Sexual Harassment?

[BeardofPants]

It's the million dollar question... well, not quite, but it's extremely relevant in this day and age, where the line between the sexes is just that much more blurred in the work force. Women are now 'allowed' to work in environments that were previously the sole domain of men. Recently in New Zealand, a study was undertaken of women working within the police force. It was found that a majority felt that they were condescended upon because of their gender. Many reported incidents of sexual harassment that ranged from touching, jokes of an undesirable nature, to out-and-out sexual assault, in the Police Force.

Sexual harassment is defined by Merriam-Webster as:

• Main Entry: sexual harassment
  Function: noun
  : uninvited and unwelcome verbal or physical conduct directed at an employee because of his or her sex

Wikipedia:

• Sexual harassment
  
  Sexual harassment is harassment of a sexual nature, typically in the workplace or other setting where raising objections or refusing may have negative consequences.
  
  In American employment law, it is any unwelcome sexual advance or conduct on the job, having the effect of making the workplace intimidating, hostile or offensive.
  
  The definition of the phrase sexual harassment can be broad and controversial, depending on each individual's opinion of what sexual harassment is. While typical sexual harassment behaviour usually includes unwanted touching of a co-worker's private parts, lewd comments, talk about gender superiority, sexual jokes, etc., some companies have reported that they have had to fire employees (after a co-worker had complained of sexual harassment) for such actions as telling the complaining co-worker how good he or she looks for that co-worker's date with another person, or for simply handling what seemed, to the fired employee, to be just a harmless compliment.
  
• quid pro quo
• Hostile Work Environment
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_harassment
  

According to the movie Disclosure, sexual harassment is about POWER. However, personal experience has lead me to believe that it is not as clear-cut as that; sexual harassment can be about many things. A harmless flirtation could be deemed as sexual harassment. All it takes is an action deemed as unsuitable by one party for it be of a harassment nature (as noted by the definitions above).

I have personally experienced harassment from one extreme to another: from touching, to crude jokes, to minor assault. ALL of these experiences made me feel uncomfortable, ill-at-ease, vulnerable. However, not all were intentional. Obviously the touching/assault were WAY out of line, and I let both guys know that they stepped outside the bounds of decency, and that if they were to proceed any further, I would take a sharp pencil and jab it up their respective left nostrils! In the case of jokes though, I am currently experiencing an unwitting form of harassment. The guy I work with is from Indonesia. I don't know if it is a cultural thing, or if he genuinely doesn't have a clue, but some of his jokes are off-colour, and they make me feel distinctly uncomfortable. Problem is: I like the guy... I don't want to make him feel bad or anything, but some of the stuff he says does make me feel put-upon, and vulnerable.

An example, at work they are thinking about changing our uniforms (I work part-time in a supermarket). I joked that this guy would look great in a skirt, and he joked back that I would look better in a bikini. That was okay - but then he started going on about how sexy I would look in a bikini, and doing all that hubba-hubba crap, which made me feel like a slab of meat or something. On top of this, the second-in-charge is encouraging him!! She keeps joking about how he should take me out, and blah-blah-blah, and how he wants yadda-yadda. As a result, I feel like I can not go to her to tell her that I'm feeling uncomfortable with the jokes. I've tried ignoring them, I've tried gently suggesting that I'm not comfortable with them (saying that I could report him for sexual harassment), but they haven't stopped. I don't feel like I can go directly to the manager either as he is a moron (eg, he joked about how he wanted to rape one of the food reps).

So, does anyone have any experiences they want to share? Advice? I really don't know what to do.