“Admiration” that makes others feel uncomfortable is also a form of sexual harassment – Illustration: Khai Nguyen
Sexual harassment is a common gender issue that most people have had an associated experience with – either someone who has experienced it, or someone who has done it knowingly or unknowingly.
With the explosion of social networks, a new and popular communication space has opened up, where discussions and exchanges are instant. Along with this, verbal sexual harassment has also increased in cyberspace.
real damage from virtual comments
DVN Thao (27 years old, Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City) is currently an English teacher at a foreign language center. In addition to direct teaching time, he was selected by the center as a media face, regularly appearing on instructional videos on social networks.
It would be normal if every day, under the comment section of every video, Thao didn’t receive harsh compliments about her appearance.
“Although I do my best to make the lecture material engaging, few people pay attention to it. The bottom of the post is mostly comments about my body, including very offensive sentences: “When I go to school like this, I just look at the teacher” “The teacher is so bad I can’t concentrate”…
Even many people ask me, am I the teacher Thao in the story? It’s a very ungrateful and rude comment,” Thao admitted.
Indecent comments about teachers under post – screenshot
Not only women, men can also be victims of online sexual harassment.
Huu Dang (21 years old, Cau Giay, Hanoi) shared with young onlineThere was a time when he was afraid to post pictures online because he didn’t want to get nasty comments.
Speaking of which, the day before, he was very skinny, so he went to the gym to gain muscle and strengthen his body. In the process, he often uploads before and after pictures from the gym. However, it is not known why the photos were circulated, drawing hundreds of comments from strangers.
“Reading a lot of compliments from him, it seems that I love it when you guys talk about sex, about my sensitive parts. I have never faced this situation so I don’t know about those The post has to be hidden.” – I am telling.
Sexual harassment on virtual networks can cause real harm – Photo: Shutterstock
Compliments Don’t Make You Insecure, Sexual Harassment Does
It can be seen that words that are called virtual on social networks can become a “real useful tool” to hurt others.
Of course, many people feel stressed and insecure about rude comments, while the speaker always casually waves their hand: it’s just a compliment!
However, the time has come to draw a clear line between compliments and sexual harassment.
Sharing about the issue, Ms. Nguyen Van Anh, Director, Center for Research and Applied Science on Gender – Family – Women and Adolescents (CSAGA) said that many people now believe that compliments, compliments are not sexual harassment Is.
But a compliment delivered at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and at the wrong level is a form of sexual harassment that makes the receiver uncomfortable.
“The best way is to maintain a moderate level of communication. While doing something the speaker should only discuss that work properly.
Especially when it comes to men and women of all ages, it is necessary to choose and use words carefully according to the situation and relationship. You can’t use compliments that touch on gender,” Van Anh said.
Ms. Nguyen Van Anh, Director of the CSAGA Center – Photo: Mai Thuong
PhD student To Anh Duc also said that to eliminate sexual harassment completely, it is necessary to promote civilized behavior.
“Not only in conversations between men and women, but also in conversations without female or male subjects, we should not make rude comments about them as concepts of “materialization” (objectification) and “sexualization” – Mr. Duck Said.
Research by Master Le Thi Lam on female students’ experience of sexual harassment in universities in Da Nang city shows that more than 73% of female students have experienced criticism for being sensitive to their bodies. Similarly, more than 73% have experienced sexual harassment via text, email.
Also in the survey “Sexual Harassment Among Adolescents in Schools” conducted by ISDS, TFCF and ActionAid, 60% of adolescents have experienced sexual harassment at least once and 50% of adolescents have reported sexual harassment at least once. have experienced. Teens suffer from mental health harm after sexual assault.
A Microsoft survey on the Online Civility Index in 2020 also ranked Vietnam 5th out of 25 countries with uncivilized behavior on the Internet. Specifically, the most common risks in cyberspace in Vietnam were shown to include: unsolicited sexually explicit messages (41%), sexual harassment (30%), sexual solicitation (29%).
Notably, all survey respondents said they had recently encountered rude behavior in cyberspace.
(TagstoTranslate)Sexual Harassment
