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Sexual harassment within the workplace
Essay on sexual harassment awareness and prevention
Sexual harassment within the workplace
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Many times in life, people are faced with difficult situations and decisions. There are times when the choice has to be made to keep quiet or to stand up; the choice to be loyal to the conscience or to be submissive. Oftentimes, in these situations, intimidation wins over. The best known dilemma is of the people who have had to encounter the terrible experience of sexual harassment, and have had to fight their fear and fight their harasser to win for themselves self-respect and justice. “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner is about a young boy named Colonel Satoris or “Sarty” for short. The two main conflicts Sarty goes through are with Abner, his father, after he burns his employer’s barns. During the story, Sarty’s father terrorizes him and …show more content…
creates difficulty in choosing between his conscience and his father’s frontier justice. (Ford) Because of this reason, the first one ended in Abner’s favor, but the next time Sarty is bolder and more self-confident. Before his father can burn his new employer’s barn, Sarty runs and warns him. After he ran away from the heat of the conflict, he decides he did do the right thing by telling the employer. At the end, he leaves and decides to go his own way. The Me Too movement that has frequently gained steam addresses the extremely real and common problem of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is unwanted sexual advances that include either remarks or actions. One after another, victims all over have started to voice the injustice they have experienced and are taking action on it. The Me Too movement has taken root – much like in the United States – with high- profile politicians and entertainment figures toppling as sexual assault survivors come forward. (Thomas) People everywhere are finding courage to stand up to their oppressors even though they were intimidated and afraid. In "Barn Burning" by William Faulkner, the main character Sarty grapples between telling the truth for justice, or hiding it out of fear; much like what the "Me Too" movement has begun to address with sexual harassment recently. Sarty wants to tell the truth about his father, Abner, burning his own employer’s barn, but is intimidated by the mere thought of his father wanting him to lie for him. Later, when they are alone together, his father confronted him about telling the truth. “‘You were fixing to tell them. You would have told him.’ He didn’t answer. His father struck him with the flat of his hand on the side of the head…” (Faulkner) Many of the victims of sexual harassment are too afraid to report it because of consequences that follow. “Studies have shown that women who report incidents of harassment are often threatened with reprisals for reporting or making the incident or making it public.” (Herrara 2) Both Sarty and the victims of sexual harassment have had to struggle with gaining the confidence to stand up for justice in the face of fear and abuse. When the story begins, Sarty is watching the hearing at which Abner is being accused by a man named Mr.
Harris of burning his barn. Mr. Harris calls the boy forward to testify, and Sarty becomes dazed in worry after realizing his father expects him to lie. After changing his mind about asking the boy, the justice banishes Abner from the country. Later that night, his father scolds and strikes him for almost telling them the truth. To keep the victims quiet about the unwanted invasion, the harassers intimidate them. Sometimes cases can get extreme where the consequences have a visible effect such as violence or loss of work. “Among 88 cases of sexual harassment filed with one employer, almost half the complainants were fired and an additional quarter left their jobs in fear or frustration.” (Wilson 66) In most cases, the victims feel struggling and hopeless just as Sarty did. After Abner hits him, he asks his son if he agreed with him and Sarty says yes, but he thinks to himself, “If I had said they wanted only truth, justice, he would have hit me again.” …show more content…
(Faulkner) There are stories all over the news and internet about sexual harassment cases and studies. It has become a “hot topic” of late and has earned itself the title of the “Me Too” movement. One person reporting their case led to a series of accusations of harassers and lawsuits. Some people may ask; “Why did it take this long to come forward?” The majority of the cases include the many fears people had about reporting it and the alternative ways they tried to handle it. The fear of consequences and punishment stopped a majority, while learning to deal with it alternatively stalled others. This is similar to Sarty’s situation in the view that while he tries to avoid his father’s wrath and developed an alternative way to see his father’s heinous habits. There are many cases where university students are in a compromising situation and they become frozen in fear and immobilization. “At some point, one of the male PhD students started stroking my leg under the table and at about the same time the lecturer put his hand on my thigh. I felt quite scared, but also frozen. I was in public surrounded by other people, and yet I didn’t feel I could tell both of them to stop touching me.” (Whitley 41) At the beginning of the story, Sarty goes through shock and stress in the trial. “In moments of crisis, such as when Mr. Harris calls Sarty to testify against his father, Sarty yearns to escape but cannot flee from his ‘frantic grief and despair’” (Ford) One major issue has been the frequency of sexual