A new study coming out of the University of Canberra in Australia has found that in rural workplaces “the tendency to make sexual harassment invisible appears fairly widespread.”  That is, “a large majority of employers and employees in rural and remote Australia are inclined to deny or minimize sexual harassment in the workplace.”

“Our most disturbing finding was that more than four-fifths of employers believed that women’s behavior contributed to their victimization.”

This writer has found similar attitudes coming from other places.  After my blog about the horrific gang rape in India and the surveys there which founds widespread sexual harassment of women, a reader wrote to me and, while condemning the atrocity and the perpetrators, nonetheless noted as an aside that the wearing of short skirts by women provoked such attacks.  "Blaming the victim" has, unfortunately, a long tradition.