In conjunction with Baton Rouge Women’s Week, the LSU Women’s Center hosted a sexual harassment workshop Tuesday to help students learn about the problems of sexual harassment. The workshop focused on the various definitions of sexual harassment and the effective ways of responding. Pam Baldwin, president of the Baton Rouge branch of the American Association of University Women, welcomed the group to the workshop Tuesday night. AAUW, a 125-year-old national organization that promotes education and equity for women, presented the University with a $5,000 grant to collect data on sexual harassment on campus last semester. In the voluntary survey titled “The Campus Action Project,” 77 percent of both male and female survey-takers reported experiencing some form of sexual harassment on campus. In the same survey, more than 80 percent of self-identified LGBT survey-takers reported same-sex sexual harassment. “It’s chilling to me to see that it doesn’t matter where you live,” Baldwin said. “Sexual harassment is everywhere.” Jessica McKelvie, Women’s Center manager, said sexual harassment is a common problem at the University. “Of course not all men are sexual harassers, but it’s enough of a problem that we need to address it,” she said. McKelvie said power is the basis of most sexual harassment. She said men hold economic, status, gender and physical power over women in many cases. “They can use this power to harass women,” she said. McKelvie said it is important for women to understand the most effective ways of responding to sexual harassment. She said silence and aggressive counterattacks, like cursing or yelling back, do not resolve the problem. “It’s dangerous if you’re responding to sexual harassment with an aggressive response,” she said. “It’s also not effective because you’re fulfilling a stereotype of a crazy, hysterical woman by doing those things.” McKelvie said some strategies to effectively end and prevent sexual harassment include taking legal action, being assertive and confrontation. “They’re counting on never being called out in this situation,” she said. “It catches most harassers totally off guard because they’re not expecting any type of confrontation.” McKelvie read passages from Martha Langelan’s “Back Off!” to cite examples of how women can challenge and prevent sexual harassment. Katie Lecompte, mass communication sophomore, said most people would not recognize subtle sexual references and actions as sexual harassment. “I think that every girl has been yelled at in an explicit manner, so I think this workshop helped me understand the right ways of responding to sexual harassment,” Lecompte said. McKelvie said Tuesday’s workshop was the first of its type since she became manager of the Women’s Center last year. She said she plans to hold more workshops in the future.
—–Contact Angelle Barbazon at [email protected]