There is no arguing that sexual harassment is a gender issue: it is a production of gender differences, usually manifesting itself in a ‘men are the perpetrators, women are the victims’ dynamic. It is a cultural issue as well: the term ‘sexual harassment’ is increasingly becoming misunderstood as confined only to the concepts of sexualized violence, when such a reading is distorted. This paper explores how sexual harassment towards women is a way for men to establish a relationship with one another, and how broadening the definition is essential for the phenomenon behind it to be better understood. In understanding sexual harassment’s causes and forms, society is to find the ways to address it as a problem more effectively.
In its acutest form, sexual harassment is employed as a tactic of asserting power. In her work, Quinn (2002) explores this phenomenon through the act of girl watching, that is, a practice of men sexually assessing women, often along with other men. By watching women, men demonstrate their right to evaluate them as sexual objects. However, the question remains whether it is always men’s direct intention to demoralize fellow women by sexually objectifying them. Quinn (2002) states that it is not: girl watching is a game that men play for other men; the subjectivity of women who are watched is relegated to the background. Such games are not to be dismissed as something shallow; Quinn (2002) notes that, for children, play is an influential form of gender-based social action. It simultaneously operates as a source of entertainment and a device of production and reproduction of gendered individualities, group boundaries, and balance of power.
In this way, the particular practice of girl watching is men performing for other men, a tool helping generate a particular kind of masculinity and present strong heterosexual desire. Quinn (2002) reports that the masculine identity is not static; it needs to be reclaimed constantly. According to the public, ‘being a man’ is, but not limited to, having a pronounced sexuality that is to some extent uncontrollable and natural for all males. When it comes to what men think about their behavior negatively affecting fellow women, according to Quinn (2002), they simply do not think about it. Some expressed empathy for harassment victims but only when asked to imagine being a woman in their workplace. Nevertheless, when thought experiments are over, women remain objects, and it seems like men will never care for their feelings at the expense of the establishment of their masculinity.
It is interesting to note that there are other researchers who came to the same conclusions regarding men bonding over sexual harassment, even when their work is not necessarily focused on it. An example is Soucek and Schultz (2019), whose paper’s subject is the term ‘sexual harassment’ and what it is associated with in the modern society. In one of the paper’s sections, Soucek and Schultz (2019) note that, according to the public’s distorted view of the phenomenon, misplaced sexual desire is the only reason why sexual harassment occurs. However, it is not: the authors acknowledge that harassing women helps men maintain masculine status in other men’s eyes (Soucek and Schultz, 2019). As an example, the researchers cite the words of Christine Blasey Ford, a sexual assault victim, who knew that at her expense two men had a form of “homosocial bonding” (Soucek and Schultz, 2019, p.250). While there is nothing in this research about whether men value their relationships with other men more than they sympathize with women, the conclusion is self-evident: even if some do not, they are a minority.
As a matter of fact, Sexual Harassment by Any Other Name is the authors’ attempt to demonstrate the importance of properly using the term ‘sexual harassment’. While some might think that this is a simple debate about words, Soucek and Schultz (2019) believe that the sexualized view of harassment – the one increasingly more resorted to now – is detrimental. From the authors’ viewpoint, there is a need in understanding harassment more broadly, as a means of eroding the inclusion, authority, and competence of women and ‘lesser’ men in male-dominated spaces (Soucek and Schultz, 2019). This kind of harassment functions as the reinforcement of gender differences and the claim of competence and authority as a way to preserve masculinity. By exiling women and gender-non-conforming men or categorizing them as ‘others’, dominants strengthen their superiority in social and economic status as well as in sense of male identity. According to this concept, sexual harassment is a consequence as much as an additional cause of sex segregation or gender imbalance in the workplace.
This is why, as part of the new approach, law and policy are to aim at eradicating gender hierarchies rather than prohibiting sexuality as is. Soucek and Schultz (2019) state that ‘sexual harassment’ must be re-conceived to include sex-based or gender-based pejorative actions and remarks which, however, are devoid of sexualized content. At the end of the day, harassment might involve sexual advances, gender-related insults, or animosity, marginalization, and mockery; all of this serves one purpose: the strengthening of the gendered identity of men. However, with the definition broadened, attention will be drawn to all acts of gendered harassment, not only sexualized ones, and, therefore, these will be more likely to addressed as well.
In conclusion, it is extremely important what people understand as sexual harassment and its causes. It must become common knowledge that women are not to blame in sexual harassment since it often has nothing to do with them, and that ‘sexual’ means not ‘sexualized’ but ‘sex-based’. If that happens, more people will find courage to speak about their experiences, and the chances of the problem being addressed more efficiently will significantly improve.
References
Quinn, B. A. (2002). Sexual harassment and masculinity: The power and meaning of “girl watching”. Gender & Society, 16(3), 386–402.
Soucek, B., & Schultz, V. (2019). Sexual harassment by any other name.The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 2019(1), 227–261.