You will never fully understand unless you experience it by yourself.
-Dilla There are numerous occurrences of sexual harassment all around the world. One in five women and one in 71 men will be raped at some point in their lives (National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2012-2015). According to the UNHCR, Sexual harassment is any unwelcome sexual actions, sexual favour requests, verbal or physical sexual attempts whether be expected or be offended hence causing violation or disparagement to the victims (UNHCR, 2015). Magdalene (2018) points out that sexual harassment includes physical, verbal, written, visual, and psychological advances. Besides, spoken, written, and visual harassment from suggestive expression have appertained to the non-physical harassment. Moreover, it will be categorized as physical harassment when someone practically perpetrates other by any obvious actions, for instance, touches, hugs, and kisses. In addition, society tend to comfortably live with the Rape Culture where people have less awareness about this issue. As the rape culture has been viciously internalized to the humankind and triggered the sexual harassment occurrence, I myself believe that the sexual harassment is obviously crushing the mental quality of society, particularly analyzed by three main aspects: psychology, education, and socio-politics. From the psychological viewpoint, sexual harassment will undoubtedly weaken the victims. The effects of sexual harassment can be seen from the victim's side as well as the perpetrators. In the case of the offenders, sexual harassment itself can be given whether consciously or unconsciously. Most harassment actions are not only perpetrated intentionally but also often indeliberately acted by the offenders. To illustrate, when the girl is passing to a group of men on the street, many things could happen to her such as winking, whistling, attempting kissing sounds, catcalling, or more aggressive like touching some spots with sexual gestures. One of the most significant factors of this phenomenon is that the victims do not have enough power than those who are inclined to sexually harass them. Together with it, since people generally stand on the rape culture practice, they are also accused by the society. Hence, when someone is sexually harassed, prevalently they are too weak than the offenders, that they cannot speak up about it. Consequently, both the perpetrators and our society are now making them even more powerless. Sexual harassment is also exceedingly involved in the educational aspect. We could not deny the fact that there are so many students having trouble with their school due to the fact that sexual harassment has been being a serious issue at all educational levels. Those places should have protected the pupils. Nevertheless, The Guardian (2017) mentions that “more than one in three girls (37%) in mixed secondary schools told a survey they had been sexually harassed while at school and 24% have been subjected to unwanted physical touching of a sexual nature”. Basically, whether girls or boys, both have the same possibilities to be sexually harassed by fellow students, teachers, headmasters, coaches, and other school officers (Equal Rights Advocates, 2015). Exactly, since sex education has not implemented well in every school, any sex things that should have known earlier by the teenagers are still considered taboo. That is why the students with their mental conditions that are riskier than those in the average ages, are even more unable to speak than the other victims. Correspondingly, a considerable number of students all around the world are dealing with their problems regarding this issue. Some of them are being more introverted and unproductive in the learning activities. Also on the top of that, many of them even choose to quit the public school where they get harassed, continue to the homeschooling instead and getting unsocialized. Furthermore, in order to tackle down this problem, it would be better to consider the socio-political perspective in addition to the discussion of the effects. Admittedly, women as the very common victim in this issue are not only considered fragile to be harassed easily by the offenders, but they also get no empathy from the community where they stand on. Coupled with it, people incline to have less recognition of women as the part of society. For this reason, internalizing gender equality is one of the best solutions to break it. No doubt that the struggle for women’s power within the community will evidently affect the victims' position. Therefore women have a significant role as one of the power sources in political circumstances. Women should be involved in the decision-making process to distinctively give result in some policies for supporting the victims’ status among the community, as well as conveying this issue wider hence the society will be aware more of this issue. In brief, I can conclude that sexual harassment is critically being a serious issue to be tackled. Both generally based on the psychological aspect and specifically from the educational aspect as one of the essential part of the society, this problem should best be solved by addressing the gender equality and undertaking the policy by two principal ways: encouraging the victims and constructing the society’s awareness. References Equal Rights Advocates. (2015). Sexual Harassment at School. Retrieved October 23, 2018, from Equal Rights Advocates: https://www.equalrights.org/legal-help/know-your-rights/sexual-harassment-at-school/ Magdalene.co. (2018). How to Handle Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. Retrieved October 11, 2018, from https://magdalene.co/news-1693-ruang-nyaman-how-to-handle-sexual-harassment-in-the-workplace.html National Sexual Violence Resource Center. (2012-2015). Statistic about Sexual Violence. Info & Stats For Journalists. Retrieved from https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf The Guardian. (2017, December 12). Sexual Harassment 'rife' in Schools but Largely Unreported, Study Says. (S. Weale, Editor) Retrieved October 24, 2018, from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/12/sexual-harassment-rife-in-schools-but-largely-unreported-study-says UNHCR. (2015). UNHCR's Policy on Harassment, Sexual Harassment, and Abuse of Authority. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/UN_system_policies/(UNHCR)policy_on_harassment.pdf
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