Carol Hay argues that victims of harassment have obligations to confront perpetrators. She accentuates that this is necessary to not only preserve and protect the autonomy and moral agency of the victim herself but also those of others. She posits that when one negates to confront perpetrators they cause harm to women as a whole. In this essay I will argue that Hay’s argument I. Exposition In this section I will summarise Hay’s argument that victims of harassment have obligations to others. Her argument is as follows: a victim of harassment has a moral obligation to confront her harasser. A woman has a responsibility to sustain and protect her own autonomy and moral agency. For instance, David Foster Wallace has purported …show more content…
Accordingly, women have a moral obligation to preserve their own autonomy. A correlative aspect of this is that women have an obligation to challenge what undermines such autonomy and therefore moral agency as it causes moral harm. As such, the woman in the aforementioned scenario has an obligation to approach the ride operators because they cause harm to her as a member of the collective group of ‘women’. This additional moral duty is necessary in order to preserve autonomy, even though the imposition of the duty would impose an additional burden onto the victim. II. Key Issues and Themes I will now examine the main themes that are present within Hay’s article. The first key theme in this response is the importance of preserving one’s own autonomy. Hay views this principle as core to the recognition of what it means to be human and therefore protect moral agency. The second theme states that women should not be governed by male norms for the mere sake of avoiding conflict. The associated principle to this is that women must consider the broader consequences of their actions or inactions on the autonomy of their group as a whole. Further, the third theme is that the potential for one to act in response to harassment may cause harm although the degree of such harm does not undermine the general principle that one has a moral obligation to confront their
In Chapter 11 of William Shaw’s The Organization and the People in It goes over issue of sexual harassment in the workplace and its effects. Sexual harassment is defined as the “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature”, most reports of sexual harassment are from women accusing men however men accusing women is becoming more prevalent in todays society (Shaw, p.444). Sexual harassment is a moral issues because a person becomes a victim by means of verbal comments, gestures, or physical contact of a sexual nature and not being able to refuse them without fear that something worse will happen.
This case is about a lawsuit filed by an RCMP Corporal Catherine Galliford who alleged that her senior officers had sexually harassed her and she received numerous sexual advances from many senior officers since the time she graduated. Cpl. Catherine Galliford has been a prominent spokesperson for RCMP in some of the significant cases like Air-India bombings and revealing the arrest of Robert William Pickton, a serial killer. This case talks about how women are subjected to harassments in all forms of mental, physical and sexual in work places irrespective of the sector they work in. This paper also talks about loop holes which the organization takes advantage of and shy’s away from addressing the problem fearing public outrage and
In an express recognition that every sexual harassment case is likely to be profoundly circumstance-driven, Mansfield J appropriately focused on assessing the credibility of the witness, whether the alleged event did in fact occur, and whether it occurred in the way which she alleged it occurred, with a range of evidence before him. Some of the alleged conducts were directly denied: with regard to an April 2005 allegation concerning A Hickinbotham, after assessing the ‘reasonable’ time period in which the incident should have been reported given the surrounding circumstances (e.g. Poniatowska’s position at work), the judge rejected her claim on ground of the significant delay in reporting the incident. Reasonableness was again considered in dealing with a September 2005 allegation concernin...
When the struggle of women is mentioned, it is almost impossible to not reference to either source; and although the authors took different approaches, the sole purpose of empowering women still remains.
(Slide 3). Gilligan argues how women have initiated another way of looking at ethics. Gilligan pointed out that there are two types of moral reasoning’s. Male ethics are of justice and female ethics of care. The ethics of care for women is directed to the respond of the needs of others in complicated situations. This approach mainly involves concepts like having compassion, relationships, and responsibilities. (Slide 18). Ethics of justice thinks that the situation is important in determining how it should be treated. Men base justice on rights, applying the rules to everyone and responsibility goes toward codes of conduct. (Slide 19). Male perspectives are held more publicly and are concrete on rights of law. Women on the other hand perceive things as a private
Often times, women are treated poorly or unequally. She brings up the issue of interfering with other cultures when we disagree with how they are being treated; it is difficult to interfere because we don’t want to “impose our will”.
