sexual harassment personal essay

Sexual Harassment - Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

Sexual harassment is a widespread problem that primarily affects women in various settings. Sexual harassment essay examples serve as powerful reminders of the prevalence of this harmful behavior and the need for change. By working together and sharing information through argumentative essays about sexual harassment, people can raise awareness and tackle important issues.

The criminal justice system plays a crucial role in addressing sexual harassment. Exploring the legal framework and the challenges faced by survivors can be an interesting theme for research papers and essay topics. Also, understanding how such a phenomenon impacts someone’s family and community helps to grasp the far-reaching consequences of such behavior.

When writing a research paper on sexual harassment, it’s important to have a clear structure. It means that creating an outline can be immensely helpful. The essay introduction and conclusion need to provide context and highlight the significance of the topic. There should also be well-thought-out titles. They should not only reflect the main essence of the topic but also spark the reader’s curiosity. A well-structured essay consists of various sections, each paragraph contributing to the overall coherence and flow of ideas. Also, do not forget to provide a strong thesis statement. It guides the paper and sets the main argument.

By addressing these important components, you can effectively shed light on the complexities of sexual harassment. You can also emphasize the need for change and advocate for a society free of such pervasive violence. In partnership, we can work to create a safer and more inclusive environment for all.

Army: Sexual Harassment

Since 2008, the Army has implemented the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention program to ""prevent incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault before they occur."" SHARP is one of the most important programs in the Army. Not only is it a tool for training and education, it aids countless victims in reporting incidents of sexual harassment and assault. It has come a long way in two decades, with its origins in SAPR and POSH. SHARP holds command teams accountable for […]

Sexual Harassment in a Workplace

Introduction According to human rights, sexual harassment is unexpected sexual behavior which could possibly make an individual feel intimidated, humiliated or offended. It can be written, verbal or physical. Workers across the world face this kind of an issue. Many argue that sexual harassment only happens but this perception is wrong, a survey that was conducted shows that 21% of the males were reported to have undergone sexual harassment in the workplace. The frequency of such occurrence ranges from 35 […]

Why does the Number of Sexual Assaults Continue to Increase Throughout the Army?

The word SHARP is getting more popular in the media every year. Due to the high increase cases in the army. During the past years the statistics are significantly changing. Based on the “Department of the Defense annual report on sexual assault on the military 2017 fiscal year”. Have significant changes on the statistics, on this last fiscal year was an increment on the reports for 597 more reports than fiscal year 2016. The sexual assault is going to keep […]

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Sexual Harassment and Assault Response Program SHARP

In our Army today we are continuously talking to our soldiers both old and new about the infamous SHARP (Sexual Harassment / Assault Response Program). The question now comes down to why? Why are we always conducting the same training every quarter, every year in every unit, duty station, location, and MOS? The Army has had this program implemented throughout its ranks. I would say it’s because they have become tired of seeing “America’s Greatest Fighting Force” negatively affected and […]

Sexual Assault/Sexual Harassment in the Military

Sexual Harassment is a real and frequently recurring problem, both in the Military and in the Civilian World. You can't really put a number on the amount of cases because some victims don't realize they are being victimize. Why is sexual harassment and assault a big issue? What is being done to minimize these events? And how can sharp incident bring morale, and unit cohesion down? In this essay I'm going to detail the role being victimized, also what the […]

Effort to Improve Handling and Training on Sexual Assault in Army

More soldiers are presenting themselves in the army for help and reporting on sexual harassment and assaults after the army increased its efforts to train and handle these issues. It is said that the number of sexual assaults being reported is rising.  This could be attributed to the strong resolve of the army to get do away with the sexual assault problem. The confidence of the soldiers in fighting this problem is increasing both in their units and in the […]

The American Press and Sexual Harassment

Will there be a before and after Harvey Weinstein affair? The revelation by the American press of edifying testimonials about sexual harassment, practiced for years by the Hollywood producer with regard to many actresses, has provoked a spectacular liberation of women's speech, in the United States and elsewhere. The reaction has taken unprecedented proportions on social networks. In France, on Twitter, the rapidity with which has spread the hashtag #balancetonporc says a lot about anger that is finally expressed. Some […]

About Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

In 2012, federal court jurors listened as Ani Chopourian described the sexual harassment she endured as cardiac surgery physician assistant at a Sacramento hospital. One surgeon greeted her each morning with “I’m horny” and slapped her bottom. Another surgeon called her a “stupid chick” and said she performed surgery “like a little girl”. Jurors ultimately awarded her $168 million, the largest judgment for a single victim of workplace harassment in United States history (Gerdeman, 2018). Sexual harassment remains a problem […]

What is the Importance of Professionalism?

