We Have A Zero Tolerance Policy…(Well, Almost Zero) Or, There Will Be No Seshual Harassin’ Round These Here Parts
But stalking, well, now that is a horse of another protocol.
However, I digress.
Mandatory “Sexual Harassment Training” Or, Hollywood, Eat Your Heart Out
“Get thee to the University Center media room!” administration decreed. There, before you sit down, you will sign in, thus confirming your “compliance”. (Compliance, it’s a seemingly innocuous word, and yet with an unmistakable menacing tang, and one that began to gain increasing importance AND menace as the years rolled on.)
Introduction; the lights go down, the film begins. Are there awards for training-type films? Well, never mind.
Lights go back on and a question and answer session is conducted, but, not exactly, because everyone is pretty ticked off at having to sit through the film which, as I recall went more or less:
Jason (to Ann): “Ann. Would. You. Like. To. Go. Out. With. Me? (It was just good minimalist acting style, I think is what they call it.) Jason waits hopefully, and we are given to understand, very inappropriately, for Ann’s response.
Ann (looks surprised, then puzzled, then…wait a minute – I’m going to check Thesaurus dot com. Okay, I’m back now. Ann looks “pensive”) (replies to Jason): “Well. I. Don’t. Know. Jason.” (Ann’s ivory brow is slightly puckered.)
Ann is in quite a pickle. She is “on the horns of a dilemma”, because you see, Jason is a co-worker and Ann does not want to, how you say, “defecate where she dines”. But somehow, none of us gave a rats’ patootie, don’t ask me why.
And see, this was the kind of thing that would really annoy me sometimes. If you’re going to do a kind of retro-Lillian-Gish-Meets-Be-Mine-Fair-Maiden!!, ca. 1996, then hire a piano player! (Daa-daa-daa-dum, daa-daa-daa-dum! DA-dunh-dunh-dunnnhhhh!!) It would have been the perfect counterpoint to Jason’s (albeit half-hearted) leer and Ann’s delicate sensibilities. Hell, you have a music instructor right there on campus! Always a day-late-and-a-dollar-short, I’ m telling you!
So, anyway, the mandatory “person on person” training continued for another year or two, and then, it was computerized, ta-da!! We were then able to read the sparkling repartee, which was enclosed in little yellow balloons, next to the “actors” pictures. (I swear I could hear the “director” off to the side, yelling, “Now, Jack, remember you are the CHAIR of a department at a UNIVERSITY, so you need to try and look like a “gray eminence”, okay?” “What? What’s a gray eminence? Umm, well, it’s, like, say, your granddad, only a whole lot smarter.” “Oh, NO, Jack, I didn’t mean to imply your pop-pop was stupid or anything…”)
(Indulging In A Little Nostalgia)…
When MEN were MEN and WOMEN were girls, back in the 70’s, that’s when the sexual harassing was done RIGHT. Your male co-worker would just look straight at your breasts, and say, “I really like your sweater” and stuff like that. If you were silly enough to murmur something resembling a complaint, you were written off as an old party-pooper. Ahhh, sure takes me back…
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