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Posting a sign on a door that implies that overweight women are eyesores is rude, childish, disrespectful and shameful, but it is not sexual harassment, as Rachel Krautkramer pointed out in her opinion column “Sexual equality comes with a price” published in Thursday’s edition of The Maine Campus. It is an obvious conclusion that you’d be hard-pressed to find someone refuting.
A nod to Krautkramer for bringing the issue to light and noting its absurdity, but what a despicable way to support her claim: “This is the price we pay for sexual equality.”
Does being equal mean we should expect to be blatantly disrespectful to one another? Does being equal mean that when a man tells us we’re fat and ugly we should just slap him across the face and rest assured, knowing that he has learned the error of his ways? Should we feel so self-important that we can target a group, make personal commentary on the way they look, and then be so bold as to expect no backlash as if rudeness is our right because the genders are equal?
“The thing is, ladies, this is the price we pay for equality,” Krautkramer wrote. “If we want to be accepted as equal to men, we can’t expect special treatment.”
Special treatment. Special treatment? I’m rereading this sentence, and I’m wondering what kind of world we are living in where common human respect isn’t common anymore. It’s special. To be treated respectfully is special treatment now. Holy f*ck.
Sexual equality does not, has not and will never mean that one gender has the inherent right to consciously offend and embarrass the members of the other gender in their community and get away with it. Yes, it’s naive to think that we’re all going to live in a happy little world with sunshine and flowers, and everyone’s going to be nice to everyone else. Yes, there are people in the world who will post signs on doors to tell the fat girls that they’re ugly. Yes, I accept this as reality, and I will not be shocked if I encounter people like this in the future. They’re out there.
But I will not call these people justified because they are my “equals.” I call them disrespectful human beings who deserve exactly what they get. If you think you have some God-given right to comment on someone’s appearance and then suggest that they change their lifestyle because of your preference for body type, then I hope someone takes action against you. This man – and I shudder to call him that, for it implies some kind of esteem which he has proven to his community that he lacks – deserved the eviction, the probation and the paper assignment.
Thank you to the University of New Hampshire for making the statement to its campus that being disrespectful in a campus forum is not OK. Thank you to UNH for understanding that while it is an educational institution, social learning goes on in that space as well, and letting these kinds of incidents slide by sends a message. In this case, it would have sent a message to the women in the dorm that their discomfort in their own living space didn’t matter, and that there is nothing wrong with offending an entire community of women. No, it’s not sexual harassment. The means to the end, as Krautkramer said, are not acceptable. But in this case, barring an overhaul of the entire legal system, I think the end is a little more important than the means.
Take comfort: In this case, justice will prevail. Because this man’s story has been published and circulated, his community knows exactly what he’s made of.
Tracy Collins is a senior journalism major.