What is the importance of professionalism? The first question we should be asking is, what is professionalism? Professionalism is most commonly described as acting like a professional. A professional is defined “ characterized by or or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession. So to be a professional you must act professional. This is applied in almost every job anywhere. According to the APS ( the Association for Psychological Science) it takes only 60 seconds for someone […]

Sexual Harassment in Society

"I am not your dog that you whistle for; I'm not a stray animal you call over, and I am not, I never have been, nor will I ever be, your "baby"." (Jennings, 13). Everyday millions of people are going through their days with the degrading weight of sexual harassment constantly surrounding them. Although it is known that women, men, and people of all ages have the possibility of experiencing some form of sexual harassment, many do not know that […]

Sexual Harassment: One of the Biggest Problems

One of the biggest problems with sexual harassment is that it is often goes unnoticed. The victims of sexual harassment do not always realize what's happening to them until things get out of control. Sexual harassment in the workplace is a real and widespread issue that must be dealt with effectively. Sexual harassment involves unwanted and unwarranted sexual contact in any kind, it can occur to anyone of any race, gender, or sexual orientation. The purpose of my Research Paper […]

Practices to Reduce Sexual Assault in Army

Every 98 seconds, another American is sexually assaulted. It is a plague on our society and within our military. The Department of Defense is constantly revising and implementing new ideas and plans to intervene and prevent sexual assault from occurring. It is vital to keep soldiers informed and knowledgeable about sexual assault awareness throughout their career so as to have an effective and strong team to ensure safety within our nations fighting force. There is no one specific reason that […]

Intercultural Experience Proposal on Sexual Harassment

The social problem I chose to do my paper on is sexual harassment. Sexual harassment is a pervasive problem throughout the world. Harassment can include unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other physical harassment of nature. Harassment doesn't always have to be physical, it can include offensive comments or suggestions. It can happen anywhere at anytime. For people my age, it is extremely important to know how critical sexual harassment is on college campuses, especially when college students […]

Sexual Harassment and Long-term Effects

Sexual harassment: "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical constitute sexual harassment". This is what is defined as sexual harassment in Ohio. There are many different reasons you or another person could be accused of sexual harassment. For example, some of the simplest reasons can be insulting a woman, "exposing oneself [public nudity] or performing sexual acts on oneself", or just unwanted physical contact. These offenses might not seem as bad as you might have […]

Sexual Harassment in the Work Place and Gender Inequality

Abbas, in "All Males Are the Same: Exploring Workplace Harassment of Female Employees," addresses the issue of workplace sexual harassment towards females, which is common in many countries, specifically the Middle East. The article explores how workplace sexual harassment towards women contributes to the cause of gender inequality. Abbas supports his claim with numerous case studies. First, his findings suggest that workplace harassment is a universal problem embedded within societal traditions. Second, he examines how the unequal treatment of women […]

What are the Mental Effects of Sexual Harassment?

There are many facets of Sexual Harassment including stalking, unwelcome calls, and the act of someone asking for sexual favors in order to get a reward. Sexual Harassment is the act of a perpetrator penalizing a victim and basically bothering them to get what they what. Sexual Harassment is when someone who might have low confidence in themselves wants what another has. So they stalk, call, annoy, follow, and harass an innocent person. Sexual Harassment can occur anywhere. Sexual Harassment […]

Sexual Assault in the Military and how Fix it

Bystanders intervention can play a massive roll in deterring sexual assault / harassment within the Army. With battle buddies watching out for one while they party in the barracks with a direct approach. Talking to the chain of command about what you witness and let them handle the situation to the best of their ability. If you feel like these would not be the solution to the problem, Soldiers can always talk to the SHARP representative. With these easy steps, […]

