From: Maia Cheli-Colando <maia>
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:57:25 -0800

For some reason, this made me remember that early Muppet Show scene where Gonzo is asking everyone's opinion about his old, moldy teddy bear, and everyone says the bear is awful and has to go... and poor Fozzy thinks they are talking about him.

Regardless of stupid the training is, in reality, sexual harassment isn't prosecuted that way, though.

Such idiotic trainings are based on the notion that people are too dense to actually listen to each other -- and from the knowledge that some people don't care to listen. It makes sense to tell someone who revels in racist or sexist jokes that it doesn't matter if he or she thinks the jokes are offensive -- if other people find them so, that is what matters. But extrapolating that to ridiculous levels only serves to ridicule us all... and I imagine, is often extrapolated so for just that purpose. Think: if the County heads don't really buy into sexual harassment as a problem, then by making it extreme and illogical, they subtly (a) put everyone uptight (a splendid tool for creating worker insecurity, thus fewer unions are formed, and fewer demands are made, etc...) and (b) cause folks to think that the whole thing, really, is just a dumb exercise.

Which brings me back round to the Times. Other than readership (hey, look how many clicks we got this week!), who does it serve to explode this issue? Who is driving the censor-focused coverage? Hmm? What atmosphere does the Times' unbalanced coverage create? Are they, in fact, giving ammunition to folks who might otherwise not try to censor a book like this -- because look, see, the Times says everybody is doing it? Why should /we/ have /that/ book if /they/ won't stock it?

Maia

James Elliott wrote:
> I realize that many of the people on this list are School Media, but not all
> of us are. Many of us work in the public library arena, and have different
> rules and regulations and policies and defintions. We were frankly told in
> our SH Course that if a woman takes offense for any reason, we don't have a
> leg to stand on. And we were further told that this is true whether or not
> something we had said was totally innocent: if someone took offense, and
> reported it, than that was Sexual Harassment. Period. Also, if somone just
> overhears something they consider offensive (i.e., not said TO them), that
> could also be considered a sexual harassment violation.
>
> This was repeated in the three Counties for which I have worked so far.
>
> Jim
>
Received on Mon 19 Feb 2007 02:57:25 PM CST