Harassment: Victims and Their Victimizers

By Sylvia Veronica Scott

This book, HARASSMENT: VICTIMS AND THEIR VICTIMIZERS, will attempt to expose the truth about the sources and reasons for the preponderance of sexual harassment in the workplace and academia. Harassment is a pervasive social problem directed mostly toward females of all ages and races by males of all races. The underlying causes of harassment are sexism and sexism-racism that have been established in this patriarchal society as the norm for the behavior of males. This norm is not normal; rather, it is a type of psychopathologic behavior that is dangerous. Actually, these occurrences may border on fascism within a democratic and liberal society. The male entitlement theory, manhood theory and the masculine mystique all contribute to the harassment of women because males believe that they have a right to control females with physical and /or psychological violence. The reasons why women are victims will be followed by why men victimize women. Both chapters will cover the assessments relevant to the problems both women and men face in this Western culture due to our socialization practices. Men are not cognizant of the scope of their behavior; women are not often certain about how to handle difficult situations with men in the workplace and academia. Some women may be becoming too complacent and will accept abuse; while, others will in turn become aggressors toward other women and then with men in relationships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 14, 2007
• ISBN: 9781503567115

Sylvia Veronica Scott

The author is a graduate of New York University with a Master of Arts degree in International Education. She has been both a health care professional and an educator. As an educator, she has had varied teaching experiences which includes a part-time lecturer in a California state university, an instructor in community colleges, and a teacher in California school districts. She has also taught one year in a Manhattan high school in New York.

Book preview

Harassment:

Victims and Their Victimizers

Sylvia Veronica Scott

Copyright © 2007 by Sylvia Veronica Scott.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 05/11/2015

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Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1 Women Who Are Victims

I. Origins of Patriarchy

II. What Is Feminism?

III. Gender Role Development

IV. Why Women Are Victims?

V. Feminism and Socialization

VI. Gender Role Stereotypes

VII. Sexism: A Feminist Perspective

VIII. Sexism and Sexism-Racism

Chapter 2 Men Who Victimize

I. Gender Role Development

II. Why Do Men Victimize Women?

III. Why Do Males Feel Shame?

IV. Pornography

V. Male Promiscuity and Don Juanism

VI. Males’ Propensity to Sexually Harass

Conclusion

Women Who Are Abusive

Men Who Are Abusive

Epilogue

Major Depressive Disorder

To the women whose struggles have greatly influenced the author: Princess Diana, Golda Meir, and Patricia R. Harris.

The mind of the intelligent man seeks knowledge.

—Proverbs 15:14

On the lips of the intelligent is found wisdom.

—Proverbs 10:13

Foreword

Sometimes as we go about our daily lives, we may stop to think of why we behave and react the way we do, and we may think of what motivates us to stay within the certain framework that society has established for us. We continue without a full awareness of what our society has done to create us and of how this same society keeps us within a mold without hope of escaping.

Some of us do escape, maybe not bodily, but with our minds. We search for answers, and we may find them. Afterward, we challenge the system that has told us in what way we should behave and in what way we shouldn’t. This may cost us friendships, create enemies, and finally take our very lives. But it is up to us to make decisions, to break the mold that society has established for us, and to set goals to better our lives and the lives of those around us.

We are remarkable as individuals with a purpose. The extents to which we use our talents and for what ends are up to us. This challenge is also an inner challenge. We sacrifice and we are sacrificed; we pursue and we are pursued; we motivate and we are motivated. Yet, in the end, it is with him who has created us that we will win the final victory—the victory is from within.

Love is the power within us that affirms and

values another human being as he or she is.¹

Introduction

The socialization practices in Western society provide the foundation for males and females to develop the gender-based differences that lead to behaviors and attitudes that establish biases between the sexes. The sexism that it generates is a product of the underlying paternalism taught to the aggressive male gender as the accepted norm of behavior, thereby limiting in its expectations of the passive female gender, which hinders their productiveness and individuality. Sexual harassment, which has its origins as sexist retaliation, is a pervasive method that males in this society use to further denigrate women and provides a barrier to success in the workplace and academic institutions. Harassment is a means of maintaining sex stratification.²

With this pervasiveness of sexual harassment, it is essential that women be able to identify and categorize sexual harassment when it is encountered. F. J. Till, in 1980, gave a more delineated measurement of sexual harassment, including verbal harassment or abuses to the overt and subtle soliciting of women for sexual favors by men in administration and supervision. The overt forms of sexual harassment and physical contact include touching or brushing against another’s body; while the subtler types are jokes, comments, and suggestions of a sexual nature. The five categories outlined by Till are gender harassment, the generalized sexist remarks and behaviors; seductive behavior, the inappropriate and offensive but essentially sanction-free sexual advances; sexual bribery, the solicitation of sexual activity or other sex-linked behavior by the promise of rewards; sexual coercion, the coercion for sexual activity with the threat of punishment; and sexual imposition, the gross sexual imposition or assault.³

Sexism in the form of sexual harassment—which are abuses against women whether they are verbal or physical, in private or public—is categorized as human rights violations. The abuse of women is global, which in many cases is justified under the guise of cultural traditions in matters of national sovereignty. The women are treated as less than human.⁴ The control over women, whether at home or in public, means a control over their bodies. The physical or/and psychological abuses by husbands are a means of domination. The sexual harassment by males in the workplace and academic institutions is meant to degrade, humiliate, and belittle the victims, thereby interfering with the rights of these women.⁵

An aspect of sexism emphasized by feminist Virginia Woolf in 1928 equated the paternalism in families fascism. The domination of women by men in society leads to their victimization by men, which results in the development of masochistic tendencies by these women. The gender division in families that provides foundation for socialization of children into society establishes the foundation for the victimization of women according to Woolf. ⁶ In a recent book edited by M. M. Pawlowski (2001), she reiterated how Woolf’s Three Guineas presented an indictment against both fascism and patriarchy. Woolf wondered also how European women allowed themselves to be manipulated through their maternal and nurturing instincts by Hitler, which ultimately lead to their own oppression. It was the purpose of fascism to subjugate women during the 1930s as it would be today. ⁷ The book revealed the effective effort against women’s rights, equality, freedom, and access to education, to jobs, and to the professions which Woolf was quick to point out. Woolf could still give no answer even with women’s entry into the professions because they were still a part of the patriarchal structure that produces militarism and war. Woolf proposed a strategy of entry into the professions without identifying with its structure and with disassociation from the existing sex-gender system by an act of active remembrance of the history of female subjection.⁸

In society today, however, we find the blatant and often tolerated verbal harassment of women whether because of gender or/and race which should also be considered fascism. It is an abominable breach of the equal protection clause in the US Constitution under the fourteenth amendment for women to be sexually harassed and verbally abused. The decision by the