One of the primary reasons women don’t confront sexual harassment appears to be a fear of inciting anger in the harasser. This isn’t just an issue for young girls, women have the same problem.
Over an over again, in stories published here, emails, reports at the forum, it’s the same thing. “I didn’t want to make him angry.”
Why is this? Why are the harasser’s feelings more important than her’s? Are woman so socialized to take care of others that we will even take care to protect people who are showing disrespect or even abuse?
I can understand if the harasser has power over the victim–such as when it is a supervisor or teacher. But girls and woman struggle with the same issue even if the harasser is a peer.
Another interesting pattern which I’ve picked up while entering the surveys–many woman view the harasser’s becoming angry as a form retaliation for the complaint. It isn’t. Anger is an emotion. Retaliation is a negative action, such as giving someone a poor evaluation, or firing them, in the aftermath of harassment or a complaint about harassment. If the guy gets angry, this is just an emotion and does not count as retaliation.
This could be because woman have been socialized for so long to work on being as “attractive” as possible, and to suppress any of their own anger about anything because anger is so, well, unattractive. And being afraid of an emotion in ourselves gets projected into fears of stirring up the same emotion in others.
Then there is the issue of women’s historical role at enforcing social rules and maintaining stability. While feminism did much to free women up to try to change their limited lot-in-life, socialization can take a long time to reverse. Perhaps many women are still struggling with the pressures to avoid making anyone angry because this is another way of making waves. (or maybe they are afraid that what the angered harasser will do will make waves.)
Or maybe I’m reaching here….
I don’t really know. All I do know is that one of the biggest stumbling blocks women have in confronting sexual harassment is this issue with anger–not just their own, but also the anger of others. I hear this over and over–”I didn’t want to make him angry,” no matter what the age of the people involved, or how little real power the harasser has over their target.
Clearly, I’m going to have to do some research on this. I’ll get back to you when I have some info.
