By Stephanie Young

Women are sexually harassed in the work environment more than men and here is why.

In today’s day and age, we are all about equality and equal rights, so many American’s think men and women are equal. That is false.  In the article “Men and women are not the same and won’t be.” it discusses why women and men are not equal and why they never will be.

So, let’s get into it.

For example, take the “The Economic Status of Women in New York State,” women earn only 87.6% of what the state’s men earn. This is absurd because we represent equality and women’s rights here in the United States. Now you may ask what does women not getting paid the same as men have anything to do with women being sexually harassed? Well it has everything to do with it. Women are not viewed the same way as men are. Most of the time women are looked upon that they are just this pretty object or figure. That their “job” is to look pretty. Men will actually say I can not do my job because she is too pretty. It’s distracting.

Take a look at the article “Jared Porter’s firing: Women in baseball media talk about working amid harassment.” Brittany Ghiroli was a reporter covering the baseball game. She was just doing her job. Yet a player took this to his advantage in the work environment and asked to meet with her privately and he tried to make moves on her. His answer to why was “because you were nice.” Brittany was just trying to do her job and instead of taking her seriously he looked at her as an object because she was quote on quote “nice.”  You hear it all the time in politics that men abuse their power and sexually harass women. Men should be treating women just as they would to another man in the office and working with them to get the job done.

There are of course people who say women do not get sexually harassed in the workplace and if they do it is because they asked for it. In an article called “Only 1 in 4 women who have been sexually harassed tell their employers. Here’s why they’re afraid,” states that women are afraid to report it  because others or that guy will say it was her fault or she asked for it.  Last time I checked I don’t think any women in a political field of work wore anything or did anything to make a man look at her as just an object and not take her seriously in her line of work. No woman asks for sexual harassment or ANY kind of harassment.

Women work just as hard if not harder to fight for the position they have especially in government/politics. Women are looked down upon because we are a female and emotions get in the way, or were too pretty it is distracting. In an article called “Women are judged for being emotional’ — yet it’s more acceptable for men to get upset and angry, female executives says women are judged for being emotional’ — yet it’s more acceptable for men to get upset and angry,” A female executives said in the article that women are judged way to much because of their emotions. Women have just as many rights as a man does and should be treated as so. It should not matter if it is a female or not, stop sexually harassing women in general, and especially in the workplace, where she is supposed to feel safe and worked very hard to get to where she is. 

Stephanie Young is a student in a Media and Democracy class at St. Bonaventure University.

Categories: Jandoli Institute