This was all horrifying enough that the police, who often seem hesitant to pursue online harassment cases, got serious about unmasking and prosecuting the dude.

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It encompasses inappropriate verbal behavior as well as physical behavior and statistics show that women are often the target of violence at work, including sexual harassment.

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Yet speech codes persist in large part because university general counsels, often far more worried about the expense and bad press of a harassment lawsuit than the comparatively rare and inexpensive free speech lawsuit, have deemed it rational from a cost-benefit standpoint to censor.

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Gisela Stuart, Labour MP, Sheila Gunn, former press secretary to John Major, Jo Phillips, former press secretary for Paddy Ashdown, when he was party leader, discussed how much of a problem sexual harassment is for women at all levels of party politics, and how often it is that women in parliament find themselves treated as a sex objects.

BBC: Parliament women 'treated as sex objects'