On one occasion they were cleaning an office where there was a prominently displayed poster of a naked woman with her genitals exposed. This went too far and they complained. From this time on the women were vilified and abused because they had objected. The posters displayed in their workplace became more explicit, degrading and hard core.
They were even confronted by a room in which the walls and ceilings were entirely covered with a montage of pornography, clearly placed there for their benefit. Although the women were frightened by the inherently threatening nature of the pornography and the victimisation they were subjected to, they received no support or assistance from management or their union.
Rather, they were advised that their attitude made them unpopular on the site and were warned not to be troublemakers. Their situation became increasingly unbearable. They were aware that the male toilets contained grossly offensive graffiti about them. One of them was also terrorised at the site Christmas party and had to lock herself into a storeroom for her own safety. As a result of this treatment, both women left their jobs and sought counselling.
A person has the right to complain about the effects of a sexually hostile working environment even if the conduct in question was not specifically targeted at them. The courts have also accepted that the mere presence of sexually explicit material can be sufficient to constitute sexual harassment.
In some workplaces, sexual gossip, jokes and teasing are part of daily working life. Often employees who work in such environments take on this behaviour in order to participate in the workplace culture without thinking about the consequences to others. Since they do not directly intend to offend or humiliate, employees who tell sexual jokes, circulate offensive material or use inappropriate nicknames for co-workers may be surprised to find out that some of their behaviour could constitute sexual harassment.
Employers also need to be aware that they could be vicariously liable for any sexual harassment case arising from such behaviour. A particular danger arises when comments move from the generalised to the particular, and individuals are targeted for comments, teasing or abuse.
However, even generalised comments can offend co-workers, who have a right to work in an environment that is not permeated with sexual banter. Employers should discourage any workplace behaviour that is sexist or potentially offensive to others.
Although the Sex Discrimination Act makes sexual harassment a civil not criminal offence, some types of harassment may also be offences under the criminal law. In a criminal case the victim appears as a witness for the Crown and the offender can be prosecuted. If the prosecution is successful, the outcome may be a fine or a jail sentence. In civil proceedings, cases are brought by victims themselves. If they win the case they may be awarded damages. The two types of proceedings are not mutually exclusive.
If an employer suspects that a criminal incident has occurred, the individual should be advised to report the matter to the police as soon as possible and be provided with any necessary support and assistance.
If the Commission receives a sexual harassment complaint which involves allegations of criminal conduct, the complainant is informed of their right to report the matter to the police and an appropriate referral is provided. The Commission may nevertheless deal with a case that involves criminal allegations, particularly if the matter has not been pursued by law enforcement agencies or if the complainant is unwilling to report the matter to the police.
A woman alleged that while attending a work conference she was sexually assaulted by a co-worker. The company she worked for was a small family business and the alleged assault was committed by the son of its directors. Where can sexual harassment occur? What can I do when I witness sexual harassment?
Create a distraction. Do what you can to interrupt the harassment, or distract those taking part in the harassment. If someone seems like they could become violent, do not draw their attention.
Ask directly. Talk directly with the person who is being harassed. If they are being harassed at work or school, offer to accompany them anytime they have to meet with the harasser. If a friend is worried about walking alone to their car at night, offer to walk with them.
Refer to an authority. The safest way to intervene for both you and the person being harassed may be to bring in an authority figure. You can talk to another employee, security guard, RA in your dorm, bartender, or bouncer, and they will often be willing to step in. Enlist others. It may be a good idea to enlist the help of a friend or another bystander.
What are some effects of sexual harassment? Sexual Exploitation by Helping Professionals Sexual exploitation by a helping professional is a serious violation of your trust and, in many cases, the law. We tried to ignore their behavior.
Another department head suggested they pay attention and grow up. I have seen this going on for years. Since it is supposedly said in jest, it is apparently supposed to be ignored. But most of the female employees get very uncomfortable when these remarks are made. The men enjoy every minute of it and it seems to amuse them even more if the women get embarrassed. This has happened in one-on-one situations and in group situations.
