{"id":1127,"date":"2016-11-28T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2016-11-28T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2016-11-28T08:00:56","modified_gmt":"2016-11-28T12:00:56","slug":"sexual-harassment-assault-costly-tax-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/sexual-harassment-assault-costly-tax-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Sexual Harassment and Assault: A Costly Tax for Women"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1128\" src=\"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Sexual-Harassment-and-Assault-A-Costly-Tax-for-Women-300x201.jpg\" alt=\"sexual-harassment-and-assault-a-costly-tax-for-women\" width=\"300\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Sexual-Harassment-and-Assault-A-Costly-Tax-for-Women-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/Sexual-Harassment-and-Assault-A-Costly-Tax-for-Women.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>I am the survivor of both sexual assault and rape, and I understand all too well the high cost, or tax, that women pay for being treated as sexual objects.\u00a0 I experienced sexual assault as a child, an adolescent, a young woman, and a middle-aged woman. I have never talked about most of these experiences, but I believe that women now need to speak out to make it clear that disrespecting women is a real problem, not just \u201clocker room talk.\u201d \u00a0Sexual assault and violence are serious problems all over the world and not small problems in our country.\u00a0 Amanda Taub of the <em>New York Times <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/10\/11\/business\/a-special-tax-on-women-trump-tape-is-a-reminder-of-the-cost-of-harassment.html?_r=0\">reports the following<\/a>:\n\n\n<ul>\n \t\n\n<li>One in four women in the United States have been sexually assaulted.<\/li>\n\n\n \t\n\n<li>One in five women in the United States are victims of rape or attempted rape.<\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\nThe cost to women who experience sexual assault and harassment in its many forms\u2014many of which were clearly described in the <em>Access Hollywood<\/em> tape that recorded Donald J. Trump boasting of grabbing, groping, kissing, leering, and committing other violations of the personal boundaries of women without their consent\u2014occurs on many levels.\u00a0 The cost can be emotional trauma that can be permanently damaging to one\u2019s confidence and self-image, not to mention the pain and humiliation of rape.\u00a0 I particularly resonate with Taub\u2019s description of the impact of sexual assault on women as an \u201copportunity tax.\u201d\nWomen are taught early in life that they are responsible for avoiding sexual assault and that it is their fault if it happens to them. Taub cites social scientist Professor Leong, who explains the opportunity tax: \u201cWhereas men can freely seize opportunities, women must pause and weigh the costs of\u201d meeting alone with a professor, going out to dinner with a male client, networking after hours with colleagues at a conference, meeting alone with a potential investor, or going on a business trip with a male boss. Because of sexual harassment and assault, many women quit jobs, leave professions, or step back to avoid risk, thereby damaging their careers and limiting their life choices.\nA lot of women have come forward to tell their stories since Trump\u2019s words and tone in the <em>Access Hollywood <\/em>recording struck a chord with many of us. We are outraged by the dismissal of his remarks as \u201clocker room talk.\u201d\u00a0 Jonathan Miller<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/10\/11\/us\/politics\/sexual-assault-survivor-reaction.html\"> sums up Trump\u2019s statements<\/a> well, writing that they reflect a \u201crape culture\u201d in our larger society.\u00a0 He explains that talking about objectification of women\u2019s bodies results in the cultural conditioning of men and boys to feel entitled to treat women as sex objects. This is also <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/07\/10\/opinion\/sunday\/how-wall-street-bro-talk-keeps-women-down.html?_r=0\">described by Sam Polk<\/a> as \u201cbro talk.\u201d\nYes, Trump\u2019s comments struck a nerve.\u00a0 Kelly Oxford posted a tweet sharing her experience of sexual assault on Friday night when the <em>Access Hollywood<\/em> tape was released, and by Monday morning twenty-seven million people around the world shared first-person accounts or visited her Twitter page.\u00a0 Shortly before the <em>Access Hollywood <\/em>tape came to light, I <a href=\"http:\/\/annelitwin.com\/why-sexual-harassment-is-still-happening-in-the-workplace\/\">published an article<\/a> on why sexual harassment happens, and received more than two hundred stories and comments and over 10,000 viewings from readers all over the world on LinkedIn.\u00a0 The following are a few of those comments from my readers:\n\n\n<ul>\n \t\n\n<li>I work in silence. It\u2019s not nice bosses that have the upper hand over employees.\n<em>Female Housekeeper<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n<ul>\n \t\n\n<li>I was in a position in which a high ranking male would look at various parts of my body in a very lewd manner. When I filed a complaint, it became his word against mine and nothing was done.\u00a0 I was asked to transfer to another location.\n<em>Female Technician<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n<ul>\n \t\n\n<li>I think a lot of sexual harassment begins at home. Dad belittles Mom, Mom tries to keep a straight face because the kids are watching.\u00a0 Daughter grows up and gets married to a man much like Dad.\u00a0 This carries over into the daughter\u2019s work life\u2014trapped, not knowing which way to turn, ignoring degrading remarks in order to put food on the table.\n<em>Female Author and Business Owner<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n<ul>\n \t\n\n<li>One college professor grabbed my backside while at a business club event. Another offered to give me a better grade if I \u201cwent out\u201d with him. I took the lower grade.\u00a0 Things like this happen more frequently than reported.\n<em>Female Technical Professional<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n<ul>\n \t\n\n<li>This is still a huge problem. I recently wrote about my own experiences with sexual harassment by an executive and admitted my own fear of speaking out because I worried it might damage my reputation.\n<em>Female Entrepreneur<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n\n<ul>\n \t\n\n<li>In India, a deeply rooted culture of patriarchy plus inherent misogyny form a dangerous basis of judging the seriousness of any sexual harassment complaint made at the workplace.\n<em>Female Financial Advisor in India<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\nIt is not easy to speak out when demeaning and traumatizing things happen to you.\u00a0 It helps when we can share our stories and know we are not alone.\u00a0 We must come out of the shadows with our stories and support each other.\u00a0 Together we can pressure our society to stop perpetuating a rape culture and to end this opportunity tax for women.\nPlease share your story here, if you have one to tell.\n&nbsp;\nPhoto: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/29759986@N03\/\">Daniel Kruczynski<\/a>\nLicense: <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0\/legalcode\">https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0\/legalcode<\/a>\n&nbsp;]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<![CDATA[]]>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[225,227,525,526,586,612,634],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-uncategorized","tag-gender","tag-gender-discrimination","tag-sexual-assault","tag-sexual-harassment","tag-trump","tag-women","tag-workplace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.annelitwin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}