abashet/

After reading Lia Cruz’s piece on men’s locker room behavior.

I always tell my nieces that they should get out of a situation as soon as they are uncomfortable. There are legal definitions of sexual harassment and then there is the (equally real) harassment/sexual impropriety that is flagged by a woman’s gut feel and honest reaction.  Unfortunately not all of these hold in the court of law but all incidents can still be reported to the official veins.

A survivor of sexual harassment once told me that if the report she put on record exposed her to judgment, (“she asked for it, ang arte niya, kulang sa pansin, gusto lang maging famous, malandi talaga yan, she’s not credible, hindi naman siya hot, asa pa siya, psycho, etc etc.”) — if that one honest* shared story made even just one other woman more alert when it comes to these things, then the ridicule was all worth it.  

Women let’s watch out for each other.     :)  

Not to be taken as gospel truth but a reasonable observation by a few of my friends:  Unnecessary swagger is usually found in guys with tiny ones.   :P

The gentler the man, the more macho he is.    


:P  

*Now, I accept that if a woman’s narration is/was not honest and fabricated just to ruin the man in question, then - it has to be said - shame on her. If it’s true, then the shame shifts immediately and a thousandfold to the man who hurt her. 


ADDITIONAL READING: A female sports journalist’s take on locker room behavior. An enlightening piece by TV5’s Lia Cruz.