Harrassment In Schools

Q: IT IS THESE COMMENTS LIKE YOURS THAT MAKE HARRASSMENT (sp?) POSSIBLE! MAYBE IT *DID* HORRIFY HER--NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO SAY ANYTHING TO YOU YOU DON'T FEEL IS APPROPRIATE. AND WHAT EXACTLY DO YU THINK SHE "GETS" FROM HER MOM? PRUDISHNESS OR SOMETHING?

A: Sad that, that one issue occupies so much media attention, and can cause such amazing outrage from administration when other occurrences of the same type cause no reaction... i.e. racial remarks, etc. The admin. doesn't care when people use racially inensitive words, because it's NORMAL for those people to be using those words... Well, guess what I've been in three different school systems and it isn't NORMAL!! Of course the definition of normal IS created by the majority, but somehow I never imagined normal to be racist... Anyway back to the topic, I understand that an astonishingly low percentage of females feel that they have been harrassed or ever will be harrassed, (high tolerance levels) while an astonishing amount of males now regard being accused of sexual harrassment as a morbid fear... These two attitudes leave a lot of room in the middle so that males probably won't be accused of being sexual harrassers right and left, because even if we made a little mistake the girl would MOST LIKELY not consider it to be sexual harrassment ANYWAY.

I think it's reactions like yours and the girl interviewed that encourage harassment and make people easy targets. Kate, has anyone in your school ever made lewd remarks to you? I bet they did. It's the way most adolescents deal with their new sexuality. They joke about or say stupid stuff because they're uncomfortable with it, yet those ragin' hormones insure that they think about it. Alot. Anyway, when they did make those remarks, did you flip out and start crying, or did you snicker and tell them to shut the hell up and stop being stupid? You stand up for yourself, at least here on the net, so I'm gonna guess the latter (or some reasonable facsimile).