Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ucla-cs!ucivax!gateway
From: joan@cs.uri.EDU (Joan Peckham)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: an approach to harassment
Message-ID: <9105012014.AA01374@cs.uri.edu>
Date: 1 May 91 23:00:48 GMT
Lines: 13
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu

I have an undergraduate student who is working for industry.  She
claims that her boss is always pulling on her hair, patting or
stroking her head, etc.  If she gets angry and tells him to stop, he
just laughs and thinks it is cute.  I have suggested that she do the
same back to him when his colleagues are around to embarass him.  She
thinks that is playing with "fire".  Maybe she is correct.  Although,
I personally have had great success with this approach in the past.

Do any of you have any suggestions?  She is a rather shy woman, who is
much younger than the other people she works with.  She wants to try
to deal with it on her own first before going over her boss's head.

                                            Joan Peckham