Reasons Why Someone Doesn't Realise Their Joke Constitutes Sexual Harassment

The alleged sexual harassment case involving 16 students from the Faculty of Law at Universitas Indonesia (FH UI) serves as a stark warning to society about the boundary between jokes and verbal sexual violence.

Through screenshots circulating on social media, the public has been shown how narratives that demean women are turned into sources of amusement in a male chat group.

Various comments on social media question why these students did not realise that their actions constituted a form of harassment.

Adelia Octavia Siswoyo, M.Psi., a psychologist, explains that this lack of awareness often arises because the perpetrators view what they are doing as merely internal jokes in a private space.

“Why don’t they realise? Because it’s been normalised. There’s normalisation in the joking process. Especially in Indonesia, a fairly patriarchal country, so things considered jokes are sometimes not realised to potentially hurt others,” she said when contacted on Thursday (16/4/2026).

According to the adult clinical psychologist, this unawareness is rooted in a collective normalisation process.

When an environment regards objectification as normal, sensitivity to moral wrongs becomes dulled.

This is exacerbated by the perception that the conversation is private, so no social controls enter.

In a male-centric perspective, women are often viewed as subordinate to men, so discussing their bodies or sexual matters as joke material is considered acceptable.

Additionally, in that group’s norms, talking about women as objects often receives no reprimand.

“Because no one ever reprimands it, no one sees it as a mistake, and it might be viewed as private joking, so it’s not considered direct harassment towards the person involved,” said the psychologist who also practises at Jaga Batin.

She emphasises that peer pressure has a very dominant influence, surpassing values possibly gained from the family.