Tackling Sexual Harassment, as a Female Tech Influencer on Social Media

Being sexually harassed is a surreal, intimidating, and nauseating experience.

I choose to publicly share some of the most jaw-dropping instances of sexual harassment I've encountered on my Instagram stories. Despite what you may think, I've been overall satisfied with the outcome of doing so. I've discovered that so many people are strongly opposed to sexual harassment.

I regularly receive dozens of messages from people who take a stand against sexual harassment, offer their support, share their own experiences with me, or even help to raise awareness by sharing my experiences with their followers.

Women and men are speaking out against sexual harassment. That was my objective: to raise awareness. In other words, I've checked an item off my goal list.

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Harassment

Harassment is a product of delinquent behaviors and prejudices against groups of individuals of a particular identity. Harassment is a toxic behavior derived from years of accumulated prejudices that would have much more easily been dealt with if sternly addressed during childhood and adolescence. 

Harassment is a destructive societal problem that isn't going to solve itself. 

I personally can't solve this problem if I'm not talking about it when it happens.

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Perspective

Over the past month I've been providing one-on-one mentoring to people from all over the world through direct message on Instagram. I'm helping people make decisions about their future and achieve their goals. I do this by designing personalized and executable plans for action. This requires me to read messages people send me.

My individual freedoms grant me the power to dictate how people are and aren't allowed to interact with me, whether it's through physical touch, eye contact, gestures, or words. If someone is interacting with me in a way that I deem inappropriate, that is, through repeated unwanted contact or blatant harassment, then that makes me the victim of harassment. As the victim of harassment, there's nothing I could have done to prevent it. I'm in no way responsible for someone else's predatory behavior.

When the person responsible for the unwanted contact is harassing me about my sexual identity, then it's considered sexual harassment.

I'm the target of frequent sexual harassment. No matter how often it happens though, I refuse to normalize it. Sexual harassment is a toxic construct of society that has real consequences. It undermines the shared American value of equality of opportunity. It further enables people who have been advantaged historically, while perpetuating barriers that have historically and statistically do hinder the disadvantaged. 

When people go through life holding identity prejudices with regards to the skill, knowledge, or ability of an entire group of people, equality of opportunity gets compromised. 

That's what discrimination is. 

If men statistically make up an overwhelming majority of positions of power and are the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of sexual harassment, then the problem is going to persist.

I can't afford to ignore the impulse to share my experiences as a victim. There are masses of people who can in no way relate to being frequently sexually harassed, discriminated, and as a result, denied opportunities from persons or institutions of power. If we aren't talking about these types of problems when they happen, the problem won't go away.

When I choose to share instances of sexual harassment, I do it for a reason; not for fun: I can't correct a toxic behavior if I don't talk about it. 

There are times when I don't want to feel alone after I've endured sexual harassment. Reading the words can be a painful, often daily, reminder of how far we still have to go as a society.

My goal is to achieve equality of opportunity within my lifetime. Awareness is key to this goal, for many reasons. Further, talking about it has been a positive outlet for me to make sense about the way I feel. And I'm feeling hopeful.

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How to Support Victims of Sexual Harassment

Here's how you can show your support to someone who's been the target of sexual harassment: stop telling her it's a waste of her time to talk about her experience. 

I do a lot of one-on-one outreach to help people achieve their goals. I'm passionate about helping people. I have to have a means of communication in order to reach people. That requires me to read messages people send me. 

There's no way around that. Reading messages isn't the problem, because I'm the one reading them, and again: I'm not the problem. 

Correcting the delinquent behaviors of sexual harassers is the only way to stop sexual harassment.

Any form of sexual harassment is not okay. But more importantly, it's not okay to tell someone not to share her story. The harassment should not have occurred in the first place.

How I choose to handle it shouldn't be anyone's main concern. The main concern should be eliminating sexual harassment and discrimination.

I try to share the instances of sexual harassment that will make people most uncomfortable or laugh the hardest, because harassment should make people uncomfortable, and for the really bizarre comments, it should also make people laugh. It can be nauseating, but it's also helpful to try to get a good laugh about it. There's no "right" way to do this. I'm simply trying to raise awareness about it when it's happening to me. Ultimately, if it's happening to anyone, then people need to know about it.

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Sexual Harassment from a Cartesian Perspective

I exist. If I didn't exist, I wouldn't be the target of sexual harassment. However, my existence in no way warrants the infliction of harassment.

Furthermore, my existence in a growing spotlight on social media doesn't grant anyone the right to sexually harass me or to interact with me in any way that I deem inappropriate.

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Assigning Responsibility

I'm not making excuses for harassers. Their behavior is unacceptable.

Hold harassers responsible for their actions.

When people tell me I shouldn't share these instances of harassment, they overlook how I'm feeling. That's victim invalidation. It's not okay to invalidate the resulting pain I feel when I've been the target of sexual harassment. Again, it's not my responsibility if I get harassed.

I believe in an equal society, and I'm not going to stop talking about my experiences until I am treated and judged in exactly the same manner as my male peers. Until that day, it's sexual harassment. I'd like to not feel the resulting pain from harassment. Actually, I'd prefer to not be sexually harassed at all. All things and all people being equal, I shouldn't even be the target of sexual harassment in the first place. No one should be.

