More Harassment

The Times decried sexual harassment in the workplace, calling it “The Problem that Won’t Go Away.” While I wish in no way to defend it, I believe the article deserves some comments.

There appear to be two causes for sex harassment: resentment and sexual attraction. The resentment arises from the perception by some men, whether justified or not, that women fellow employees have been given some unwarranted preference in either hiring or promotion to meet quotas or in job assignments.

There is some evidence that this is so. Women have, for years complained about the physical standards for such physically demanding jobs such as fireman or policeman. Yet would any truck company captain be expected to send a 110-pound woman firefighter up an extension ladder to rescue a heavy person? I was in the roofing business for four years and never once saw a woman roofer. Rather than working with hot asphalt on an August afternoon, most women would rather agitate for comparable pay for typing letters in an air conditioned office. Women’s groups want combat roles for women in the Army--during peacetime. While the Vietnam war was going on, I don’t remember any such pressure.

With respect to sexual attraction, harassment is an exaggeration of a normal human attribute, in that sexual advances are usually made by the male. This is not confined to the human species. In much of the animal kingdom, the males are far rougher and more dominant. What accentuates the problem here is that workplace equality has placed many men in close, even intimate, contact with women frequently and even continuously. Instincts will not always be denied.

Political, social and economic equality of the sexes is a worthwhile goal, but in some respects, women and men will never be the same.

EDWARD G. LOWELL

Tarzana