There are many ways to empower your daughter. I used to work with men who were inappropriate all the time. Women who got on their high horse and got offended rarely lasted in our department. They usually ended up leaving, getting transferred to somewhere they would be happier. Me, I was stuck with it. What's more, I had to wrk alongside the men.
I did find that while I got annoyed and stood my ground objecting to being harassed, it was met with hostility and the working environment was unpleasant. All it did was reinforce in the minds of these men that "women can't take a joke." They learnt nothing, and it didn't stop anyway.
So I changed direction - I joked back, but not in a flirting way, I made fun of them in front of their male co-workers (who always really rubbed it in to their mate whenever anyone succeeded with a put-down), but with a smile on my face. That way they couldn't take it as a come-on, but neither could they get offended because if they did, I simply said, "Wassamatter, can't you take a joke?" The same line they used to use on me.
They put up pictures of naked women, so I put up pictures of naked men (only mine were figleafed, or air-brushed - they really did not look very masculine).
I would walk into the workshop to get a tool to engrave some new equipment (the tool was called "Vibrotool", a source of much ribald humour) and when a bloke loudly said, "I've got an even better vibro-tool for you," I simply said, "Oh yes - that reminds me, I have to buy some toothpicks on the way home."
The blokes soon treated me with respect and stopped the sexual innuendo, because they learnt fast that it would bounce back harder on them than on me.
Back to school - I had a maths teacher who would say things like this. Mind you, back in those days (and in my workplace) there was a lot less protection and a lot of this sort of behaviour was seen as acceptable by those delivering it.
My maths teacher - he was a very good teacher and we liked him. I never got the vibe from him that he was seriously flirting and if I had, I would have gone straight to the head teacher of maths or even the principal if I had to. But maybe that's where I learned to sass back. If he had said to me a line such as "If you were advertising jeans, I'd buy a pair," I would have responded with something like, "I doubt you could look this good in them, but if you would like the class to have a good laugh you're welcome to try."
Our senior class were studying matrices (a rather complex mathematical operator) and my friend had finally 'got it' and looked up dreamily saying, "I LIKE mattresses!" [mispronouncing matrices].
The maths teacher replied in a lecherous tone, "So do I!"
But at no stage did any of us feel it was intended as sexual harassment.
We took advantage of that on our graduation day and in front of the school, presented him with - a mattress. On one side, the side we showed him, we had drawn a matrix. On the other side, which the school assembly saw, we had drawn a girl in bikini.
Nothing he ever said or did was in secret, it was all talked about, discussed, laughed about (or with) and finally, displayed to the school (because we had to explain the joke to the whole school).
I remember my teacher telling me I had lovely hands. Again, I don't think he was seriously flirting. We were all fairly close to him, it was our final year and he was chatty with us, swapping jokes (mostly clean) and not doing anything inappropriate. But yes, we did get the sort of remarks you describe your daughter getting. I actually went back to the school after I'd graduated, just to enjoy a chat with my old teacher. I suppose he was a bit of a flirt, but not in any serious way. Nobody would have taken him seriously and nobody ever complained. Maybe it was the era, but I didn't hear any of my female classmates getting offended. And the teacher in this incident - maybe he needs a strong refresher course in what is appropriate THESE DAYS.
I think it would be important to consider - how does SHE feel about what he said? It's not just what is said, it's how it's said, what context and who else (if anyone) is present. And most important of all, HOW DID IT MAKE HER FEEL?
Harassment can only hurt you if you let it, if you take it on board and find it personally offensive or distressing. It's not wrong to be offended or distressed, but if you are, you should feel free to say so. If someone in a position of power (such as a boss, or a teacher) hints in any way (or you fear) that they can use your non-compliance against you, this is VERY wrong and a clear message that they mean business. In no way should that ever be taken lightly, or treated as harmless. It is not.
Even harmless flirting, which is how we perceived our own maths teacher, is wrong if it upsets anyone. When my teacher replied to my friend's comment on matrices, she blushed scarlet, but laughed. She was the most likely to take it the wrong way, and if she had he would have apologised publicly to her. If she had wanted to complain, he would have been silenced. If her parents felt that was not enough, he could have been sacked. We had a teacher at the same school who began a relationship with a girl a few grades below us. The relationship didn't publicly begin until she had left the school, but he was still sacked.
I think if my maths teacher had ever seemed to be serious in the slightest, we would have acted swiftly. Knowing how to respond, either to joke in turn or to object on the spot, or to take the complaint further - these are lessons we need to give our children. They are not always well equipped to know which is the appropriate response.
And always, if she feels unhappy or compromised, making a complaint is still one of the correct response options. She needs to feel empowered to keep herself safe.
In my job I learned to take care of myself. It's carried over into other areas of my life so that few blokes harass me - not the second time, anyway. I think the last time was in a public meeting in the village, where a proposed engineering project was being discussed. Clearly in the minds of some of the men there, a female like me should have no idea or interest in how engineering works and I was being publicly patronised both in tone of voice
and by being called "love", "darling", etc. So when I replied, I made sure to just as publicly (and politely) call the bloke "pet" and "Sweetiepie". It stopped the patronising, cold, and since then I've been taken seriously in the village.
Marg
