ISU student Stephanie Loeschen worked for a corporation in New Zealand for three years, and she was shocked by some of the things that happened in the office.

“Soon after we got the Internet, some of the men stumbled onto the pornography sites,” said Loeschen, graduate student in international cultural studies. “Finally, I had to tell them that some people might find those sites offensive.”

Loeschen and several other students discussed their experiences and perceptions of international sexual harassment Wednesday as part of a “Wednesday with the YWCA” discussion group.

Molly Reimer, program coordinator for the YWCA, said the YWCA decided to host the discussion titled “How to Deal with Sexual Harassment Abroad” because sexual harassment is an important issue in every culture and many people have an interest in the subject.

The discussion leaders, Loeschen, Theresa McCormick, professor of curriculum and instruction, and Linda Hamilton, instructor of English, spoke about the different ways that cultures perceive sexual harassment.

“One of the biggest problems is people don’t really know how to define sexual harassment, and they don’t know how it is perceived in different cultures,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton told the students that sexual harassment became a prominent issue in the United States and throughout the world after the Clarence Thomas trial in 1991, but many countries are still unsure about classifying instances of sexual harassment.

“A lot of the problems cross-culturally are in the ways that sexual harassment is defined,” she said. “In the U.S., we are a lot clearer on what we define as sexual harassment, but in other cultures we are not always sure what is socially acceptable.”

McCormick cited instances in New Guinea where women were afraid to be promoted at work because they feared being harassed.

“Sexual harassment is one of the main reasons that women around the world are kept oppressed and in low-paying jobs,” she said.

Loeschen warned people interested in traveling abroad to educate themselves about a culture before immersing themselves in it.

“The roles of men and women in different cultures are different, so you need to be sensitive to what is acceptable and what isn’t,” she said.

McCormick said she hopes students gained new awareness of the topic.

“I hope that the students can realize that we are a part of the solution to the problem of worldwide sexual harassment,” she said.