harassment in university settings. In an article by Leila Whitley and Tiffany Page, they discuss the commonality of the issue on campus and how it arises. The most familiar cases revolve around the abuse of power by a university employee. This is because they hold an imperative position in the students’ academic lives. “What student accounts make clear, is that this power can be used coercively, and threats do not have to be enacted to be strongly felt and to influence behavior: so long as a student credibly fears the possibility of retaliatory behavior, she may be manipulated by this fear. The professors teach the curriculum, asses the learned knowledge, tutor, and give feedback to the students they preside over, creating an easy way to gain access to the students. Many students in the article dealt with sexual harassment from their superiors, but could not do much because they felt as though they were dependent on them and would abolish any aid they received academically. “Many students report the pressure this sort of dependence exerts over them. They fear alienating their harassers because of the possibility of retaliatory behavior.” (Whitley 40) Because he is completely dependent on his father, Sarty is like the students because to keep the support he gets from his father, he feels as though he has to comply with Abner’s rules. Recently, with all of the publicity about the awareness, the Me Too movement has encouraged the oppressed to stand up and confront their harasser. It has encouraged and supported the idea of stepping forward for justice. The movement has also pushed for awareness in the workplace as well as universities. In the article “Aspects Concerning Sexual and Moral Harassment in the Workplace” by Romulus and Aurelia Gidro, it says; “Moral and sexual harassment should be considered severe infringements and should determine the launch of disciplinary procedures with the possibility of applying even the most severe penalty, which is disciplinary dismissal.” Both Sarty from “Barn Burning” and the Me Too movement are examples of courage and taking control of the situation.
Many victims have claimed that they were afraid to report, but along the way, one by one, they realized that they had to take initiative for themselves because no one else would. “After all, action often involves accusations against someone in authority.” (Wilson 68) At the end of the story, Sarty decides to follow his own conscience and runs to the landowner who his father works for and warns him about his father’s vengeance and overhears the conflict. After Abner has been presumably dealt with by the landowner, Sarty takes his leave, free from
Abner.
In the two of the most revered pieces of American literature, “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, we examined two characters and the relationships that they shared with their fathers. Being a father and having a father-like figure plays a monumental role in a child’s life. Although in these components of literature, the two main characters, Huckleberry Finn and Colonel Sartoris Snopes, show animosity towards their fathers. They both aspired to be the farthest type of person from their fathers. Huckleberry Finn didn’t want to be a drunk, ignorant, racist. Although at the beginning of the short story, Sarty backed his father and lied for him when accused of burning barns, but at the end of
At first glance, the story “Barn burning” seems just to be about a tyrannical father and a son who is in the grips of that tyranny. I think Faulkner explores at least one important philosophical question in this story were he asks at what point should a person make a choice between what his parent(s) and / or family believes and his own values?
Beginning the short story one realizes Sarty can be characterized as a young shy boy who seems to be intimidated by his father. Immediately following Abner's first barn burning of the story, Sarty is convinced that his father's malignant actions are profoundly immoral, but he is also conscious that opposing Abner's actions would be a sense of betrayal. Sarty's belief in these two perspectives leads to his internal conflict throughout the entire short story; one choice commits acts of betrayal while the other leads to the participation in evil. Sarty's intimidation of his father combined with his internal conflict is demonstrated at the beginning of the story when he thought to himself "Enemy! Enemy!"(483) as the justice was contemplating interrogating Sarty. This thought leads the reader to believe that Abner Snopes has molded Sarty to act as a faithful family member, and not to declare any of Abner's negative actions. Sarty must keep himself from exclaiming the true actions of his father, because he knows the degree of their immorality.
As "Barn Burning" opens, an adolescent boy named Sartoris Snopes is in court, hoping he will not have to testify in the arson case against his father -- a charge of which Sarty knows Mr. Snopes is absolutely guilty. The judge, whom Sarty perceives as kindly, is nonetheless Sarty’s enemy because he is his father’s enemy, and Sarty has not yet separated himself from his father.
Barn Burning Throughout the story “Barn Burning”, author William Faulkner conveys the moral growth and development of a young boy, as he must make a critical decision between either choosing his family and their teachings or his own morals and values. The reader should realize that the story “Barn Burning” was written in the 1930’s, a time of economic, social, and cultural turmoil. Faulkner carries these themes of despair into the story of the Snopes family. Faulkner opens the story, “Barn Burning” in a southern courthouse room of the during the Civil War reconstruction era, also a time of social, cultural, and economic instability.
