The sexual harassment incident was just one of several issues touched upon by ep3 of On the Verge of Insanity, but I thought the show did a very good job of showing the following:

1. It can happen to anyone, even a strong, fierce woman who “could have been a union leader”.

2. Well-meaning people who are ostensibly on your side might still fail to support you. Dang Ja-young, though sympathetic “as a woman”, is not sympathetic enough to question Team Leader Kang’s indispensability. More disturbingly, it had been at her own team leader’s behest that Seong-eun didn’t report Kang earlier. I really like the scene with Seong-eun, Ban-seok and Team Leader Noh, in which Ban-seok realises that Noh has known about Kang harassing Seong-eun all this time but advised her to keep quiet about it. Seong-eun is too upset to notice that Noh is more anxious about his cordless vacuum cleaner than about her, but Ban-seok knows, and seems torn between concern and shame for his hyung.

3. The harassment can take obvious forms (though even then the perpetrator might still claim that he was just trying to be friendly or something). But even in less obvious forms, like Kang’s ogling and dodgy comments, it is just wrong, and should be taken seriously.

5
0