Many times their sensitivity is more acute than my own—that is, I saw nothing obvious but they were quite sure of the bias. As a result, I am unsure whether accusations of sexual bias are not just disguises of—or poorly stated initial reactions to—some other underlying management problem or perception.
Not surprisingly, respondents to our survey agree about which extreme situations constitute sexual harassment but differ over the more ambiguous cases.
Opinions on these extreme case differ little between men and women and between top and lower-level management. In other, less extreme situations, however, people are less certain about the interpretation but still consider the behavior quite offensive see Exhibit II. The amount the victim appears to suffer, however, does not necessarily vary with the perceived seriousness. In many comments, for instance, the writers seemed more vexed by persistent low-level misbehavior, which, although covered by EEOC guidelines, is impractical to do something about and is often harder to prove than more extreme forms.
Case in point—a male in our DP department continually makes comments and gestures to me. I must deal with this person professionally, and I feel that our relationship has been hindered.
Harassment is not, of course, limited to the office. However, management has not seen this as a problem. It does not interfere with promotion or pay, but I find it an offensive situation. Quite clearly, the perceived seriousness of the action correlates with the power of the person making the advances.
The two situations where the coworker is seen as more blameworthy—continually glancing at the woman, part C, and putting a hand on her arm when making a point, part F—are rather ambiguous, and the behavior is certainly less threatening in relation to work but more repugnant because it constitutes unwanted intimacy.
Many people commented on how power influences perceptions of harassment. Having suffered through both lessons, I feel free to comment. The power phenomenon is not necessarily restricted to men, either.
It is when the overtures are unwanted, persistent, and power based that they are unhealthy organizationally. In five of the six split-sample cases, more women than men consider the behavior offensive, whether the statement is about a supervisor or a coworker. Since it was not possible to include all the survey data in the exhibits, here and in a few other instances, the data have been extrapolated.
In the remaining split-sample case—where the man kisses the woman every time they meet part D —somewhat more men than women, proportionately, rate the action objectionable whether by a supervisor or a fellow worker.
Perhaps women are often more conscious of social formalities and tend to accept this kind of behavior from supervisors, whereas men are more likely to consider it merely an encounter between the sexes. In response to two other statements that were more conventionally social—where the man often offers to drive the woman home and where the married man and the woman have dinner together and go to a nightclub while on a business trip—slightly more men than women also think these are possibly harassment.
Additionally, as all the split-sample responses in this section testify, top managers say that the behavior by supervisors is more blameworthy than the same behavior by coworkers. Answers to the split sample clearly demonstrate that the power relationship implicitly carries a coercive threat. But what about coworkers? Why do only a third of top managers who completed the white form think that being greeted each day with a sexual remark from a coworker is harassment?
Perhaps the more one sees behavior like that we described, the less one is stirred to call it misconduct. Except for the incident where the man kisses the woman on the cheek every time they meet Exhibit II, part D , all the situations in Exhibit II have been heard of or seen by many people. For example, an average of one-third say that they have heard of or observed persistent requests for a date by men in their organizations. The four activities our sample considers the most objectionable Exhibit I they have seen or heard of the least.
Understandably, these are the least likely to occur, be detected, or be admitted to. In general, of those who have knowledge of certain sexual behavior in their organizations, a higher proportion assert that such behavior is not harassment. In cases where the supervisor makes the advance, people are much more likely to call it harassment when they have no knowledge of its occurrence in their own organizations.
Does familiarity breed contempt? In all these cases, however, interpretation of intent may cloud the statistics. The most striking finding on the question of how much abuse actually takes place is the difference in perception between men and women and between high-level and lower-level management. Because most high-level managers in our survey were men and more lower-level managers were women, the two sets of responses often parallel each other.
