by Kathryn Quina

About the author: Kathryn Quina is on the faculty in the psychology department at the University of Rhode Island.

In the comic strip “Beetle Bailey,” common forms of sexual harassment are carried out by harmless characters whom we are supposed to love, or at least feel a kind of charitable forgiveness toward. General Halftrack is the archetypical older gentleman whose dowdy wife starves him for affection. His secretary Miss Buxley—who can’t type—drives him wild with her sexy figure and short skirts. “Killer” (short for lady-killer, a curiously violent name) is always whistling at “chicks” (who love it), accompanied by Beetle, who is equally aggressive but not as successful. Zero just stares at women’s bodies.

Sexual Harassment Is Not a Joke