Sexual Harassment Quotes

“Beauty provokes harassment, the law says, but it looks through men's eyes when deciding what provokes it.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

“The liberal idea of tolerance is more and more a kind of intolerance. What it means is 'Leave me alone; don't harass me; I'm intolerant towards your over-proximity.”
― Slavoj Žižek

“If your flirting strategy is indistinguishable from harassment, it's not everyone else that's the problem.”
― John Scalzi

“When a stranger on the street makes a sexual comment, he is making a private assessment of me public. And though I’ve never been seriously worried that I would be attacked, it does make me feel unguarded, unprotected.

Regardless of his motive, the stranger on the street makes an assumption based on my physique: He presumes I might be receptive to his unpoetic, unsolicited comments. (Would he allow a friend to say “Nice tits” to his mother? His sister? His daughter?) And although I should know better, I, too, equate my body with my soul and the result, at least sometimes, is a deep shame of both.

Rape is a thousand times worse: The ultimate theft of self-control, it often leads to a breakdown in the victim’s sense of self-worth. Girls who are molested, for instance, often go on to engage in risky behavior—having intercourse at an early age, not using contraception, smoking, drinking, and doing drugs. This behavior, it seems to me, is at least in part because their self-perception as autonomous, worthy human beings in control of their environment has been taken from them.”
― Leora Tanenbaum, Slut!: Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation

“Self respect by definition is a confidence and pride in knowing that your behaviour is both honorable and dignified. When you harass or vilify someone, you not only disrespect them, but yourself also.
Street harassment, sexual violence, sexual harassment, gender-based violence and racism, are all acts committed by a person who in fact has no self respect.
-Respect yourself by respecting others.”
― Miya Yamanouchi , Embrace Your Sexual Self: A Practical Guide for Women

“Women who accuse men, particularly powerful men, of harassment are often confronted with the reality of the men’s sense that they are more important than women, as a group.”
― Anita Hill, Speaking Truth to Power

“The reporting rate is even lower in New York City, with an estimated 96% of sexual harassment and 86% of sexual assaults in the subway system going unreported, while in London, where a fifth of women have reportedly been physically assaulted while using public transport, a 2017 study found that 'around 90% of people who experience unwanted sexual behavior would not report it... Enough women have experienced the sharp shift from 'Smile, love, it might never happen,' to 'Fuck you bitch why are you ignoring me?'... But all too often the blame is out on the women themselves for feeling fearful, rather than on planners for designing urban spaces and transit environments that make them feel unsafe... Women are often scared in public spaces. In fact, they are around twice as likely to be scared as men. And, rather unusually, we have the data to prove it.”
― Caroline Criado-Pérez, Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

“He told me he was used to getting what he wanted.”
― Celia Conrad, A Model Murder

“I am not your dog that you whistle for; I’m not a stray animal you call over, and I am not, I never have been, nor will I ever be, your “baby”!”
― Joy Jennings, I'm Not Your "Baby": An Australian woman's tortured life of sexual harassment and assault

“And yet, despite the high numbers of girls experiencing sexual harassment in schools, only 12 percent said they ever reported it to an adult. "Some researchers claim that sexual harassment is so common for girls that many fail to recognize it as sexual harassment when it happens," said the AAUW report. A 2014 study, published in Gender & Society, of students in a Midwestern city also found that girls failed to report incidents of sexual harassment in school because they regarded them as "normal." Their lack of reporting was found to stem from girls' fear of being labeled "bad girls" by teachers and administrators, who they felt would view them as provoking how they were treated. They also feared the condemnation of other girls, some of whom were shown to be unsupportive, accusing them of exaggerating or lying. Many girls saw everyday sexual harassment and abuse as "normal" male behavior male behavior and something they had to ignore, endure, or maneuver around.”
― Nancy Jo Sales, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers

“You know... You're still my boss... Which means... This is sexual harassment...
Oh really? I guess I’ll have to fire you then.”
― Alexandra V.

