Summary Of Carol Hay As A Victim Of Harassment

Carol Hay argues that victims of harassment have obligations to confront perpetrators. She accentuates that this is necessary to not only preserve and protect the autonomy and moral agency of the victim herself but also those of others. She posits that when one negates to confront perpetrators they cause harm to women as a whole. In this essay I will argue that Hay’s argument
I. Exposition

In this section I will summarise Hay’s argument that victims of harassment have obligations to others. Her argument is as follows: a victim of harassment has a moral obligation to confront her harasser. A woman has a responsibility to sustain and protect her own autonomy and moral agency. For instance, David Foster Wallace has purported

that the male ride operators at a theme park stopped the ride at the point where his female companion was hanging upside down. These operators did so for the purpose of staring at her private parts. When he confronted his female companion about the occurrence, she stated that it was fun and she was not bothered by it. The female companion stated that the mere fact that there are arseholes in the world should not prevent her from being a participant on fair rides or other outdoor activities. She stated that it was not appropriate to complain about ‘arsehole’ behaviour because it would ‘keep her from having fun’.
The ride operators in essence viewed the women as deserving of limited respect. In doing so, they failed to recognise her status as an equal and autonomous moral agent who has inherent dignity. However, a key issue is whether women have an obligation to confront these harassers in a moral rather than legal sense.
In answering this problem, there are several circumstances to consider. First, the failure to confront children who are burning a cat when you have the power to stop such an act would be insensitive and cruel and potentially indicate complicity. This moral imperative can analogously be applied to women because they have a moral obligation to approach ride operators who engage in wrong behaviour. A second, and perhaps slightly weaker example, would be where the woman conceives her harasser as potentially being able to procure further harm onto her if she addresses the issue. While the likelihood of harm is an appropriate consideration in such an instance, it alone does not change the core principle of the moral imperative to act.
Sexual harassment reduces the sexual autonomy of women because it leads to the proliferation of sexist attitudes and behaviour.

Accordingly, women have a moral obligation to preserve their own autonomy. A correlative aspect of this is that women have an obligation to challenge what undermines such autonomy and therefore moral agency as it causes moral harm. As such, the woman in the aforementioned scenario has an obligation to approach the ride operators because they cause harm to her as a member of the collective group of ‘women’. This additional moral duty is necessary in order to preserve autonomy, even though the imposition of the duty would impose an additional burden onto the victim.
II. Key Issues and Themes

I will now examine the main themes that are present within Hay’s article. The first key theme in this response is the importance of preserving one’s own autonomy. Hay views this principle as core to the recognition of what it means to be human and therefore protect moral agency.
The second theme states that women should not be governed by male norms for the mere sake of avoiding conflict. The associated principle to this is that women must consider the broader consequences of their actions or inactions on the autonomy of their group as a whole.
Further, the third theme is that the potential for one to act in response to harassment may cause harm although the degree of such harm does not undermine the general principle that one has a moral obligation to confront their

harasser.
The fourth theme is that sexual harassment contributes to the procurement of sexism. There is an implied assumption that such norms undermine autonomy and in turn moral agency. Consequently, Hay recognises that a woman has to not only consider her own desires in relation to how to deal with a situation at the time it occurs but also how her response may affect the status of women as a whole. This is because acts which undermine a collective that one belongs to in essence causes damage to the self because all members are affected.
III. Critical Analysis

I will now examine the strengths and weaknesses of Hay’s argument. A key strength of this article is that it is grounded in moral philosophy. It draws on the Kantian notion of the categorical imperative which states that people should act in accordance with universal law in order to fulfil a moral obligation. It also seems to draw on the thinking of Hume because there is recognition that the particularities of situations may be considered within certain circumstances, such as the potential for harm, even though such particularities should never undermine the principle of moral obligation as a whole. As such, Hay acknowledges the experiences of women within the context of an appreciation of a broad overriding duty.
However, it appears that Hay is undermining the key element of autonomy which is that one should be able to reflect upon and endorse their desires within a given situation prior to action. This capacity to think critically forms the basis for autonomy because a rational assessment of one’s desires enables one to examine whether they are internally consistent and therefore governed by what is appropriate to the self.
I imagine that Hay would respond by distinguishing a ‘practical identity’ from a ‘moral identity’. The reflection of values and desires constitutes a practical identity although human beings also have a 'moral identity which accentuates the value of universal obligations that are separate from mere practical reason. As such, a core strength that Hay bestows within her article is that she impliedly acknowledges that social forces influence the actions of the victim which are conditioned by patriarchy. It is inferred that when one fails to challenge behaviours that perpetrate norms which embellish harm onto oneself then they cause harm to the group as a whole.

