The causes of sexual harassment - Part 2

Read part 1 - Sexual harassment in the creative industry

Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome or unwanted attention of a sexual nature that causes discomfort, humiliation, offence or distress to the recipients. In the context of a workplace, it may consist of unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favours in exchange for special treatments, pressure for sexual favours to clinch deals, cartoons or drawings, or any other form of verbal or physical behaviour that the recipient regards as unwelcome or embarrassing.

In the creative industry, sexual harassment is particularly prevalent as the objectification of women is emphasised. “Objectification of women occurs everywhere, but even more so in the creative industry, because women have to dress up and thus the objectification of their bodies is further underlined,” Dr. Elizabeth Kristi Poerwandari, M.Hum., lecturer of Psychology at the University of Indonesia told The Finery Report.

She then highlighted the example of dangdut singers who are performing in ‘suggestive’ ways. Some men who have been watching them assume that they enjoy being objectified. “In the perpetrators’ minds, objectifying women is normal because they see women as objects. These men see women as inferior,” Dr. Kristi continues.

The causes of sexual harassment may vary, but generally they fall under the following categories: socialisation, supportive environment, power relations, mental health issues/disorders and lack of awareness.

Socialised gender roles and values do influence how sexual harassment is perceived within a society. Gender roles are learned at an early age through socialisation at home, school and other environment, teaching people the expectations that come with their respective genders

While not all, but it is women who are overwhelmingly the victims, and men who are overwhelmingly the perpetrators. It may have to do with the fact that we teach boys to be strong and aggressive and not to take ’no’ for an answer, while we teach girls to be passive, nice and generally unassertive. This unfortunately creates an ideal situation for sexual harassment to take place.

Such ingrained socialisation has led many women to worry more about displeasing others or losing a romantic partner than acknowledging their own sense of discomfort and anger. In the event of a sexual harassment occurring, it may mean that women will stay "nice" in situations of conflict, even as far as putting the other person's feelings first and valuing and prioritising the relationship over their own well-being.

Sometimes, sexual harassment is caused and sustained by a supportive environment. This is perhaps the most frustrating because unlike lifelong socialisation, which in most cases cannot be undone or reversed, changing the environment that we currently live in is well within our power. And yet, we still live in an ecosystem that is fertile for sexual harassment to flourish.

In 2019, a group of Indonesian filmmakers launched the ‘Sinematik Gak Harus Toxic’ (Cinematic Does Not Have To Be Toxic) campaign as a response to sexual violence cases that happened in the film community. The campaign joined other similar campaigns that have started popping up in the past few years as the public becomes more aware of sexual harassment issues. The efforts to fight sexual harassment in the creative industry have grown, but there are still so much to be done.

Actress Mian Tiara posted a series of tweets earlier this year. She shared her story of being sexually harassed by a senior actor at a movie set. These tweets caught the attention of others within the industry, including Hannah Al Rashid, who experienced a similar harassment from someone she suspects is the same person as Tiara’s harasser.

In Tiara’s case, she initially stayed silent about the harassment, but eventually confessed to the movie’s producer who then reached out to the senior actor. The actor, through his manager, denied the claim and even communicated that he was offended to have received such allegations. This, unfortunately, is a common response among alleged harassers.

Some of the reasons why many victims refrain from pursuing legal battles for the harassment they receive are because sexual harassment has been somewhat normalised in the creative industry, and because the industry and community have not been strongly advocating for the safety and rights of the victims.

Some victims are worried about their jobs and career security, especially when the perpetrators are those of higher statures within the industry. Sadly, instead of making it a safe space for victims, the industry is often a safe space for perpetrators instead.

Hannah and other crew members then created their own safety system, a warning system. While it may be helpful, a warning system is yet another burden for the victims to carry. Still, it is better than nothing, since there are no sufficient regulations in place that can fully protect victims at the moment. This leads us to another issue: victim blaming.

Victim blaming happens when a victim is blamed for the harassment he or she experienced for whatever reason. The tendency to victim blame further silences victims who initially wanted to speak up. And if he or she does go ahead with their statements, they may be blamed further for ‘bringing shame to the family/company’ or even criminalised for reporting the incidents.

There is also the issue of power relations, which is prevalent especially in work environments. Some people would abuse their power when they are in controlling positions, and one form of such abuse is sexual harassment. This usually happens when perpetrators perceive victims as someone vulnerable or insecure about their job stability. Harvey Weinstein, for a long time, was an example of this until he was convicted in early 2020.

Sometimes, however, sexual harassment is the product of underlying mental issues and disorders, including exhibitionistic disorder. Exhibitionistic disorder involves exposing one’s genitals or sexual organs to a non-consenting person. Harassments of this nature may occur in the physical presence of the victims or virtually in the form of unwanted ‘nudes’ or sexual organ pictures.

On the matter of sending unwanted ‘nudes’ or sexual organ pictures, Dr. Kristi believes that it all boils down to sexual thoughts. “A desire to dominate, narcissism – men being certain in their assumptions that women would receive the pictures in delight. But do note that women are doing that as well these days,” she explains.

The feeling of insecurity may also lead to sexual harassment. The outcomes of a research by Halper and Rios (2018) support the idea that powerful men are especially inclined to sexually harass others when they worry that they will be perceived as incompetent. The same did not hold true for women.

The findings also suggest that men do not necessarily sexually harass women because they seek sexual gratification, but rather because their insecurity about being perceived as incompetent prompts them to want to undermine a woman’s position in the social hierarchy.

Lastly, though it may be hard to believe in this day and age, sometimes the cause of sexual harassment is lack of awareness. A 2018 scholarly publication found that one of the factors that cause the occurrence of sexual harassment is ignorance, in which perpetrators do not fully understand that what they did can be considered acts of crime as they see their actions as ‘trivial’ (i.e. whistling, sexist expressions, invitations for sex and other verbal actions). To be fair, in comparison to sexual assaults that are much easier to distinguish and categorise, harassments are more subtle. For example, perpetrators may honestly view unwanted sexual invitations as flirtations.

If that is the case, then we have a long way to thoroughly tackle the issue of sexual harassment in Indonesia. The good thing is, we are one step closer to the ultimate goal for we have identified the roots of the problem: the causes of sexual harassment. In the next part of our four-part series, we will discuss what actions we can take to help move our society in the right direction.

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