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Sexual Harassment

We live in a world that’s achieved many technological advancements in a relatively short period of time. Our lives are hectic and more complicated than were our parents’ at a similar age; plus we are better educated, make more money, and work longer hours than they did, also.

In my parents’ era, women typically didn’t work, and rather stayed home, raising families. Nowadays it’s almost unheard of for a woman not to have some sort of job, at any stage of her life. What’s more, women are rapidly catching up to men, when it comes to holding higher level positions, attaining advanced degrees, and earning six figure incomes. Because of this, men and women work closely together, on a daily basis, often late into the evening, and frequently travel together. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize with this much constant interaction, eventually, there’s going to be trouble. However, despite any circumstances, no one should be sexually intimidated, or subjected to a hostile work environment.

Yet, we have no one to blame but ourselves for ever allowing these types of behaviors to persist. In fact for a while, it appeared to be accepted, possibly even expected. Watch any old movie, and you see a young blond secretary, being chased around the desk by her much older boss. These women were always depicted as gum chewing bimbos, often seen sitting on the boss’s lap taking shorthand, and God only knows what else! Of course, this was the exact moment the matronly wife walks in, and needless to say, the girl would always get blamed, and wind up being fired. In addition, how many times have we heard how ‘she slept her way to the top.’ Whether or not this happened as much as it was claimed, there must have been some validity behind it, or it wouldn’t have been brought up so often.

These examples prevailed mainly in the 1950s, and 1960s, and while it wasn’t as blatant, I personally remember incidents of undeniable sexual harassment, well into the mid 1980s. It...