Impact of Sexual Harassment And/or Assault

It is a fact of life that in the imperfect world we live in, sexual harassment and/or assault can affect anyone and everyone. While anyone can be victimized, it is well known that most cases of sexual offenses occur by men taking advantage of women. (1) This is not to say that female victims are any more important or that their abusers are more heinous, but that their abuse is more frequent. Obviously, it is impossible to completely eliminate rape […]

Term Limits Based off of Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is harassment, in both men or women, in a professional or social situation, involving the making of unwanted sexual advances or obscene remarks. Many people put sexual assault and sexual harassment. "Sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature where as sexaul assault is theis intentional sexual contact, characterized by use of force, threats, intimidation, abuse of authority or when the victim does not or cannot […]

How Culture Can Breed Sexual Harassment in the Academy

Introduction In higher education, relationships of trust and confidence that are built outside of the classroom are often just as important as those built inside of the classroom. Whether the out-of-classroom experiences are receptions for consequential events, conferences, networking events (e.g., meet-and-greet), work in a laboratory, and/or field research, among other academic experiences, a trusting relationship established between student and professor is often an important part of a student's academic success; thus, such a healthy dynamic needs to be maintained. […]

Term Paper Sexual Harassment

If you've ever watched an episode of the hit TV show The Office, starring Steve Carell and heard the, "That's what she said," joke, you might be surprised that it is a perfect example of sexual harassment. Now it might be funny to some, but to others this can make them feel uncomfortable or even taken as an offense. Now, what is sexual harassment? In 1964 the civil acts right was passed with the purpose to end segregation and discrimination […]

Bystander Intervention to Battle Sexual Assault/harassment in your Unit/10th Mountain Division/Army

IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING BECAUSE IT’S ON US. Bystander intervention is a strategy for the prevention of different types of violence, including sexual harassment and sexual assault. The fact that people will see something but not say anything based off of a reaction they get from others. Bystander intervention can battle sexual assault by increasing the awareness of all soldiers army wide and by encouraging them and showing them ways to interfere with sexual assault. It could also […]

Relationship and Gender and Sexual Harassment

Abstract This study was about sexual harassment, and the impact of gendered perception. More closely Perpetrators' relationship with the victim on their perception of sexual harassment. A case study was discussed on the basis of which the whole study was conducted. The data collection method for this study was survey questionnaire, in which people were asked to give views about their perception regarding sexual harassment and which act of perpetrators is considered sexual harassment. It was predicted that females were […]

Sexual Harassment and how to Stop it

Background Information Sexual harassment is sexual discrimination that violates Title 7 of the civil rights act of 1964. This title is for employers with more than 15 employees, which also includes state and local governments, employment agencies as well as the federal government. Sexual harassment is the unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors as well as verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Sexual harassment occurs in many of ways, such as: (1) “the victim as well as […]

Analysis of Sexual Harassment of Women

Women constitute half the humanity. Despite being endowed with certain peculiar features both physical and temperamental, men and women are complementary to each other. Their diverse physical and temperamental qualities together form a complete race. Hence, logically both should have equal status. The Indian concept of Ardhanarishwara very well depicts this view. Ardhanarishwara divides himself/ herself in the form of Adipurush (Male) and Prakriti (Female) for the task of creation. None of them can perform task without the involvement of […]

Ethics and Sexual Harassment: why is it Wrong

As we know, ethics “is the study of choices people make regarding right or wrong” (Ruggiero, page 2). Every person has different opinions, driven by their morals, values, and beliefs, about different things. This makes it hard to distinguish a line between what is right and what is wrong in the world. Opinions are formed by social influence. Your parents, peers, teachers, churches, and communities all affect the way you think about certain things. There is always a counterargument to […]

How Current Military Approach Reduces the Risk of Sexual Assault

Fight or Flight? It is flight, fight, or freeze in crisis mode. The freeze response is a typical reaction to danger, particularly common among sexual assault survivors. Sexual assault is a form of violence and is fundamentally about power and control. It happens because perpetrators exert power over the survivor and put their desires over the survivor’s agency to consent. In this essay I will analyze why sexual assault occurs, how current military approach reduces the risk of such crimes, […]

