Flirting? Or…….

My sinks at school are clogged.  We cannot cook again until someone sees fit to unclog them.  In the absense of cooking, we talked about laws and the workplace.  We talked about EEOC and ADA and discrimination of all sorts.  But my favorite part of the discussion had to be when we got to HARASSMENT.

We discussed harassment of all kinds and what the laws are regarding harassment.  How it really doesn’t matter what you MEAN when you say or do something – what matters is how the other person receives it.  We did some written exercises to distinguish harassing behaviors from other behaviors.  I found it very enlightening.  The boys, almost to a "man" got it.  They understand when a person steps over the line into harassing behavior.  The girls, on the other hand, very rarely understood the difference.  To them the harassing behaviors were simply "normal" and should be tolerated.  Sigh.

On the one hand, I understand that.  I am not a person who is easily affected by so-called harassing behaviors.  I blow them (and the would-be jerk) off pretty easily.  On the other hand – the behavior should not be accepted as simply a fact of life that one has to bear.  Growl.  We talked about it AGAIN and hopefully, even if I did not make believers out of my girls, I gave them some food for thought rather than food for their tummies this time.

Our final written exercise of the week was simple.  Fold your paper in half.  Label one side FLIRTING and the other side HARASSMENT.  Now, list 6 behaviors of each type of behavior under the appropriate heading.  Use examples, not from the someday workplace, but from your right now, every day life.  It was interesting to read their thoughts to say the least.  What follows – WORD FOR WORD – is my favorite paper of them all.

FLIRTING:

Is when a simple man goes up to a woman he known’s or just gets along with and compliments her nicely like "You have a lovely dress on".

When a man buys women or a women buys a man chocolate or a nice present to share his care-ness.

Asking for dinner or an elegant restaurant and is very respectful by pulling out the chair or asking if she’d like a drink, etc.

When a body shop has a calendar of a car and just some notes like "fix caldillac tomorrow".

When my cousin greeted the McDonald’s lady and said "Could I get a burger with those fries".

Saying to a coworker Don’t worry you are never old enough to work with our company, you are young sweetie.

HARASSMENT

Is when a man walks up to a girl and says something like Hey lady you gotta nice butt.  Or Hey Baby want come to my house I gotta big boat!

When a man/womaen brings a empty box of chocolate, beer , a blut and a toe clipper and comments with something like "yo, that’s all I got now you gimme something of yours – maybe a butt cheek?"

Asking to go to a strip club or someplace inappropriate for a first date or dinner.

When a body shop has a calendar of Asian nudes and notes like "meet becky at her house, bring "stuff"".

Say nice Butty and coconuts and ask ing for a twinkie at Mickey Ds.

Saying Lady your like 80 years old (really 20) aget the heck out of my store zombie!

Grade the paper?  I hardly knew where to begin.  I settled for a "check" mark and the simple notation that he had spelled blunt wrong………  Oh I love my students!!!!!!