“When it’s “he said/she said,” the woman can’t win. But when it’s “he said/she said/she said/she said/she said/she said,” transparency has a chance, and light can flood the places where abusive behavior thrives.”
― Melinda Gates, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World

“I turned back to the canvas, and it occurred to me then that only a woman could have made this image. This was not a painting of temptation, but rather one of harassment and intimidation, a scene that could be taking place right now in nearly anyplace in the world. The painting operated around a schism, it represented two irreconcilable subjective positions: the man, who believed the scene to be one of ardor and seduction, and the woman, who had been plunged into a state of fear and humiliation. That schism, I now realized, was the true inconsistency animating the canvas, and the true object of Leyster's gaze.”
― Katie Kitamura, Intimacies

“Sexual harassment is using what Nature gave us to take what isn’t ours. It’s an act of violence not only against an individual, but the group—and it inevitably meets with the wrath of the group.”
― Anthony Marais

“To even think of a woman with sexual intent without consent, is harassment!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Girl Over God: The Novel

“What is lack of prevention but denial that there is anything to be prevented?”
― Louise F. Fitzgerald

“Bill Clinton sexually harassed more women than any president in American history. But that's okay. He supports abortion rights so feminists love him.”
― Mike Adams, Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" on Campus

“But another important question is, what is making some boys think sexual harassment is normal?”
― Nancy Jo Sales, American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers

“I remember the exact moment, walking down Tenth Street in Seattle, when I started to see myself through men’s eyes. Horns started honking and I heard men yelling. I looked around to see what was going on. There was nothing. Just me. I was what was going on. I was the reason for the noise. Except for it wasn’t really me that was the reason, it was my body and my face.”
― Rose McGowan, Brave

“It’s an open secret in good old Hollywood. When charges are filed (rarely), the studios just continually settle with the victims, and use their PR machines to invalidate the claims. Usually where there is smoke there is an inferno, especially as Hollywood is concerned.”
― Rose McGowan

“There is a fear of catching AIDS , but a fear also of simply catching sex. There is a fear of catching anything whatever which might seem like a passion, a seduction, a responsibility. And, in this sense, it is once again the male who has most deeply fallen victim to the negative obsession with sex. To the point of withdrawing from the sexual game, exhausted by having to bear such a risk, and no doubt also wearied by having historically assumed the role of sexual power for so long. Of which feminism and female liberation have divested him, at least dejure (and, to a large extent, de facto). But things are more complicated than this, because th e male who has been emasculated in this way and stripped of his power, has taken advantage of this situation to fade from the scene, to disappear — doffing th e phallic mask of a power which has, in any event, become increasingly dangerous. This is the paradoxical victory of the movement for feminine emancipation. That movement has succeeded too well and now leaves the female faced with the (more or less tactical and defensive) defaulting of the male. A strange situation ensues, in which women no longer protest against male power, but are resentful of the 'powerlessness' of the male . The defaulting of the male now fuels a deep dissatisfaction generated by disappointment with a sexual liberation which is going wrong for everyone. And this dissatisfaction finds expression, contradictorily, in the phantasm of sexual harassment. This is, then, a very different scenario from traditional feminism. Women are no longer alienated by men, but dispossessed of the masculine, dispossessed of the vital illusion of the other and hence also of their own illusion, their desire and privilege as women. It is this same effect which causes children secretly to hate their parents, who no longer wish to assume the role of parent and seize the opportunity of children's emancipation to liberate themselves as parents and relinquish their role. What we have, then, is no longer violence on the part of children in rebellion against the parental order, but hatred on the part of children dispossessed of their status and illusion as children. The person who liberates himself is never who you though the was. This defaulting o f the male has knock-on effects which extend into the biological order. Recent studies have found a fall in the rate of sperm in the seminal fluid, but, most importantly, a decline of their will to power: they no longer compete to go and fertilize the ovum. There is no competition any more. Are they, too , afraid of responsibility? Should we see this as a phenomenon analogous to what is going on in the visible sexual world, where a reticence to fulfil roles and a dissuasive terror exerted by the female sex currently prevail? Is this an unintended side-effect of the battle against harassment - the assault of sperm being the most elementary form of sexual harassment?”
― Jean Baudrillard, Screened Out

