I remember a large sexual harassment poster I saw in a magazine I was reading about four years ago. In the background there were five men of a myriad of races, black, white, Chinese, etc. standing around a watercooler and laughing. In the foreground was a woman, her back to them, who looked as if she was about to burst into tears. The words underneath: "Sexual Harassment: You Can Stop It", or something like that. Its subtitles made it clear that it was a poster against sexual harassment of the "Hostile Work Environment" order.

The law surrounding the hostile work environment brand of sexual harassment has a lot of bugs in it, that's hardly news. First of all is its definition; according to the National Organisation for Women it as any "repeated or unwanted sexual advance, sexually explicit derogatory statements, sexually discriminatory remarks that cause the recipient discomfort or humiliation." Next, after much lobbying by feminist organisations, a new "reasonable woman" standard for adjucating sexual harassment was instituted with the rationale being that what men consider harmless behaviour/ speech may be particularly "damaging" to women, since men and women do not or cannot see the same events similarly. Therefore even well-intentioned commpliments or terms of endearment by a man towards a woman is actionable under the law so long as a "reasonable" woman could find them offensive or "discomforting". It should be noted that there has been suggestions of a "reasonable" man standard, but who are they kidding?

In other words the court system sacrificed objectivity and neutrality under the law for...something else. If it was to stop feminists from shrieking at them, I can't say I blame them. Harassment is now in the eye of the beholder or ear as they case may be. To quote something I read; "The deciding factor is the feelings a particular phrase, gesture, or behavior evokes in the individual on the receiving end." This allows a woman to sue someone just because "he looks at me in a sexual way"/"he kissed his wife in an unsuitably ardent way in front of me which made me uncomfortable"/ "he has a picture of his wife in a bikini on his desk and I don't like it"/ "he doesn't make enough eye contact and I find it threatenning"/ "I overheard him saying 'pussy-whipped' as I walked past the men's room"...NOTE:- Many men have been sued or fired on these and even sillier charges.

There is a big problem with this. It causing a lot of tension between the sexes where I work. A few months ago one of my male co-workers, from another division, was fired because he used the word "bitch" on the phone, in front of a female co-worker. The guys where I work, including me, have taken to falling silent the instant a female co-worker comes into the office. We normally ate in mixed company in the cafeteria before. Now we're eating on seperate sides, men there, women there. A few days ago, a woman who worked with us came to sit on the guys' table. The resulting drama would have been funny if it wasn't so sad. Hardly anyone said a word to her, despite her few attempts to start a conversation. She looked bewildered and not a little hurt when she picked up her tray and left. The truth was she was one of the really nice ones among the women in the office and a month or so ago, the guys used to keep a space for her to sit down with us.

My cousin works with me and she asked why all the guys were acting so "wierd". I told her it was self-preservation, some of us had families and they couldn't risk being fired for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

The problem is that there are no rules surrounding the new "code of conduct" feminists have imposed. After all, who defines what a "reasonable woman's" standard is? If a woman loses a sexual harassment suit, was it because she was proven "unreasonable"? You don't know whether what you just said to Tina that made her laugh would put your job in jeopardy with Julia. Besides, what's sexual harassment here may not be sexual harassment on the other side of the country, state or even city. Talking to women in the office has become risky business. And some guys are just not big at taking risks.

The solution I came up with is that to get rid of the subjectivity of the law and probably ease off the tension between the guys and girls would be for companies to define sexual harassment by surveying a representative sample of their women employees and asking them to define what constitutes sexual harassment. Next, to be fair, another survey should be conducted asking men what they think constitutes sexual harassment. That way then probably a plausible list of things "Not to do" in the workplace for both men and women could be pasted up in each workplace so there would be no confusion. You know the rules, break 'em and pay the consequences.

The upside is that everyone would know that they deserved what they got when they broke the rules. The downside would be that you'll have all kinds of codes, everywhere. Including dress codes...What if, by consensus, men decide that a woman wearing something with a plunging neckline meets the 'reasonable man's standard' of creating a hostile work environment, because the reasonable man finds that plunging necklines are "discomforting"? i.e. plunging necklines present an offensive distraction of a sexual nature to the "reasonable" man. "Silly, yes, I know, but using the current logic "A reasonable man may not see sexual harassment quite in the same manner as a reasonable woman..." it's possible. A man reading a Playboy or having a picture of his wife in a bikini, or even looking at someone 'too long' is not in most (99%) cases, even slightly, an expression of disrespect or an attempt to harass his female co-workers. But then it may be, because "A reasonable man may not see sexual harassment quite in the same manner as a reasonable woman...". So therefore, a 'reaonable man's' standard would be based on the principle that "A reasonable woman may not see sexual harassment quite in the same manner as a reasonable man...". So if the "reasonable man" considers wearing a suit with a plunging neckline as sexual harassment, who are you, as a "reasonable" woman, who may not see sexual harassment quite in the same manner as the "reasonable" man, to say it's not? This is the same argument used on those evil Playboy reading men when they say that they had no intention of "harrassing" their female co-workers, inferiors and in some cases, superiors.

Or...

...we can all push for a revamping of the laws, with women's and men's inputs considered so there would be something a bit more fair to both sexes and a lot less man-hating than the present ones. It might get a bit sticky here and there but on the other side I'll be able to ask the woman sitting at the work station next to mine how her day was, without feeling as if I was playing Russian roulette with my career.