Sexual Harassment

In class we have been talking about sexual harassment. We did two mock trials, one criminal rape case, and one civil sexual harassment case. After participating and watching these two trials, I have come to the conclusion that sexual harassment is very subjective. There are something’s that people will call sexual harassment when others might think it is harmless jokes. This line between appropriate and inappropriate can be very thin. For example we talked about the incident at Oak Park River Forest high school, where a group of boys made a list of the most F-able girls and description of their body parts. To these boys it was a harmless joke, but to the girls affected it was hurtful and disrespectful. The girls pressed charges on the boys. I personally think that ruining these boys lives for a list is a little over dramatic. Although this is a clear case of sexual harassment, every teenage boy has made this list (maybe not a physical list but in their heads) and girls have to realize that. I do think they should be punished for their rude and exposing list. My views have certainly changed on this subject, the more cases I heard, the more I could understand the victim in these cases feel uncomfortable. In the case that I was assigned to a girlfriend accused her boyfriend of rape. When I first read the case I thought she was just insane and a jealous girlfriend, because if its your boyfriend its not rape. After really reading the case and understanding her side, I realized that if she didn't want to have sex with him and he forced her to have sex, then its rape. It very hard to determine if something is harassment when its one word against another.