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As a young, female journalist, I’m used to expecting the unexpected, being prepared to jump at a moment’s notice. But when a man put his hands on me at a city council meeting last week, I found myself frozen.
At the Wimberley City Council meeting on June 15, the city’s consideration of a local historic district was an evidently hot-button issue. Citizens gave impassioned speeches during the public hearing with lawyer-prepared remarks and lawyers present. Once the public hearing ended, the council moved on to the next agenda item, and most of the residents left. I followed them out, giving a couple of them my card before walking back in and retaking my seat.
When the doorbell rang a minute later, I turned to find one of the men I had given my card to. He came up to me and grabbed me by the side of my face. His hand on my left side, his body to my front and my chair back to my right, I felt trapped. He didn’t seem mad at me; he seemed mad at the situation, the city. But he kept holding my head in place, whispering expletives in my ear for the next few minutes.
I was all too aware of the cameras in the room, the livestream being broadcasted and the city council members in front of me. I didn’t want to make a scene. But I should have. And he should have realized he didn’t have permission to touch me — me or anyone else — without consent.
When most of us think of sexual harassment, we tend to think more about actions or behaviors with sexual intent. But sexual harassment can also be explained as gender-based harassment: an action not necessarily derived from sexual desire but carried out based on a person’s gender, according to James Campbell Quick, a professor of leadership and management at the University of Texas at Arlington.
'Sexual harassment is really not about sex,” Quick explained in a report for the American Psychological Association. “It's about power and aggression and manipulation. It's an abuse of power problem.'
I asked myself in the hours and days that followed the city council meeting whether or not I would have been touched that way if I was a man. Would I have been touched so invasively, so aggressively, if I was older? Or was it precisely the feeling of power an older man felt he had over me that perpetuated the problem?
Harassment isn’t always easy to identify, even when we experience it ourselves. Its legal definition varies by country and state, and its social-psychological and lay definitions are even more broad.
Sexual harassment in Texas is legally defined as any sexual, physical or verbal act that “has the purpose or effect of creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment,” according to Texas Labor Code Chapter 21 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
Sexual harassment in the United States, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is legally defined as, “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature… when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.” The EEOC, however, generally focuses on violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which only applies to employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments; employment agencies; labor organizations; and the federal government.
Meanwhile, the social- psychological definition focuses on the victim’s subjective view of the experience. According to Quick, this definition of sexual harassment behavior generally fits into one of five categories: general sexist remarks and or behavior, inappropriate sexual advances, solicitation of sexual activity, rewarded sexual favors or coerced sexual activity.
The public or lay definition refers to what the general public thinks of as sexual harassment. This tends to vary between genders, and studies indicate women tend to include a broader range of behaviors as sexually harassing than men do, Quick said.
But not all sexual harassment is illegal, and whether or not an incident of harassment is illegal will depend on the legal definition in that specific area.
What may not legally fall under sexual harassment — especially outside of the traditional workplace — may still be categorized as assault by contact, according to the Hays County Sheriff’s Office. This charge is filed when a victim is not injured in the incident but is either threatened with violence or is offended by physical contact that has occurred. In Texas, assault by contact is charged as a Class C Misdemeanor and a conviction is punishable by a fine as high as $500, according to the state’s penal code.
Incidents of unwanted and unwarranted physical contact can be seen as examples and indicators of an increased attitude of societal rudeness. As the general population has grown more accustomed to expressing uncensored thoughts and feelings on social media, they have begun to behave the same way in the physical world, said Mariana Plata with Psychology Today.
“When we take into account that social media has potentially doubled the exposure of rudeness for us, we can begin to comprehend just the type of epidemic we are faced with,” she explained. “Before, it was just face-to-face interactions... But now, we can be treated rudely in infinite scenarios — at work, getting our morning coffee, at the bus station, on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.”
Local government meetings are but one example of where and how this phenomenon can take place in daily life. At city council, county and school board meetings, the occasional public outburst is not uncommon, and almost every governing body has a code of conduct set in place for its citizens and visitors.
“Citizens and visitors attending City Council meetings shall observe the same rules of propriety, decorum and good conduct applicable to members of the City Council,” Wimberley City Council’s Governance Policy and Rules of Procedure state. “Any person making personal, impertinent, profane, or slanderous remarks or who becomes boisterous while addressing the City Council or while attending the meeting shall be removed from the room if so directed by the presiding officer. The person shall be barred from further audience before the City Council during that session.”
Unfortunately, this policy — and others like it — may not actively prevent non-verbal incidents of sexual harassment or assault by contact. Instead, the responsibility of calling out these incidents rests solely on the victim and/or bystanders. And, in many cases, both can find themselves unable to act until it is too late.
“The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages an individual from intervening in an emergency situation, against a bully, or during an assault or other crime,” Psychology Today explains on its website. “The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is for any one of them to provide help to a person in distress. People are more likely to take action in a crisis when there are few or no other witnesses present.”
In the moment, I was too shocked and confused to react. A member of the city council who saw the incident didn’t say anything until after the meeting had ended. But if we as a society can consciously and collectively train ourselves to identify incidents of sexual harassment, we can protect future victims and prevent perpetrators from continuing to harass in the future.
If you are a victim of sexual harassment or assault or know someone who is, the National Sexual Assault Hotline is available online at hotline.rainn.org/online or via telephone at 800656-HOPE.
