Sometimes sexual harassment comes in the most egregious, "hey, nice boobies" form. In that case, some scornful laughter might shut the harasser down. But often it's more subtle, and is it really a good idea to fight subtlety with subtlety? Take the situation of the inappropriate joke. A joke that makes someone uncomfortable — whether it's about sex or women or someone's attractiveness — is one of the most common forms of sexual harassment, at least in my experience. It's also one of the most likely to be unconscious. Inappropriate jokesters often don't mean to offend or discomfit or even flirt; they're just trying to be funny. If you laugh at their jokes, will they really be able to tell "diabolical laughter" from plain old amusement?

More broadly, how much time should we really be spending on interesting ways to cope with sexual harassment? Burns says, "It's a fact of life. Sexual harassment is never going to go away. You will always need to know how to deal with it." It's probably true that some sexual harassment is inevitable, and that it's good for your mental health to learn how to respond. But ultimately, it's the supervisor's responsibility to "deal with it" (if that's you, you definitely shouldn't be laughing, and you probably shouldn't show this video). And it's everyone's responsibility not to harass in the first place. Harassees can develop creative techniques if they want to, but it's not their responsibility to respond gracefully to harassment, or to put a stop to it themselves.

The Best Way to Stop Sexual Harassment [U.S. News & World Report]

He's just as vilified as those guys, without the weird sense of awe accorded those guys because, in being a black conservative, he's obviously just acting out some master-slave shit or whatever. So pardon me if I feel a twinge of empathy for the son of a bitch. In the past sixteen years we've had everyone from Bill O'Reilly to Kanye West to remind us in plain language the Republican party is fundamentally still one that tolerates — and panders to — the fear and resentment of black folks and other minorities, and that — over and above any substantial policy issue — is what has kept the country from uniting to truly preserve and perpetuate democracy in so many years of Republican leadership. So anyway, not sure where I'm going with all that, but I'd like to think that sixteen years later Clarence Thomas would not only be able to find chicks on Craigslist with whom to discuss his massive Coke can-sized wang or whatever, he might also be an independent thinker for that fact. And on a side note, no one would disbelieve Anita Hill. Who doesn't tolerate a little too much pubic hair talk on the job? And no one would get away with smearing her as incompetent: in passing the DC bar, after all, she accomplished something Hillary didn't.