Russian judge: Sexual harassment okay as it ensures humans breed

[Marnoot]

Sexual harassment okay as it ensures humans breed, Russian judge rules

A Russian advertising executive who sued her boss for sexual harassment lost her case after a judge ruled that employers were obliged to make passes at female staff to ensure the survival of the human race.
 

By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 1:12PM BST 30 Jul 2008

The unnamed executive, a 22-year-old from St Petersburg, had been hoping to become only the third woman in Russia's history to bring a successful sexual harassment action against a male employer.

She alleged she had been locked out of her office after she refused to have intimate relations with her 47-year-old boss.

"He always demanded that female workers signalled to him with their eyes that they desperately wanted to be laid on the boardroom table as soon as he gave the word," she earlier told the court. "I didn't realise at first that he wasn't speaking metaphorically."

The judge said he threw out the case not through lack of evidence but because the employer had acted gallantly rather than criminally.

"If we had no sexual harassment we would have no children," the judge ruled.

Since Soviet times, sexual harassment in Russia has become an accepted part of life in the office, work place and university lecture room.

According to a recent survey, 100 per cent of female professionals said they had been subjected to sexual harassment by their bosses, 32 per cent said they had had intercourse with them at least once and another seven per cent claimed to have been raped.

Eighty per cent of those who participated in the survey said they did not believe it possible to win promotion without engaging in sexual relations with their male superiors.

Women also report that it is common to be browbeaten into sex during job interviews, while female students regularly complain that university professors trade high marks for sexual favours.

Only two women have won sexual harassment cases since the collapse of the Soviet Union, one in 1993 and the other in 1997.

Human rights activists say that Russian women remain second-class citizens and are subjected to some of the highest levels of domestic abuse in the world.

They sure are more enlightened there in Russia, why can't we Americans be more like our friends to the East? Wow, I knew things weren't great on a whole lot of fronts in Russia, but I guess I was unaware of how thick the misogynist atmosphere is there.

[The Annoyed Man]

Attention attractive Russian women:  Come to America.  We'll treat you right.

[Perd Hapley]

Wasn't there a story out of Russia a few years ago, about a movement there to encourage people to have more children?  I don't know that it's simply misogyny, maybe another agenda coming through there.  There seems to be an actual concern about keeping up the birth rate, carried to an absurd extreme, in this case. 

[Balog]

Yeah, because if powerful people didn't use their position to force their employees to have sex with them, no one ever would get laid. 

[Iain]

Wasn't there a story out of Russia a few years ago, about a movement there to encourage people to have more children?  I don't know that it's simply misogyny.  There seems to be an actual concern about keeping up the birth rate.

Not that it justifies sexual harassment. 

I think you're right, there was something about recently about Russia having a big issue with low birth rates.

[Balog]

Russia's low birth rate is a result of widespread use of contraceptives. This judge has apparently never heard of a condom.

[Perd Hapley]

I thought they had some big to-do over it.  National Sex Day, or something? 

[Marnoot]

I don't know that it's simply misogyny.

Perhaps not, but it seems a far stretch they're making to include sexual harassment as a necessary component of increasing the birth-rate. Especially when the involved parties are likely using contraceptives, as Balog points out.

[Perd Hapley]

Russia's low birth rate is a result of widespread use of contraceptives. This judge has apparently never heard of a condom.

A carry-over from Communist abhorrence for any bodily fluids. 


 

[Iain]

Russia's low birth rate is a result of widespread use of contraceptives. This judge has apparently never heard of a condom.

I suspected as much, unless the celibacy movement had taken a real hold, and in the country of excessive vodka consumption I doubted that.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The Russian government has been trying to encourage a higher birthrate for quite some time.  They've gone so far as to operate "summer camp" type operations where teens go expressly for the purpose of mating with each other.

This court ruling sounds like more of the same.

[Marnoot]

I seem to remember reading a dystopian novel some years back where there were government designated breeders who lived in breeding facilities. Maybe Putin and his puppet will make these a reality? 

[Perd Hapley]

I don't know that it's simply misogyny.