Barn Burning "You’re getting to be a man. You got to learn. You got to learn to stick to your own blood or you ain’t going to have any blood to stick to you." This quote from William Faulkner’s "Barn Burning" does reveal a central issue in the story, as Jane Hiles suggests in her interpretation. The story is about blood ties, but more specifically, how these ties affect Sarty (the central character of the story). The story examines the internal conflict and dilemma that Sarty faces. When the story begins, Sarty and his family are in a courtroom. Sarty, known in a proper setting as Colonel Sartoris, which in itself gives an insight into the families mentality. Sarty’s father, Abner Snopes is being accused of a barn burning. Right away, as Sarty is called to testify, you get an idea of what is going through the boy’s head, and the mentality that has be ingrained in him. He thinks to himself, Enemy! Enemy!, referring to the people that his father and his family for that matter are up against. Sarty would later discover that things are not always the way that his father leads everyone to believe they are. Sarty, somewhere deep down wants to just do what is right, but being roughly 10 years old, I don’t think he quite has that figured out yet. His sense of right and wrong has been biased under the tyranny of his father. We also get a good idea of the personality of the father, Abner, by the way Sarty describes his physical appearance. Abner is...
In Chapter 11 of William Shaw’s The Organization and the People in It goes over issue of sexual harassment in the workplace and its effects. Sexual harassment is defined as the “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature”, most reports of sexual harassment are from women accusing men however men accusing women is becoming more prevalent in todays society (Shaw, p.444). Sexual harassment is a moral issues because a person becomes a victim by means of verbal comments, gestures, or physical contact of a sexual nature and not being able to refuse them without fear that something worse will happen.
Understanding literary elements such as patterns, reader/writer relationships, and character choice are critical in appreciating William Faulkner's Barn Burning. Some literary elements are small and almost inconsequential while others are large and all-encompassing: the mother's broken clock, a small and seemingly insignificant object, is used so carefully, extracting the maximum effect; the subtle, but more frequent use of dialectal words which contain darker, secondary meanings; the way blood is used throughout the story in many different ways, including several direct references in the familial sense; how Faulkner chooses to write about poor, common people (in fact to the extreme) and how this relates to the opinions of Wordsworth and Aristotle; and finally, the relationship between the reader and writer, Faulkner's choice of narrator and point of view, and how this is works successfully.
intimidating situation from which the victim feels he or she cannot escape. In Rape in the Fields,
Barn Burning “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner was written in the ebb of the 1930’s in a decade of social, economic, and cultural decline. This story offers insight into the past years for students to learn of the nation and the South. This story shows the racial segregation that took place in these times between the white landowners and white tenant farmers, the blacks and the whites, and the poor white trash class and the blacks. The Snopes’s family was in the social class of the poor, white tenant farmers. The father, Abner Snopes, had to struggle to provide for his family.
In the story "To Build a Fire" by Jack London, foreshadowing is often used. In this story foreshadowing is an effective way to build up a climax. The foreshadowing is both shown by the environment and things the characters say.
The story of "Barn Burning" was "first published in the June of 1939 in the Harper's Magazine and later awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award for the best short story of the year." The author, William Faulkner, "was one of America's most innovative novelists". The way he describes the smells, sites and sounds of the rural late 1800's make you feel as if you are there with the characters in this story. Through the use of symbolism, Faulkner tells the story about a relationship of a father and son. Fire was the most vital symbol used and describes the way, Abner, the main character in the story faces all of his challenges. He lived his life like a flaming inferno destroying everything he touches. In this story of a boy's struggle with his love for his father and doing what is morally right, the Family loyalty comes to flames in "Barn Burning".
KANE-URRABAZO, C. (2007). Sexual harassment in the workplace: it is your problem. Journal Of Nursing Management, 15(6), 608-613. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2834.2007.00725.x
Sexual harassment in the workplace is a huge problem in recent history. It can happen to anyone and it can happen everywhere. It can affect all types of races, gender and age. Statistics today shows that more and more sexual harassment has become an issue due to the large number of cases presented. Mainstream media becomes consume covering sexual harassment because of the high profile cases. Sexual harassment becomes a topic on various TV shows, and on some major morning radio talk shows mostly everyday. Sexual harassment laws must be strengthened in order to fix what has become a serious problem today in the workplace.
In addition to legal measures, many governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations, and other bodies are using a range of techniques to prevent sexual harassment and help its victims. Governments, for example, issue guidance on how to design anti-sexual harassment measures and to offer counselling to workers who have been targeted. Workers’ and employers’ organizations are producing model policies and collective agreement clauses, issuing guidance on complying with laws, conducting research and providing training. At the workplace, growing numbers of employers are introducing sexual harassment policies and complaints procedures. Moreover, there appears to be an emerging consensus around what workplace policies should contain and the steps to be taken to implement them, which can be used by those employers who have yet to take action.