harassment

Quite rightly, as a male in the working environment, there are several things I cannot say at work, especially around my female co-workers. This is a long overdue correction from days past, where people were allowed to say whatever they wanted to, no matter how uncomfortable it made people feel.

In the past 10-15 years, legislation, and workplace guidelines have established that there are certain subjects that are innapropriate in the workplace.

I've never seen this as a contradiction to my libertarian leanings. When I'm at a job, I have to conform to a dress code, and certain hygiene standards. Around clients and customers, there are certain words I'm not allowed to use. Regardless of how I feel about a customer, I'm not allowed to call him a jerk.

However, it would seem to me that a double standard has come into play. A young woman I work with has in the past three weeks, asked me what I think about her boyfriend wearing her underwear, asked me to imagine her running around her apartment naked, and yesterday told me a half dozen times that she was born in the year of the cock and wanted to know what I thought of this. I have a more than passing familiarity with asian culture, I have never heard of a year of the cock, I've heard of year of the rooster, but not cock. It should be noted that this woman is my supervisor at work.

Interestingly, my reaction to this has been guarded and measured, I think to myself, have I brought this on myself? Have I said anything that makes this sort of comment acceptable? I'm caught in an internal moral debate, as a liberal I'm uncomfortable making a complaint using a rule that was designed, let's not kid ourselves, to protect women, and minorities from white males who for decades ruled the workplace in North America.

Even more interesting has been the reaction of some of my friends, "is she good looking", "do you think she might be interested in you", "oh come on, she's just joking around".

Let's turn this around, if I went to work and asked this woman a half dozen times, what kind of pussy should I get, what kind of pussy does she think I would like, and it would be good to go home to a pussy every night? What do you think the reaction would be? Would there be any hesitation on her part to file a complaint if I were her supervisor?

Regards
Chris