Watering Down Sexual Harrassment

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

BY THE YEAR 2020, every American will be a victim. Give it another 15 years, and there will be a study that puts every man, woman and child into one aggrieved group or another.

In that spirit, a new study by the American Association of University Women found that "nearly two-thirds of college students experience sexual harassment at some point during college." When you consider what the AAUW's definition of sexual harassment is -- "unwanted or unwelcome sexual behavior that interferes with your life'' -- it is surprising that the percentage is so low. The study even lists "sexual comments, jokes, gestures or looks" as "examples of different types of sexual harassment."

The fact of being a white-hetersexual male under 40 year old could be in fact a symbolic gesture of being a harasser.