For example, one-third of the men, but a full half of the women, have witnessed or heard of a case where the man starts each day with a sexual remark that he insists is an innocent social comment Exhibit II, part B.
How can we explain the differences in viewpoint? That such an attitude on the part of male managers is discouraging for women is evident from many comments we received. When I voiced complaints to my so-called feminist male boss and male colleagues, I was made to feel crazy, dirty—as if I were the troublemaker.
Even though men generally agree in the abstract with women about what harassment is, the gap in perception of what actually happens is real and significant. From the comments in the returns, a visitor from another planet might conclude that men and women work in separate organizations.
One factor that may help explain the difference in perception is social conditioning. They, as well as men, suffer from sexual astigmatism. Perhaps one of the worst examples of abuse in our survey is epitomized by Exhibit I, part C—where the man gives the woman a poor evaluation because she refuses to have sex with him. Ten percent of all respondents have heard of or observed this situation.
Whether conditioning, denial, or lack of awareness explains these disparities, the gap in perception between different levels of management and between men and women poses a serious problem for policymakers. You feel [helpless] trying to confront silent accusations and using the company complaint channels where the men you talk to share a common, somewhat negative philosophy about women.
Since I was both attractive and smart, [the problem] was always the boss. I either had to learn to say no graciously, or lose every good job I got. If they do get along, the men invariably try to have a physical attachment. One man made a dirty comment, and the president came back with a remark telling this employee to keep his locker room comments to the locker room and not make them around any women in the firm. The problem of disparities in perception appears throughout the survey.
To probe differing attitudes, we sent two different versions of four vignettes in our split-sample questionnaire. In one we asked readers to say what they would do as managers in these situations; in the other, what typical managers would do see Exhibit III. One can draw many conclusions from the answers, but three disparities in perception stand out: 1 the differential treatment men and women employees receive after an unwanted advance, 2 how women should handle themselves, and 3 how responsible managers ought to act in the workplace.
The responses to the vignettes show that men and women hold very different opinions on how top managers will act in an ambiguous situation. Their opinions also differ depending on whether the victim is a female or male executive, a female executive or secretary, and on who is making the advance.
Nearly two-thirds of the women who filled out the colored form believed that the typical president would do nothing—being unaware of what happened or unwilling to confront the sales manager on a personal matter—while fewer than half the men voted this way. In thinking that the typical president would do nothing, most of the women chose avoidance of confrontation as the motivation, while most men selected ignorance as the reason for inactivity. Women, it seems, tend to think that male executives take an uninvolved stance even when they know what is happening and even when it is addressed in the guidelines.
This assumption by women of how male executives will behave reveals itself in another vignette. In the white form one man was senior; in the colored form the two executives were peers. To qualify as a hostile work environment, the conduct must be offensive not only to the employee, but also to a reasonable person in the same circumstances. For example, a female employee might be truly offended that a male employee complimented her haircut and opened the door for her on the way into work.
However, the average person probably wouldn't consider that conduct alone to rise to the level of harassment. The following is an example of how a pattern of conduct could lead to a hostile work environment claim. Example: Elena is an executive assistant. Her boss, Aaron, frequently asks Elena to join him for dinner after work so that they can go over his agenda and other items.
These conversations quickly turn personal when Aaron asks Elena about her dating history and sexual preferences. During the workday, Elena catches Aaron staring at her for long periods of time while she works.
Aaron sends Elena late-night texts saying that he liked what she wore to work that day or that he can't stop thinking about her. Aaron also makes a habit of stopping by Elena's office after everyone else has left for the day to complain about his nonexistent sex life with his wife.
Elena makes it clear that Aaron's conduct is not appropriate and tries to leave, but he stands in front of the doorway, saying that he just needs someone to be nice to him.
Aaron's unwanted attention and sexual conduct continue to escalate over the course of several months. If you believe you have been sexually harassed at work, there are certain steps you should take to protect your interests. To learn more, see our article on how to deal with sexual harassment.
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