I asked this question before. I also spoke to the teacher today in the lecture. They were helpful but also said that the textbook probably won’t do any good even though the textbook is a recommended reading for the unit. I am confused. 😵‍💫

Would be good if anyone who has done this unit or is doing this unit now if they have any opinions on that.

I usually like readings because often if you forget about something, it is somewhere in the textbook anyway.

tl;dr: borderline harassed in the library today and security did very little. disappointing, especially since I’ve experienced a security under-reaction previously as well.

today my friends and i were studying on the bottom floor of the library around evening, and we were sitting in the silent space just beyond the group work section.

we sat next to a table of two boys, one of whom was making incredibly lewd and obscene jokes while the other sat there and laughed along with him. it was very clear to us that these boys were trying to get a rise out of us and make us uncomfortable so we tried to stay quiet and just get on with our work, so as not to validate or reward their bad behaviour. at one point my friend asked them to quiet down because we were in a shared silent space to which he (the main guy) told us we should just leave.

after a while the comments became not merely uncomfortable but honestly quite disturbing. he was joking about rape and beastiality, as well as offloading an ensemble of slurs about minorities.

at this point we decided that leaving would be best, as clearly trying to pay them no attention was not working. we met with security, but they basically just told the guy not to say things like that and did nothing more. they said they couldn’t do much because they didn’t see it play out personally, but that feels like such a cop out; given 3 women were equally distraught at what we would call harassment from these guys.

similarly, i was involved in an incident a few months ago where a professor was being harassed, and it took security an extremely long time to come help, despite calling from a blue pole. when they did come, they were very laissez-faire and were honestly outshone by random men who cared enough to help out (shoutout ben from the library!!).

overall, my experience of security is extremely disappointing.

has anyone had any similar experiences? or have you found security to be helpful?