In the past century, America has made great leaps in terms of equality. With the efforts made by the civil rights and suffrage movements, all people gained the right to vote. We are even moving forward with marriage equality, and currently fifteen states recognize same-sex marriage. But regardless of all of our progressive institutional movements forward, we continue to socially oppress women. Men’s violence against women has grown to be an internationally recognized epidemic, and will continue to grow unless measures be made to stop it. Domestic violence continues to be prevalent in the lives of many families, and is the primary cause of homelessness in half of cases for women in children. Many women have been forced to alter their behaviors out of fear of being sexually or physically assaulted. One out of every three women is sexually or physically abused in their lifetimes. The first thing that comes to mind is, there are a lot of people abusing women out there. Many people with opposing ideas may claim that men can be victims of violence perpetrated by women, but in instances not used for self-defense, it is rarely part of a systematic pattern of power and control through force or threat of force. In fact, 99% of rape is perpetrated by men, but when confronting men about the issue of violence against women, it is often combated with denial. Jackson Katz writes in his book, The Macho Paradox, “We take comfort in the idea of the aforementioned child-rapist murderer as a horrible aberration. A monster. We’re nothing like him.”(Katz 30). The sad truth is that most women who are raped are raped by men they know, or even men they love. Many men have a hard time believing that saying that most violence is perpetuated by men does not...
Feminist Criminology, 7(2), 146-162. Kinder-Matthews, J. & Co., Ltd. (1994) The 'Standard' of the 'St Working with female sexual abusers. (pp. 57-67). The 'Secondary' of the Miccio & Fonseca, L.C. a.
Donna, George. “Textual Harassment.” Women’s Voices, Feminist Visions. Ed. Shaw and Lee’s. McGraw-Hill, 2013. 540-542. Print.
Susan Griffin’s Rape: The All-American Crime touches on many issues within American society. She begins by recounting how she was taught to be afraid of strange men from such a young age that she had not yet learned what it was she was so afraid of, and then goes into her experience with harassment, an experience shared by every woman at some point in her life. Griffin recounts the belief that all rapists are insane and the proof that they are just normal men and dispels the myth that rape is normal activity that is prohibited by society. However, she goes on to clarify that our culture views rape: “as an illegal, but still understandable, form of behavior” (Griffin 514). It seems that the wrongness of rape is determined by the situation in
3. At the point the harassment of the victim has become so severe that he/she is unable to return to his/her job (Bennadi & Konekeri,
Women have suffered as the result of harassment and discrimination for centuries. Today, women are able to directly confront their persecutors through the news media as well as the legal system. Three important literary works illustrate that it has not always been possible for women to strike back. In Raise the Red Lantern, The Handmaid's Tale, and A Doll's House, the main female characters find ways to escape their situations rather than directly confronting the problem.
‘Acts of whatever kind, which, without justifiable cause, do harm to others, may be, and in the more important cases absolutely require to be, controlled by the unfavorable sentiments, and, when needful, by the active interference of mankind. The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.’
...action with others… especially men. This supplies final substantiation of the authors' argument, that women continue to be oppressed by their male-dominated societies. It is a bold undertaking for women to ally and promote a world movement to abandon sexist traditions. Although I have never lived in a third world or non-Westernized country, I have studied the conditions women suffer as "inferior" to men. In National Geographic and various courses I have taken, these terrible conditions are depicted in full color. Gender inequality is a terrible trait of our global society, and unfortunately, a trait that might not be ready to change. In America we see gender bias towards women in voters' unwillingness to elect more females into high office, and while this is not nearly as severe as the rest of the world, it indicates the lingering practice of gender inequality.
Signs of harassment can range from comments on a woman’s breasts or hips to unwanted "accidental" fondling or offensive pictures being brought to their attention. Harassment can also tak...