A recent survey on sexual harassment has found a massive gap in perceptions of sex pestery between generations of Australians.
In the wake of the disgrace of serial harassers like Harvey Weinstein and Don Burke, international data and analytics group YouGov have released the results of a survey that asked men and woman of all ages about 12 actions, and whether or not those actions constituted sexual harassment. Actions included “upskirting”, men pressing against women on the dance floor, comments on appearance, flashing and groping.
The biggest disparities are between millennial women and boomer women regarding wolf-whistling, and men and women of all ages regarding looking at breasts.
Unsurprisingly, more women thought that copping a leer at someone’s chest counted as sex pestery, with 69% of women saying that it was sexual harassment compared to just 55% of men.
Curiously, though, boomer women appeared to really not care that much about being wolf-whistled at. While two-thirds of millennial women responded that wolf-whistling was always or usually sexual harassment, only 29% of women aged 55 and over thought the same thing.
Bear in mind as well that the questions asked of the respondents included a caveat that said the wolf-whistling (or other unwanted attention) was coming from someone you didn’t know – so no chance of people imagining a fun exchange when your mate happens to drive past you while you’re coming back from the grocery store.
When broken down, boomer women’s responses to wolf-whistling are pretty interesting – 23% of those surveyed said they found it flattering and 34% really don’t care. As for millennial women, only 8% said they found getting whistled at flattering, and more than half (58%) said they found it inappropriate.
Interestingly, however, boomer women were much more likely to respond that they had experienced sexual harassment ever in their lives – which suggests that the majority of women are copping pretty egregious shit, considering that heaps of women over the age of 50 don’t consider whistling, sexual jokes or suggestive winking to count as sexual harassment.
What the results seem to indicate is the need for clear guidelines on what does and doesn’t constitute being a damn sex pest – if not for the sake of all the men sobbing about “not being able to hug their female coworkers any more” (good), then at least for all the women who are still just not sure if what they’ve experienced really counts. Hint: if it made you uncomfortable, it probably does.