“It had been at the height of the summer heat-wave of 1995. One day when she had been wearing the skimpiest outfit the Force could ever officially tolerate, she had seen in Strange’s eyes what she thought (and almost hoped?) were the signs of some mild, erotic fantasy.
‘You look very desirable, my girl!’
That’s all he said.
Was that what people meant by ‘sexual harassment”
― Colin Dexter, The Remorseful Day

“You know there's a history of unbalanced power, lack of safety and consent, that makes it different when it happens to a woman, right?"
"I do know that, even though it's not that simple. I hope you're not planning to accuse me of encouraging them and asking for it."
"You were, as a matter of fact, encouraging it greatly." Before he could argue, she raised a hand to stop him. "It was still inappropriate, the way my team behaved. I apologize and will reprimand them."
"There's no need for that."
"I know. But I will anyway. But the next time you pretend to know what it feels like to be violated by the unwelcome attention of the opposite sex, I want you to know that if as a result of it there was any chance that you could get hurt in any way, you should absolutely feel free to put an end to it by letting them know that you aren't interested and that it makes you uncomfortable.”
― Sonali Dev, The Emma Project

“During those years at the end of my teens and the beginning of my twenties, I was constantly sexually harassed on the street and sometimes elsewhere. The harassed doesn't convey the menace that was often present.”
― Rebecca Solnit, Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir

“Because business enterprises are human enterprises, they often reflect and perpetuate the gender stereotypes and structural sexism that have been around for far too long because of a patriarchal society.”
― Tom C.W. Lin, The Capitalist and the Activist: Corporate Social Activism and the New Business of Change

“Consent & Manhood (The Sonnet)

Better deemed a coward than forward,
For there is too much at stake.
Stand ready to wait till infinity,
Without violating her personal space.
She's not your bonerville,
Until she gives you consent.
Remember, consent is the line,
Between a baboon and a sapiens.
Expose your feeling with your gestures,
Earn her trust without forcing yourself.
Keep your libido down, below your knee,
Till you are asked to strip all restraint.
It is no man that turns a beast at the sight of woman.
Real Man is a father, friend and lover - all in one.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Esperanza Impossible: 100 Sonnets of Ethics, Engineering & Existence

“She got off the train, thinking that she never felt really human until she reached Harlem and thus got away from the hostility in the eyes of the white women who stared at her on the downtown streets and in the subway. Escaped from the openly appraising looks of the white men whose eyes seemed to go through her clothing to her long brown legs. On the trains their eyes came at her furtively from behind newspapers, or half-concealed under hatbrims or partly shielded by their hands. And there was a warm, moist look about their eyes that made her want to run.

These other folks feel the same way, she thought—that once they are freed from the contempt in the eyes of the downtown world, they instantly become individuals. Up here they are no longer creatures labeled simply 'colored' and therefore all alike. She noticed that once the crowd walked the length of the platform and started up the stairs toward the street, it expanded in size. The same people who had made themselves small on the train, even on the platform, suddenly grew so large they could hardly get up the stairs to the street together. She reached the street at the very end of the crowd and stood watching them as they scattered in all directions, laughing and talking to each other.”
― Ann Petry, The Street

“You know a good-looking girl like you shouldn’t have to worry about money,’ he said softly. She didn’t say anything and he continued, ‘In fact, if you and me can get together a coupla nights a week in Harlem, those lessons won’t cost you a cent. No sir, not a cent.’

Yes, she thought, if you were born black and not too ugly, this is what you get, this is what you find. It was a pity he hadn’t lived back in the days of slavery, so he could have raided the slave quarters for a likely wench any hour of the day or night. This is the superior race, she said to herself, take a good long look at him: black, oily hair; slack, gross body; grease spots on his vest; wrinkled shirt collar; cigar ashes on his suit; small pig eyes engulfed in the fat of his face.”
― Ann Petry, The Street

“Trying to frame prostitution as legitimate and normal work opposes logic on innumerable levels, one of the most obvious (and almost laughable) being that European Union health and safety legislation prohibits sexual harassment, violence, and work that causes work-related stress!”
― Rachel Moran, Paid For: My Journey Through Prostitution

“Employers harassed them for "being inappropriately dressed" or "not having the right attitude," and held their wages ransom. Customers thought the right to harass young women came with their purchase.”
― Cho Nam-Joo, 82년생 김지영