Harassment requires persistence or power, and a passing remark in the street has neither

The argument

Opponents of the harassment classification argue that the word carries a specific meaning worth protecting. To harass someone is to subject them to a course of conduct: repeated, directed at that person in particular, and ordinarily by someone with continuing access to them or standing over them. That is what the term picks out when it is used of a colleague who will not stop, a neighbour who keeps coming to the door, or a former partner who keeps making contact. A single shout from a passing stranger who will never be seen again fails each element at once. Opponents are usually at pains to say what they are not claiming. The behaviour can be crude, graceless and unpleasant; it can be worth discouraging, and most of those making this argument would discourage it. The claim is about classification rather than approval. Conduct may be objectionable without belonging to the category of harassment, just as rudeness is objectionable without being assault, and nothing is gained by collapsing the distinction. What is lost by collapsing it, on this account, is considerable. Those facing sustained and targeted conduct rely on the term being understood to mean something serious, and on institutions treating it accordingly. A word that covers everything from a whistle in the street to a campaign of intimidation stops doing that work, and the people who need it most are the ones left without it. Opponents conclude that the honest course is to criticise catcalling as what it is, bad manners aimed at strangers, and to keep harassment for conduct that is persistent, targeted or backed by power.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Those who disagree reply that the persistence is real but is being counted in the wrong unit. For the person addressed it is not one shout but a pattern met with over years from many different people, which is a course of conduct even though no individual speaker repeats himself. They add that the power element is present in the street as much as in an office, since the person addressed has no safe way to answer back and no authority to appeal to afterwards.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] This definition is drawn from the law of stalking rather than from harassment as conduct rules generally use it, where a single sufficiently degrading act is routinely enough to qualify. [Rejecting P2] The conditions fail only if the unit of conduct is one speaker. For the person addressed the conduct is repeated, is directed at them as a member of an identifiable group, and comes from people who can be confident of not being answered. [Rejecting P3] Nothing is lost for the serious cases. Severity is already distinguished within harassment by degree, as it is within assault or theft, without the mildest instances having to be renamed. [Rejecting C] The conclusion rests entirely on the definition stipulated at the outset, so it reports a decision about usage rather than a finding about the behaviour.