Opinion

Sexual Harassment Is Not All in the Mind

By JULIET HINDELL

Recent changes to the laws in Japan in favor of women's rights are to be welcomed. But recent scandals show that however much you change the law, what you really need to change are people's attitudes toward sexual harassment.

You can no longer advertise jobs specifically for men or for women in Japan. That is fine in principle and a good move. But of course we all know that companies will still employ the sex they were looking for, so in fact it means more wasted applications for women.

The new laws ban the display of nude photos in calendars and such in the workplace. Again, that is a good move. It is very unpleasant for women to see pictures of naked women or women wearing tiny bikinis in the office. Would men find it as unpleasant to have pictures of naked men in the office? It would certainly be distracting.

But while you can change laws it is difficult to legislate changes of attitude. Some recent scandals in Japan suggest that even some of the country's public figures do not understand what sexual harassment means.

I recently interviewed a young Japanese woman who was job hunting. She said she had been asked in nearly every job interview what her reaction would be to sexual harassment. I took that to mean that the companies were aware of the issue. But she said that the companies were trying to find out whether she would cause trouble if she encountered sexual harassment.

I was job hunting 10 years ago in Britain and even then I was never asked about my attitudes toward sexual harassment. I would have been concerned about the company I was applying for if the interviewers had asked such questions.

Of course sexual harassment still takes place in Britain, and men have also prosecuted women for sexual harassment. But it seems women who prosecute are often portrayed as strident and forceful and even as too unattractive to secure attention from men in normal circumstances.

Worse, they are sometimes accused of imagining the harassment. It's all in her mind, their accusers say. Men, on the other hand, are not portrayed as being provocative or, as women often are, accused of "asking for it." Men get a far more sympathetic hearing.

Sexual harassment, I think, is a symptom of the world's deeply engrained double standard toward sex and promiscuity. If a woman is harassed, her critics will say she provoked it by wearing revealing clothes and suchlike. It is hardly credible that the same would be said of a man.

By the same token, if a woman is said to have had a lot of sexual partners, she is regarded as being loose. But a man is called a stud. Until men are subjected to the same threat of criticism that women are in these matters, I think it is hard for men to understand the boundaries of what is and is not acceptable behavior.

Consistently, the people who say it is not a problem are generally men. This is not just true of Japan. It is true of every country.

Shukan ST: April 30, 1999

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