I might in turn posit that Hay’s argument fails to recognise that individuals themselves are not responsible for broader institutional issues and thus should not be required to exercise the agency to respond to such concerns. For instance, the statement that society is a victim of murder has similar moral weighting to the contention that society is responsible for the proliferation of the norms which constitute harassment.
Nevertheless it is likely that Hay would respond by stating that if a woman fails to confront her harasser then she internalises oppressive norms which lead to deformed desires and in turn cause her to adopt stereotypical roles which are grounded in submissiveness. For instance, it could be argued that the statement by Hay that ‘what’s getting hot and bothered going to do about it except keep me from getting to have fun’ in fact represents behaviour conditioned by patriarchy. Hay may purport that she is acting servile because she internally believes that men are powerful and should not be ‘called out’ for their actions.
I think that a key flaw in the argument of Hay is that she does not appreciate the power of ‘consciousness-raising’ in order to challenge such systemic problems in the moral psychology of women. When one engages in the reflection of the social circumstances that surround them they are able to understand their position within the world and their inherent worth. This in turn enables one to recognise how their own particularly coincides with the core principle in Article 1 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women that they deserve ‘fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural, civil’ sphere.
‘Consciousness-raising’ may also be valuable in order to address the problem that Hay procures moral obligations that rely on the presence of an idealised self rather than the actual self. As such, perhaps Hay needs to understand that when one reflects and makes decisions they do not do so from a realisation of their actual capacities to change circumstances but rather from a distorted perception of their capacities. It is necessary for a woman to understand that the stereotypical roles she engages in are inappropriate if they are incompatible of an understanding of oneself as a unique and morally worthy person.
I think that Hay could nonetheless make her argument stronger if she explicitly rather than impliedly states that one’s understanding of autonomy may also incorporate both rational and affective elements in order to build a relational understanding of their position within the world. This ‘relational element’ is very important because moral agency is often constituted in an interpersonal context that is reliant on moral dialogue. She could therefore understand that women are participants within a community and thus have a status of equality to men. This would recognise that women can stand up for their own agency to the same extent as men can.
However, it may be appropriate to consider the moral permissibility of action in the light of not only specific circumstances that affect the woman, such as the degree of harm that may flow as a consequence, but also her general circumstances. It appears that Hay recognises women as a conglomerate whole and does not consider whether they may have other distinct identities that are affected by ethnicity, class or other elements. Accordingly, I would content that moral obligation needs to be intersectional and take into account all of these factors because there may be other considerations that affect whether the woman wants to take action in response to a harasser. She may be a single working class woman who is reliant on a particular job that the harasser has given her and fear that a complaint may lead her to lose that job. The mere prevention of sexist stereotypes likely has less moral weight than the duty to provide for one’s family. As such, the moral value attached to preventing sexist stereotypes should not be lessened in itself but the attribution of responsibility for the conferral of the duty should fall on society at large rather than women themselves.
This turns to my next point. Hay appears to inadvertently engage in victim-blaming because she assumes that there is a moral obligation attached to the woman to act rather than the male. Catherine MacKinnon recognises that all of society is filled with patriarchy and consequently it is men who are responsible for the proliferation of male norms. It is therefore questionable whether women should be responsible for preventing morally wrong actions of harassment that have been occasioned by men. There is also a ‘slippery slope’ issue wherein if women are recognised as having a moral duty to act in such circumstances then there is an issue as to whether men can argue that they have diminished moral responsibility for harassment if women fail to do so.
Hay would likely respond that women contribute to oppression by sustaining it through their behaviour or lack of behaviour in response to circumstances of harassment caused by men. Her argument is thus effective in ascribing collective responsibility to women in these circumstances which recognises their position as authoritative moral agents.