It's not my fault. So if it happens to me and it hurts, I'm entitled have feelings and to talk about it. 

When someone has been harassed, don't invalidate the way she feels. Expect the pain. Give her the space to cope with the experience however she pleases. Stop judging victims.

I can't raise awareness about this problem without sharing my experiences. And unfortunately, a lot of people can't relate to the experience being the target of constant sexual harassment. If victims are shunned when opening up about it, they're less likely to do so again in the future. Thus, those who don't experience it aren't going to be made aware that it's happening.

Sharing these instances of harassment even serves as an example to those who weren't properly socialized and may have otherwise engaged in those behaviors. Behavior is both learned and unlearned, especially through example.

People learn from others' mistakes.

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Taking Action

I've embraced the mentality that I am capable of doing anything I set my mind to. I'm focused. I know it takes the right attitude and a plan of action to achieve my goals.

I'm set on achieving the goal of using my influence to eliminate sexual harassment within my lifetime. When I share personal instances of sexual harassment, it is because I find raising awareness to be more effective for achieving that goal than is suffering in silence.

I recognize that some people find it boring or uncomfortable to read about instances of sexual harassment. I'm not here to entertain or cater to those people; I'm working towards my goals, not theirs.

It's okay if my method isn't something others find to be constructive. I obviously disagree, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it.

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To Reiterate:

Please don't forget the importance of respecting victims. Sexual harassers are responsible for their own actions. Please stand with victims. Stop invalidating victims' feelings, coping mechanisms, or public candor. If you care, listen to us. Give us space and the respect to decide the best way of handling the problem.

Most importantly, stop denying targets of sexual harassment their victimhood.

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A Positive Outlook

Today we are more connected to each other than ever before.

I'm hopeful that this ability to easily and instantly engage with our communities in real time is changing lives for the better. 

Connectivity and social media provides victims of predatory behavior with a platform to share their stories. 

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Tackling Sexual Harassment & Discrimination

It is important that we listen to and take seriously the stories children tell about their experiences, too, including the onset of sexual harassment during childhood and adolescence. 

Children are likely to not be able to identify bullying as "sexual harassment." Therefore, it is the responsibility of caretakers, teachers, and the community to identify it, validate the victims' feelings, and act.

The younger the age of the harasser, the more effective the intervention. There is no age too young to talk to children about their behavior.

When a boy taunts a girl for her appearance, touches her without her consent, or uses his words publicly or privately to tell her directly that she is intellectually or physically inferior, then his actions are sexual harassment. This makes any such girl, regardless of her age, the victim of sexual harassment.

We undermine all women when we brush off childhood sexual harassment. Brushing it off holds girls responsible for the resulting pain inflicted. At the same time, brushing it off is a form of validation of the actions of the harasser.

When it comes to children, the responsibility is on us, not them. If we continue to look the other way when children are sexually harassed by other children, it's our fault that it continues to persist throughout adulthood.

A young child isn't responsible for these types of social interactions; we are. It's the community's responsibility to protect against harassment and intervene, and even more so when they're children. The earlier we address it, the easier it is to reprimand, influence, and correct the delinquent behavior.

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Sexual Harassment, Consent, Sexual Education, & Consequences of Political Decisions

It's also important that people receive sexual education during their youth.

Protecting young girls from sexual harassment and violence requires that every single conscious person in this country receives an education about consent. However, consent can't be taught without sexual education. 

The way we cast our votes within our democracy will directly impact the decisions our country makes about education. In other words, we all play a role in perpetuating this destructive cycle.

Every vote we cast for politicians with abstinence-only education agendas is a vote to:

• disseminate false information,
• pass up the opportunity to educate adolescents about their bodies and sexual health during the most crucial time of their lives,
• prevent youth from learning consent at a young and impressionable age, 
• deny the impact of educating youth about consent, and
• ultimately, perpetuate the cycle of sexual harassment of, discrimination of, and violence against women.

Again, we are responsible for the actions of children. The decisions we make regarding children's lives ultimately dictate the likelihood that girls and women will be the target of a lifetime of sexual harassment, violence, and discrimination.

Given the historical and statistical context, we can't be pro-equality and anti-sexual harassment if we look the other way or actively pursue an agenda that prohibits children from receiving a necessary education in both sexual health and consent.

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Why I'm Hopeful

We are more informed today because we are more connected than we have ever been before. That's why I'm hopeful.

I'm hopeful that the day when sexual harassment is successfully eliminated from society is soon upon us. I'm hopeful that one day within my lifetime, there will be a last generation of women that endures a lifetime of sexual harassment, violence, discrimination, and unequal treatment. 

I'm hopeful there will soon be the day where we see the first generation, of all future generations, in which all people will live out the entirety of their lives free to exercise the same freedoms, treatment, justice, and access to opportunities as each other, regardless of their identities.

I'm hopeful that, one day soon, all women will have access to the same opportunities that men have historically had and statistically still have today.

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Instagram: @programm.r