Perhaps not, but it seems a far stretch they're making to include sexual harassment as a necessary component of increasing the birth-rate. Especially when the involved parties are likely using contraceptives, as Balog points out.

Totally agreed on that point.  I certainly was not trying to say that sexual harassment could be justified by that sort of thing.  Just saying there might have been something else at work in the judge's opinion. 

[Iain]

Russia's birthrate, falling for decades, has plunged in post-Soviet times, to just 1.17 in 2004 from 2.08 babies per woman in 1990 - far below the 2.4 children required to maintain the population - according to the Federal State Statistics Service.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0519/p01s04-woeu.html

[Perd Hapley]

The Russian government has been trying to encourage a higher birthrate for quite some time.  They've gone so far as to operate "summer camp" type operations where teens go expressly for the purpose of mating with each other. 

Holy cow.  Was that the news item I was remembering?  Imagine the conversation between a father and son in Russia these days.

"Listen, boy, we didn't have it so easy when I was a kid.  We walked uphill both ways to and from school, in snow this deep.  And you better believe they didn't just throw girls at us in summer camp!  We worked HARD for what we got!" 

[Perd Hapley]

OK, Marnoot, I just read that whole thing you posted.  If it's really as bad as the article makes out, then forget what I said about it not being simple misogyny.  Yikes! 

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

The Russian government has been trying to encourage a higher birthrate for quite some time.  They've gone so far as to operate "summer camp" type operations where teens go expressly for the purpose of mating with each other. 

Holy cow.  Was that the news item I was remembering?  Imagine the conversation between a father and son in Russia these days.

"Listen, boy, we didn't have it so easy when I was a kid.  We walked uphill both ways to and from school, in snow this deep.  And you better believe they didn't just throw girls at us in summer camp!  We worked HARD for what we got!" 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-471324/Sex-motherland-Russian-youths-encouraged-procreate-camp.html

I believe they also hold national sex holidays, where everyone is given the day off and told to go home and make like rabbits.  Cash prizes are awarded to mothers who deliver babies on special days, or at frequent intervals.

[seeker_two]

A Russian advertising executive who sued her boss for sexual harassment lost her case after a judge ruled that employers were obliged to make passes at female staff to ensure the survival of the human race.
 

Wonder if I can get this one past HR?.... 

[DustinD]

I remember similar comments after a Russian cosmonaut tried to rape a Canadian astronaut. Officials from Russia's space program said something to the effect of "non Russian women are too prudish and that his behaviour was accepted in Russia." It did not help the relationships of many of the Countries involved in the long term simulation to get along with Russia's space agency. I know America and Japan where involved in it and Japan pulled out because of it.

[Antibubba]

Sexual harassment okay as it ensures humans breed, Russian judge rules

He should try roses.  Jewelry is good too.

[Perd Hapley]

Antibubba.  Always the pragmatist. 

[yesitsloaded]

I actually met a 23 year old Ukrainian the other day. Unlike most American girls I have met she seems to have it together. She also thinks my room is some sort of private military museum The background story is that my sister went on a two week mission trip to the Ukraine, met her there, and they both worked at a summer camp back in the states this fall. Evidently I'm some kind of awesome because I don't smoke (evidently some ridiculous portion of Russian and Ukrainian men smoke), am American, and don't beat women or something along those lines. She also seems to think I'm some sort of Jeremiah Johnson. My sis says that weddings over there are insane, with bucket relay races and other crazy games. Pretty sure a nice amount of vodka is involved. I might have to go over this fall or wait for her to come back next summer. A whole country of beautiful women that want geeky outdoorsy white guys with guns as husbands. New Plan: We anchor the APS ship/ S.S. Fistul on the Black Sea and gets womens.

[doc2rn]

^I am there.

[PTK]

yesitsloaded


Sounds like a PLAN! 

[Racehorse]

For some reason, this whole thing reminds me of the pictures Putin had taken of himself with his shirt off. I thought it made no sense at the time, but this gives me a little more of a glimpse into the Russian mindset.

"I beeg, strong Russian man! We make baby now."