
Ask HN: On Sexual Harassment - jelliclesfarm
On the way home on Uber, I had a chat with a friend about sexual harassment and how to get rid of it.<p>In no particular order:<p>1. Sexual harassment is essentially a power imbalance.<p>2. Eliminating sexual harassment is not by policing the dominant gender, but by stripping the power away from the ‘harassement’ part.<p>3. When will harassment disappear? Would it be true to state that harassment will cease to exist in the absence of an aggrieved party?<p>4. How can one not feel victimized and not aggrieved? I feel like it’a mostly because of the shame associated with sexuality and sex.<p>5. This seems to be a function of religious morality. Segregation on the basis of gender seems to have religious roots. It’s mostly an offshoot of Abrahamic religions.(original sin) As they spread, other organized religions also seemed to adopt this.<p>Example: Indian Hindu temples are full of erotic sculptures and entire treatises that see sexuality as pleasure and not guilt&#x2F;shame. Somewhere down the centuries, as it became streamlined as an organized religion, it became a prudish as the new religions.<p>6. I only got to this point. I couldn’t figure out the rest as I felt blocked going down that thought rabbit hole.<p>My gut feeling is that the root of sexual segregation and shame and harassment is perceived and imposed morality and adoption of mass values.<p>This seems to have developed along with religion all around the world. Almost parallels..<p>Are atheistic ‘godless heathen’ societies that are sexually liberated less likely to witness sexual harassment?<p>The Bible and Koran and many other religions’ books have awful things written about women. Are there any religions that treat men and women equally?<p>Women check out men too and desire them..but why don’t they ‘harass’ them?<p>Why cannot we live by our personal moral codes? Is there an evolutionary advantage to sexual segregation and discrimination and harassment?<p>If there wasn’t, it wouldn’t have survived for so long. Thoughts?
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DoreenMichele
_I only got to this point. I couldn’t figure out the rest as I felt blocked
going down that thought rabbit hole._

It can take months or years to sort out something like this in your own mind.
Keeping a journal can be a useful tool.

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jelliclesfarm
I hear what you are saying.

I guess my question is whether ‘harassment’ (the levels at which we are
perceiving now) is a function of society rather than a function of human
nature.

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gingabriska
I guess human nature has some component which comes from society which is
around them.

In a world, where there is only 1 human being, there would be no desire or
reason to hoard resources.

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jelliclesfarm
I don’t think it’s a resource allocation or resource optimization problem.

Assuming you think of females because of their ability to perpetuate the human
species as a resource issue.

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gingabriska
> Are atheistic ‘godless heathen’ societies that are sexually liberated less
> likely to witness sexual harassment?

What exactly is the origin of sexual harassment?

Let's say that a person A finds person B sexually attractive but person A
happens to be person B's boss.

Now, person A is not sexually attractive for person B but person A wants B
anyhow. This is seflish desire with primary goal "reproducing with someone who
you find sexually attractive", the triggering mechanism are all same but
actual "reproduction" might never happen.

So, person A finds weakness which they can exploit. First, they try to use
charm or whatever normal tricks we use to attract opposite sex like displaying
values or aesthetics or other signals. It can work but it might also not work.

Second, way is purely through psycoglical manipulation. Some people enjoy
manipulating others, this makes them feel alive, feel in control, feel like
they God and everyone's is subject to their manipulative powers.

Then if this also fails, they look for weakness. For example, person B might
actually be bad at their job relatively speaking, but not as bad to be fired.

Now person A takes advantage of this and starts telling B how bad they really
are at their job, destroying their self esteem.

Person in such position, might also start accepting that they are bad at their
job and do not deserve to be here but they've bills to pay.

Person A devises, that they can help if only you accept some of person A's
request for indecent favours.

I'd say in a sexually liberated society, it's easier to find people who are
interested in sexual activities with you.

But what if person A, spends more time at his work and doesn't have any social
life outside of work or yet simply they did not spend enough time outside or
didn't learn how to click with people of opposite sex earlier when they were
much younger and when it was much easier? And they may even try with prospects
outside of work but they do not have any strength outside like they've in
their industry/office?

Sexual liberation might make it easier for people of opposite sex to come
together in a society but it's not the only driving force.

Some people by choice to stay secluded for whatever reason, they might have
deep interest in objects (mathematics) etc... And may consider interacting
with people waste of their time or boring.

This does not change even in a sexually liberated society.

And there is lots of subjectivity in how we value each other and still we've
limited number of people who are considered more attractive than others.

So this power difference will still exist in a liberated society and it even
might be exacerbated as all people are free to pursue the ones they find most
attractive.

