Sexual Harassment: Why Ladies Should Also Be Blamed -By Abdulrahman Fatima

Like every other vice in our society, the proliferation of sexual harassment is no exception. Sexual harassment could be understood as an act that demeans, humiliates, and embarrasses a person —the victim. It’s a behavior that negates both social and moral reasonableness. A deed of animalism that does leave the prey in an eternal trauma, and create hysteria which often leads to suicide, anytime the psyche of the casualty could no longer resist the pain she experienced while being harassed sexually.     

Whenever there are talks on sexual harassment, I do hear a lot of people blaming and accusing the harasser, the man, rantingly. Tagging him an outcast that needs to be stoned to death. They believe he doesn’t belong to the midst of men. Some will even call him an animal in man’s form.  But have you ever thought oppositely: Could it be a lady that self-made her harassment?    

Like we all know, every human, a man or a woman, has a sexual feeling. Many get an uncontrollable thirst for sex, while only a few are those who can politely control their sexual urges. But it’s not a disputatious fact that men get more sexual appetite than females. Yes. This is why people, even our laws, indict and put all blame on a man anytime there is a scene of any of sexual harassment. 

Away from that, we should not shine our eyes away from reality. The fact is that ladies equally root the causes for them to be harassed by a man. They also make an invitation to treat and they should not be acquitted from being blamed, just because they were the ones who suffered after all.

Below are some reasons why I believe, as a lady, that ladies should also share the blames for the rampant nature of daily records of several cases on sexual harassment.

1.    Urge for Materialistic Wants 

Many ladies out there are really engrossed with material things and they don’t mind going any length to have them. When they see a lady holding things like designers bag, shoes and car, not even knowing if she is from a wealthy home or minding what could have been her status income, they will want to live up to that standard of carrying such materialistic things too, and won’t care if they end up involving themselves in illicit acts. 

For example, flirting around with ‘Sugar Daddies’, luring them into collecting their money, forgetting that nothing goes for free because even in Freetown there is no free food. Hence, they will find themselves troubled at a time the ‘Sugar Daddy’  makes sexual advances towards them, which if they deny, the man would certainly force himself on them; after all, he has invested so much in her, buying her all the materialistic things she demanded.

2. Greediness 

Some ladies want everything to themselves. They want ‘this’, and once they get ‘this’, they will want ‘that’.  They are never satisfied with the little they have, not minding fingers are not equal. Especially the female students on campus, they do desire more money, possessions like cars, latest gadgets like iPhones. They crave a royal life in school not considering their home and how they left it. These students don’t appreciate the pittance, but hard-earned, their parents are sending to them, and this greediness has pushed most to search for what they don’t really lose. 

How do you expect a lady whose monthly allowance from home is not even up to Five Thousands Naira to buy a phone that is worth over Four Hundred Thousands Naira, if not to engage in things that are not reasonable? They friend some unwanted people in their lives, those that can’t in any way move their lives forward, in the spirit of getting more than what they have. In fact, many times these ladies offer the men sex just to be paid a certain agreed amount of money. But at a time when these guys demand sex without payment, these ladies would refuse and get raped eventually. 

3. For  Fame

This might look unrealistic, but trust me, I know what I’m saying. Most females get raped and feel less concerned about it because of the fame they are aiming to attain. Nowadays, ladies just want to be famous in any means, even if they become sexually harassed. Permit me to sight an example with a music industry, where you need a connection to reach the limelight, even if you have the talent. Females are likely to be sexually harassed by her producer or boss before getting access to the industry. Some will even beg to be sexually harassed so that they can generate a lot of hoopla on social media platforms and attract media attention. They want to be the first trending on Twitter, so they are careless if they are a victim of rape or any forms of sexual abuses. All they want is to be on the first page of Daily News. 

4. For Good Grades

Some female students in the university feel that an institution is a place where they can do and undo without their parents’ instructions. They believe they have gotten to the highest stage of maturity where no one is their watchdog. Students like this just come to school to create gangs, feel among, and do other illicit acts. They don’t attend lectures, don’t write tests or even write exams but they want to pass. Now the question is how? 

Highest of them would dress seductively to the lecturers’ office, and lure them into falling for them and in return, the lecturer will have to pass them but with the aim of a no sex. All they do is to massage the lecturer and do other related kinds of stuff with them. Of course, the lecturer in question is a man, and if you do all this to a man that is not impotent, he will surely want sex. Indeed it will be difficult for a female to overthrow a man whenever he wants sex, because he becomes a bit violent and when he asks for it but you refuse. These lecturers intend to satisfy their huge, by forcefully having sex with you, either under duress or undue influence. 

5. Indecent Dressing 

This is a secular society. I know my own definition of a decent dressing might be the exact opposite of yours. But as a lady, you need to study your environment. Studying your environment also means studying the people around, it really matters a lot.  It helps you to know the type of dresses that are to be worn around the area. Some ladies like coping with what they see on television or on the internet. How could you think of dressing like a model or actresses in a tenement you are dwelling without you intimidating the men around.  

Let’s hit on a casual aphorism, ‘The way you dress is the way you will be addressed’. If you wear clothes that accentuate your body structure often, my sister, you are inviting those guys around you to see the blessings you have, which could make them conspire and plan on how to see what is beneath your skirt and forcefully have your carnal knowledge.

If some ladies could have taken reasonable care and necessary precautions, they might not have been raped or sexually abused by a man because many were raped due to their own self-made faults.