A Lesson in Workplace Sexual Harassment

Tags: crime/law/deviance, education, gender, inequality, organizations/occupations/work, comedy, sexual harassment, workplace ethics, 00 to 05 mins
Year: 2009
Length: 4:42
Access: YouTube 

Summary: This comedy skit from Madtv depicts a group of employees receiving a lesson around sexual harassment awareness. When one employee does not understand the concept of what sexual harassment entails, he articulates several commonplace statements frequently used to justify or diminish the seriousness of sexual harassment in the workplace. Such statements include notions around women not knowing "how to take a compliment" and "over-reacting" (or, as he says, "flying off the handle"). He also suggests that men are simply trying to "boost women's spirits" through compliments or that sometimes men "accidentally" touch women inappropriately. The workshop facilitator, increasingly frustrated, highlights the ways in which sexual harassment, though sometimes difficult to articulate through words (and, by extension, rules and policies), can come into sharper focus when experienced firsthand. In addition to illustrating basic concepts around what sexual harassment entails, this clip offers a nice launching pad for a discussion of what sexual harassment feels like (and why this feeling or interactional dynamic might be challenging to sufficiently codify into rules and policies).

Submitted By: J. Deluna, L. Teniente, R. Nuñez

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