if they tell the truth, each person who did any of these things has to say yes, I cheated. We don’t react to the statistic by saying "It doesn’t matter because we don’t know how much of what happened involved “serious” cheating. </p>
<p>No, of course the list I mentioned doesn’t constitute rape. But, yes, all of the girls in that class WERE sexually harassed.</p>
<p>What’s a sexual comment? Is “you’re really pretty” a sexual comment? My point is that it’s awfully easy to make categorical statements about not tolerating sexual harassment, but a lot harder to define what exactly you’re talking about, assuming you want to have some standard other than “anything that somebody doesn’t like.”</p>