Sexual Harassment in School

Sexual harassment can happen at any workplace, doesn’t matter what the job is. It can happen at a minimum wage paying job or at a salary based profession. The profession I will be tackling today is students in all educational levels with teachers, coaches or professors in a school setting. Students can be in college, after school programs, elementary, high school or even pre-school. Truth is anyone can be a victim of sexual harassment weather it be a male or […]

Gender Inequality and Sexual Harassment

Attitudes regarding men’s violence against women shape gender inequality and also the sense of responses to this violence by the victim and others around. This is why we see many violence prevention campaigns media advertisements and social awareness. Attitudes and behaviors shape violence in several domains including culture, gender, institutional response to violence, women’s own responses to victimization and more. Gender role attitudes and their forced upholding play a major role regarding violence towards women [1]. From a young age, […]

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

Sexual harassment in the workplace has been a significant issue that many organizations around the world are grappling with. There have been numerous court cases regarding such issues. Notably, the issue is considered the newest form of gender discrimination in the workplace. In fact, many companies have had to pay substantial amounts of money to victims of sexual assault. Veterans Affairs Clinic (VA) is also one of such organizations, and the organization has revealed several issues about sexual harassment (Stockwell, […]

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Essay About Sexual Harassment The act of sexual harassment has many faces which are: unwanted sexual advances, telling a person if you do this you’ll get that, and other spoken or physical acts. The harasser can be of any gender and also prey on any gender. A lot of victims have relations with their Harasser; they can be the person's boss, supervisor person they work with, just a family friend, and they can even be their significant other. Sexual harassment does not always have to directed at a certain person. For example, negative comments about “women groups/activist” or even saying another gender is lesser is considered sexual harassment. The Equal Opportunity that most companies use has to deal with situations like this. Our government laws do not really cover teasing and subliminal comments but, they can be upsetting and cause emotional problems for people. Sexual harassment can occur in many different circumstances. The main thing people need to know is that it can happen to men too. Women are not the only victims it’s just that women speak out more on it. Acts to look out for to see that harassment is happening: This for that Jokes talking about sexual acts sexual preference. Unwanted physical contact. Unwanted flirting. Talking about sexual dreams Feeling pressured to engage with someone sexually. Touching yourself in front of others. Unwanted sexually explicit photos, emails, or “sext” messages Many companies/Schools have been fighting against sexual misconduct as a whole for a long time by implements rules like forbidding sexual relationships between coworkers, or a boss and his/her subordinates. The reason for this is because it can happen anywhere and if issues arise it can be difficult for a company, even for a school. It can happen in many different scenarios, including after-hours conversations, hanging out in the hallways, and lounge area settings of employees or peers. Sexual harassment should never be overlooked. These acts can affect people in many ways. When in school walking around or just sitting down this can happen, there is zero-tolerance acts in effect. There are many avenues you can take to get help against predators. One hotline is:  Rainn (rape, abuse, incest, national network) hotline o 800.656.HOPE (4673)  Local church  Hospital  Friends Be safe and take care, we all need each other.

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Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2018)

Chapter: 7 findings, conclusions, and recommendations, 7 findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

Preventing and effectively addressing sexual harassment of women in colleges and universities is a significant challenge, but we are optimistic that academic institutions can meet that challenge—if they demonstrate the will to do so. This is because the research shows what will work to prevent sexual harassment and why it will work. A systemwide change to the culture and climate in our nation’s colleges and universities can stop the pattern of harassing behavior from impacting the next generation of women entering science, engineering, and medicine.

Changing the current culture and climate requires addressing all forms of sexual harassment, not just the most egregious cases; moving beyond legal compliance; supporting targets when they come forward; improving transparency and accountability; diffusing the power structure between faculty and trainees; and revising organizational systems and structures to value diversity, inclusion, and respect. Leaders at every level within academia will be needed to initiate these changes and to establish and maintain the culture and norms. However, to succeed in making these changes, all members of our nation’s college campuses—students, faculty, staff, and administrators—will need to assume responsibility for promoting a civil and respectful environment. It is everyone’s responsibility to stop sexual harassment.

