Sexual harassment in educational institutions

The problem of sexual harassment in educational institutions is eternal. No one can deny it. Of course if we compare the environment at an office and in a university we will understand clearly that the ground for sexual harassment in educational institutions is much more favourable.

First of all young students are less self-confident, they know less about their rights. They often feel shy and are afraid to complain about inappropriate conduct of lecturers and professors. Besides their fear to be banned from the university or to get bad mark is much stronger in comparison with employees, who feel more confident in their actions and not so afraid to lose job. To be fired doesn't mean something horrible and fatal. You may find another job, apply to the court, etc. As for students, they are concerned about their future career, their place in this life and so on. Besides, the degree of closeness of their relationships with their fellows is much higher than relationships among employees. Students often hide their problems in order to avoid gossips and bad reputation. They are also afraid to be misunderstood and blamed in the situation. It is very hard for them to go through such problems, because their psyche is not fully formed yet. Therefore they keep silence, prefer not to talk about this problems with anybody including their own parents. Professors understand it and use it, as they feel impurity and they know that the likeliness of being revealed is extremely law.

Practice shows that basically old teachers resort to harassment. Young ones usually don't have much problems with the opposite sex and they don't need to court young students. As for old professors, they gradually go mad when they are getting older. Besides, they feel themselves very clever and harassment for them is an additional way for self-actualisation. The mere admiration, praise, recognition is sometimes not enough for them. They often want to confirm their almightiness by humiliation of students, putting bad marks and, of course, by having affair with young students. This gives them an opportunity to feel young, join to youth, remember their own youth, and to raise their self-esteem.

Young students feel much more unprotected before respected professors and don't know what to do in such situations. Many of them conceal the problem as they consider their future career to be much more important for them and think that harassment is a trifle in comparison with what they may lose.

There is also the other side of this problem. Sometimes students resort to intimacy with their teachers on their own initiative. They pursue quite mercenary goals, they understand that sex is the only way for them to improve their current results in studies. Besides, some students regard it to be a simpler way to cope with the lack of progress in their studies in comparison with laborious study of dull and uninteresting volumes. Having had an affair with the teacher, they sometimes no longer need to resort to it later. They may simply blackmail their teachers, threaten by turning to court, etc. Our modern legislation is not favourable for man in these cases. Those who know it, use it fully. The only way for a teacher not to be blamed for harassment is to avoid too close relationships with students. It is better not to have private talks with them and always keep a reasonable distance.