Sexual harassment--a big misunderstanding?

I know this is about 12 years out of date, but it's something I've been wondering about all morning. I'm reading a book called The Way We Never Were by Stephanie Coontz. The book was originally published 1992, so it was written in the shadows of Clarence Thomas hearings. In it, she discusses how women are socialized to be attuned to men and pick up on their every need, whereas men are socialized to expect women to modify their behavior and therefore have little need to pick up on small things in women's behavior that might signal how they really feel.

Fair enough. God knows I've suffered because I both wanted a boyfriend to know how I feel but I also can't just say it because of my socialization. And of course, since reading someone's mind so that you know how to behave is difficult to say the least, plenty of arguments result from a woman misreading a man's signals and adapting her behavior wrongy, i.e. not doing what he wants. Talking is so much easier, no?

Anyway, while I think the basic principle is a correct one, she mistakenly attaches it to the issue of sexual harassment. I realize that was in the air at the time, and there was a good deal of disingenous hand-wringing over how men were possibly to know what was appropriate and what was not. Apparently, paying attention was completely out of the question. Actually treating women like human beings seemed way out of line as well. It made me sad to remember how feminists had to meet the Misogyny Brigade halfway on this and pretend that men harass women because they don't know any better just to get some freaking work codes written.

Do people still believe this, I wonder? Do they still believe that men harass women because their dating skills are slightly off and women are over-sensitive? Can anyone actually believe that things like leaving pubic hairs on a woman's things are even in the same arena as normal flirting?

There's no doubt that plenty of people confuse hostile behavior and flirting sometimes. I've joked about being approached by men who think I will be charmed by some sort of insult or challenge. One of my favorite all-time doofus stories has been a guy telling me that I drink crappy beer and he'll buy me a better one. This has happened to me twice. But these sort of low-level dumbshit things to say are completely different than sexual harassment.

Harassment is sadistic behavior. When a man grabs a woman's body or says something nasty and aggressive to her, especially in a professional setting, he's not doing it because he's not reading her very well. In fact, he's reading her just fine. The whole purpose is to get the reaction, the mortification and humiliation. Same with the hollering on the sidewalk. Getting a woman to react is the whole point of the exercise. Same with following someone--the fear is the payoff. (In that situation, I've found that a cell phone is the greatest invention in the world. No time like when getting tailed by a strange man to start phoning your friends.)

It seems to me not only letting men who behave this way off the hook, but is also really damaging to women's self-esteem. If we are to believe that men harass because they don't know better, we are holding women responsible for the harassment. Women are led to think that they are getting harassed because they aren't managing their communications to men appropriately and need, once again, to modify their behavior to accomodate male pig-headedness.

But if you acknowledge the truth behind the motivation to harass, then you are empowered. Don't blame yourself, get mad! How dare they work out their mental problems/sadistic tendencies on you! It may not mean that you can do anything to stop it, but hey, at least you don't have to feel guilty about not taking care of someone's feelings who is mean to you.

Anyway, is it still the common belief that sexual harassment results from men not reading women correctly?