Stop Complaining, Real Women Can Handle Sexual Harassment!

A friend forwarded me this op-ed in the times. Basically, the writer argues that the umbrella term for what an be considered sexual harassment is too vague and implies that women are too fragile to live in a realistic world--where unwanted sexual attention and comments is just part of life.

"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.
...... 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."

What do you think: are the codes of sexual harassment to vague and rooted in an ideology that women are too dainty to handle something like an unwanted flirtation or comment? Or does sexual harassment work much more subversively?


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/sex-harassment-what-on-earth-is-that.html