Someone help me out with this please. Articles like this always bring angry responses and although I see their point, I also suspect that the responders don’t realize that what they are expecting from others is not equality, it is reverence and coddling.

I am not a fan of the perceived fragility of some young women. Supposedly they are more sexually liberated than we were, but only in very specific controlled circumstances. If someone they don’t find attractive hits on them, they don’t access their own voice or power and instead rely on someone else to fix the problem for them. We forget that very few of the people we interact with are actual predators that could harm us or negatively impact our lives or careers. The honest question that you need to ask yourself is “does this person have any ability to physically harm me or my current position in anyway and have they threatened me with consequences if I don’t comply with their advances?” If the answer is yes then it’s time to look for outside help because someone is using their position of power against you. If the answer is no then you need to find the power within yourself to deal with it because this is an issue that’s important to you but much less important to everyone else.

Please never forget that that the only person in the world that you can control 100% of the time is yourself. You can wish and hope that the world will change for you to make you more comfortable but that’s a passive effort and passive efforts don’t often achieve results. I am not comfortable hoping that people will behave better towards me because that’s “the right thing to do”. Why should they? People are motivated by their own selfish needs and desires. Why would they behave “better” if it doesn’t benefit them?

If I am so fragile that perceived sexual interest derails me, what hope do I have to navigate the world on my own? If I give someone else the power to protect and defend me from verbal assaults, am I not in truth admitting that I am not an equal but in fact a less capable being? I am not made lesser by someone else’s interest in me because I know that my value does not lie in my sexuality. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks if I know this.