Sexual harassment is a ongoing problem that has escaped the spotlight of the media for too long. On average there are 321,500 people in the United States who have been sexually assaulted every year. Sexual harassment can mean many things such as unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favors or verbal and physical sexual conduct.

Cosmopolitan did a survey on 2,235 part-time and full-time female employees and saw that one out of three admitted to being sexual harassed at work. Sometimes its hard to spot sexually harrasment at work because it can be just a slight comment or a social media message. Out of all the woman who did the survey only 29 percent reported the issue while the other 71 percent stayed quiet. According to their survey the highest reported sexual harassment has to do with food or service hospitality.

Sexual Harassment is also a high occurring problem at music festivals such as Coachella one of the biggest festivals teens go to in California. Just like all the other huge music festivals Coachella has no place on their website about what to do if someone was harassed at the event. Teen Vogue interviewed 54 girls who all admitted to being sexual harassed either once or a few times during the Coachella. Vera Papisova who works for Teen Vogue stated that during her 10 hours reporting on a story she was groped 22 times.

Even though the media only shows girls getting sexually harassed doesn’t mean guys don’t. Stereotypically someone would think that guys accept any form of sexual contact, and if you do believe that you are the problem too. Many men get sexually harassed right in front of us everyday but no one ever pays attention or worries that they aren’t giving permission to the sexual predator. A survey done by Drinkaware showed 54 percent of women ages 18-24 get comments or unwanted touching on night outs. The same survey was done with guys which showed about 17 percent of them can relate to the unfortunate event of sexual harassment with the females. Even though its significantly lower than the womens percentage it’s still a serious problem no one is talking about.

School is even a place where sexual harassment is a huge problem. It starts with the dress code that tells girl what they can and can’t wear. “I’m not sure what the purpose of a dress code is for such young kids other than to make them feel ashamed of how they look or the clothing their families have purchased for them,” Catherine Pearlman told CNN.  Hannah Whitman a freshman at Clackamas High school was embarrassed in front of her whole class when her teacher said “ Hannah put your boobs away I’m tired of seeing them.”  Luckily Hannah overcame the incident and later realized how much she loved her body and really embraced it choosing to not think about the negativity the teacher gave her. Unfortunately Hannah never did anything to get her experience out there for people to learn about sexual harassment at school.

Julie Bauder counselor at Clackamas High school , tells all her students whenever they need to talk she’s here for them and is there for support. She  deals with all sort of things like trouble at home, grades, classes, relationships, sexual harassment and more. Before all her meetings she lets the students know that whatever goes on in their conversation will be kept private unless its serious enough to go and try to help find support for that individual. Many times kids have went there to talk to her about sexual comments and certain unwanted touching their receiving. One thing she stands by is a lot more people than you think seek her for support in the topic of sexual harassment. Bauder said “Most people who make the comments don’t think anythings wrong with their actions just clueless kids that need to be taught that words mean so much more than they can imagine.”

Sexual harassment will never stop if people don’t think their doing anything wrong or there’s no media or news story to open their eyes up to it. Females and males need to both work on this topic and learn about it if we want to stop it . Their easy changes to make we, the people need to understand its our own actions and mindset that can resolve this ongoing problem. We need to teach kids at a young age what words and unwanted touching can affect someone’s whole life.