POLITICAL CORRECTNESS AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT GONE AMUCK (Post 2)

You might be thinking that political correctness and sexual harassment are two separate topics but the fact is - the political correctness craze has spilled over into nearly every facet of our lives, including sexual harassment.  How?  As I mentioned in my first political correctness post, political correctness’ sole purpose is to drive a wedge into humanity in order to make each of us afraid to interact with each other.  Nothing controls man more succinctly than the fear of being accused of sexual deviance, especially when in today’s world, sexual deviance can be just about anything anyone wants it to be.  Holy cow – better keep my mouth shut.

Just a few decades ago sexual harassment wasn’t even a topic of discussion.  That doesn’t mean that it didn’t exist or that it doesn’t exit today but what has now been defined as sexual harassment goes way beyond any normal common sense reasoning and is, frankly, astronomically absurd.  I would find myself laughing at the ridiculous stupidity of it were it not for the fact that so many innocent people are being permanently and callously damaged by its irrational condemnation and disregard to any actual truth or fact.

Going on my own experience with the sexual harassment agenda, most companies today require all of their employees to take a sexual harassment class every couple of years.  I’d like to point out that in my life I have never personally known of a single person who has ever been sexually harassed, although the media would like us to believe it is very common place – in fact, running rampant in our society.  (Remember – political correctness drills fear into us.)  So, being naïve, I attended my first mandatory sexual harassment class and found myself completely dumbfounded at what was being taught and defined as sexual harassment.

Our instructor was very professional, taking the time to explain that sexual harassment is not accepted in our company and that everyone should feel safe in reporting sexual harassment incidents to their superiors without fear of any retaliation.  Okay – sounds good.  Then she went on to present her slide show which listed what she explained to be examples of sexual harassment that we could encounter.  I will not list all her bullet points but I’d like to list some that I found to be disturbing.  They are as follows:

(a)          Telling someone that they look “nice”.

(b)         Telling someone they had pretty eyes or a beautiful smile.

(c)          Making any comment whatsoever with regard to someone’s dress, such as stating that their suit was “attractive” or their shoes are very “stylish”, I love your tie, that’s a great color on you, etc.  NO comment should ever be given as to one’s physical appearance.  Physical appearance is a “stay away from” topic.

(d)         Making any comment such as “you look a lot like my cousin,” or “you remind me of an old girlfriend/boyfriend.”

I, along with just about everyone else in the room, had to lift up our jaws from off the floor.  This instructor just had to be kidding us – right?  Nope – she was dead serious – and then she went on to tell us of an actual story.  The story went like this.

Boss A’s assistant walks into his office to deliver the morning mail and Boss A tells the assistant that she reminds him of his girlfriend he had when he was in college.  A co-worker was walking past the office and overheard the comment and, later, reported the incident to the personnel director who passed it on to the company’s superior.  A few days later, Boss A was “let go” (fired) for sexual harassment in a company who had a “no tolerance” policy in place.

The instructor pointed out that Boss A had violated bullet point (d).

I raised my hand and asked whether the assistant herself had felt that she had been sexually harassed by Boss A’s comment and the instructor said that whether or not she did was irrelevant as the comment itself should have never been made.  So I followed up with another question.  “What if she DID resemble his past love?  Did anyone see a picture of this old girlfriend?”

Again the instructor stated that whether she did or didn’t look like this old girlfriend was not the point – the point was that the comment itself should have never been made.

Not being put off, I asked, “Then how can someone who is simply making an observation be accused of sexual harassment?  Maybe she was a spitting image of his past girlfriend and he was simply reminiscing, thinking back to a happy time.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  In fact, if I were the assistant, I would find that to be very flattering.”

Frustrated, the instructor reiterated that the comment was inappropriate and was not asked for by the assistant.  She went on to say that, “Any comment that makes a person feel uncomfortable is classified as being sexual harassment.”

I said, “I wouldn’t be in the least bit uncomfortable with such a comment and from your story, neither was the assistant.”

The instructor came back with, “The person who reported it WAS uncomfortable.”

I’m like – “WHAT?  Boss A never made the comment to that person.”

The instructor answered, “That didn’t matter – the comment made another feel uncomfortable and that is CLASSIFIED as being sexual harassment.”

You have got to be freaking kidding me.  I said, “Look, that story has absolutely nothing to do with sexual harassment and if anyone thinks it does – then they should concentrate on taking their own heads out of the gutter and cleaning up their own thoughts.  I’ll tell you what constitutes sexual harassment.  Boss A tells new employee, “Meet me at the hotel down the street and, if you’re really good to me, I might let you work on this new project.  Room 525 – be there or don’t bother coming back to work tomorrow.”

The instructor was none too happy and I did think that I was now on the chopping block at work but, luckily, after she left, even my superiors came up to me and thanked me for speaking up.  The company leaders and employees, for several days after that class, made several comments to each other such as, “Red is a good color for you – oh, I’m sorry, that was sexual harassment – right?”  “Love your shoes – oh, I’m sorry, that was sexual harassment.”  We all knew how absurd the whole thing was and the truth is, I’d say that at least 95% of the world’s population, if not more, know it is outrageous as well – so why are we letting the 5% control us?

That was at work and, fortunately, I worked with adults who had common sense but it wasn’t too long after that that a news story broke out about a 6 year old boy being suspended from school for kissing a little girl on the playground.  He was suspended for sexual harassment.  WHAT?

Although that incident occurred a few years back, the trend has continued to escalate.  People have lost their jobs solely on what was on the mind of someone else, having absolutely nothing to do with truth and reality, and young children have been suspended on a topic they knew little to nothing about.  What kind of a generation is going to grow up when, at the tender age of 6 you have already been labeled in society as a sexual deviant?  Political correctness has gone amuck but, unfortunately, as for its champions and the lack of the right speaking up, it has succeeded in instilling an entire generation with fear of expressing basic complimentary and uplifting comments.  Comments that I personally would love to hear.  Comments that make me and hundreds of millions of people feel better.  I want to get those compliments – its compliments that often get you through a rough day.  And, with the amount of time women spend on trying to look nice – it’s extremely deflating to one’s “self-esteem” to not get noticed for your efforts.

I decided those years way back after that first sexual harassment class that I was not going to fall prey to the brainless ridiculousness of the craze.  Bring on all compliments – I’m a big girl and can handle them.  And if I see someone who looks “nice” – well, by golly, I’m going to tell them so – and, hopefully, that will brighten their day.  Let’s ban together and ignore the political correctness/sexual harassment bull-crap and start making life a little more enjoyable for each other and a lot less stressful!

Until next time,

Yours truly,

Chris