The Reluctance to Call Bullshit!

Waitressing Is One of the Worst Jobs for Sexual Harassment
Image from the Daily Beast, a real suck-ass website.

David Malki, producer of the Wondermark brand of fine comics, has a list of articles worth reading. I started reading one about sexual harassment in higher education and I realized the problem is just what I suspected all along: women's reluctance to call Bullshit! when some horny old codger starts putting the moves on them. Given the difference in the way men's and women's minds work we shouldn't be too surprised. For whatever reason, women are generally more timid and subservient and men are more bold and domineering. What do you do about this situation? Well, the female approach seems to be wait until the perp trips up and then fall on him like a pack of verbal hyenas, which seems like a thoroughly ineffective way of dealing with the problem. Plus it involves sucking up everyone's time and energy on a problem that could have been dealt with in 30 seconds if someone had just had the balls to call Bullshit! at the first sign of trouble. Balls, well, that sums up my take on situation. Not very helpful I suppose.

Léa Seydoux as Madeleine in Spectre
If you become fixated on a woman, this is what she looks like to you, regardless of her actual appearance.

I am somewhat familiar with the perp's point of view. You see a women every day and for reasons that are not entirely clear you can become sexually attracted to her, regardless of whether you have any chance of making contact. It can be like a drug. It sticks in your mind, it colors your outlook and it affects your behavior. It may not even be under your conscious control. If you can resist the impulses it may fade in time. Or a direct rejection may wipe it out. I don't know if there is good way to deal with it.

One solution might be for the woman being harassed to hire a hooker to relieve the perp of his frustrations. Not the most savory of solutions, but it avoids the confrontation that many women seem unable to instigate, and it also avoids the political fallout of calling Bullshit! on someone in your chain of command. You still have the problem of payment, but presenting a bill for services rendered might be the least uncomfortable way of dealing with this kind of problem.

Update August 2019 replaced missing picture.