Sexual Harassment Gray Zones

“And, in fact, the majority of women in the workplace are not tender creatures and are largely adept at dealing with all varieties of uncomfortable or hostile situations. Show me a smart, competent young professional woman who is utterly derailed by a verbal unwanted sexual advance or an inappropriate comment about her appearance, and I will show you a rare spotted owl.”
 — In her controversial opinion piece “In Favor of Dirty Jokes and Risqué Remarks,” Katie Roiphe makes an interesting argument about the difficulty of defining sexual harassment, and the repercussions of that fluidity. It feels awkwardly and unfortunately tacked to the Herman Cain scandal, which she glancingly addresses (“Obviously there is a line, which if the allegations against Mr. Cain are true, he has crossed, but there are many behaviors loosely included under the creative, capacious rubric of sexual harassment that do not cross that line”), although ultimately I think she raises a good point. I’m sure many will disagree, as they have eloquently in the essay’s comments section.