In this spirit of optimism, we offer the following compilation of the report’s findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS

Chapter 2: sexual harassment research.

• Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination that consists of three types of harassing behavior: (1) gender harassment (verbal and nonverbal behaviors that convey hostility, objectification, exclusion, or second-class status about members of one gender); (2) unwanted sexual attention (unwelcome verbal or physical sexual advances, which can include assault); and (3) sexual coercion (when favorable professional or educational treatment is conditioned on sexual activity). The distinctions between the types of harassment are important, particularly because many people do not realize that gender harassment is a form of sexual harassment.
• Sexually harassing behavior can be either direct (targeted at an individual) or ambient (a general level of sexual harassment in an environment) and is harmful in both cases. It is considered illegal when it creates a hostile environment (gender harassment or unwanted sexual attention that is “severe or pervasive” enough to alter the conditions of employment, interfere with one’s work performance, or impede one’s ability to get an education) or when it is quid pro quo sexual harassment (when favorable professional or educational treatment is conditioned on sexual activity).
• There are reliable scientific methods for determining the prevalence of sexual harassment. To measure the incidence of sexual harassment, surveys should follow the best practices that have emerged from the science of sexual harassment. This includes use of the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire, the most widely used and well-validated instrument available for measuring sexual harassment; assessment of specific behaviors without requiring the respondent to label the behaviors “sexual harassment”; focus on first-hand experience or observation of behavior (rather than rumor or hearsay); and focus on the recent past (1–2 years, to avoid problems of memory decay). Relying on the number of official reports of sexual harassment made to an organization is not an accurate method for determining the prevalence.
• Some surveys underreport the incidence of sexual harassment because they have not followed standard and valid practices for survey research and sexual harassment research.
• While properly conducted surveys are the best methods for estimating the prevalence of sexual harassment, other salient aspects of sexual harassment and its consequences can be examined using other research methods , such as behavioral laboratory experiments, interviews, case studies, ethnographies, and legal research. Such studies can provide information about the presence and nature of sexually harassing behavior in an organization, how it develops and continues (and influences the organizational climate), and how it attenuates or amplifies outcomes from sexual harassment.
• Women experience sexual harassment more often than men do.
• Gender harassment (e.g., behaviors that communicate that women do not belong or do not merit respect) is by far the most common type of sexual harassment. When an environment is pervaded by gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion become more likely to occur—in part because unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion are almost never experienced by women without simultaneously experiencing gender harassment.
• Men are more likely than women to commit sexual harassment.
• Coworkers and peers more often commit sexual harassment than do superiors.
• Sexually harassing behaviors are not typically isolated incidents; rather, they are a series or pattern of sometimes escalating incidents and behaviors.
• Women of color experience more harassment (sexual, racial/ethnic, or combination of the two) than white women, white men, and men of color do. Women of color often experience sexual harassment that includes racial harassment.
• Sexual- and gender-minority people experience more sexual harassment than heterosexual women do.
• The two characteristics of environments most associated with higher rates of sexual harassment are (a) male-dominated gender ratios and leadership and (b) an organizational climate that communicates tolerance of sexual harassment (e.g., leadership that fails to take complaints seriously, fails to sanction perpetrators, or fails to protect complainants from retaliation).
• Organizational climate is, by far, the greatest predictor of the occurrence of sexual harassment, and ameliorating it can prevent people from sexually harassing others. A person more likely to engage in harassing behaviors is significantly less likely to do so in an environment that does not support harassing behaviors and/or has strong, clear, transparent consequences for these behaviors.

Chapter 3: Sexual Harassment in Academic Science, Engineering, and Medicine

• Male-dominated environment , with men in positions of power and authority.
• Organizational tolerance for sexually harassing behavior (e.g., failing to take complaints seriously, failing to sanction perpetrators, or failing to protect complainants from retaliation).
• Hierarchical and dependent relationships between faculty and their trainees (e.g., students, postdoctoral fellows, residents).
• Isolating environments (e.g., labs, field sites, and hospitals) in which faculty and trainees spend considerable time.
• Greater than 50 percent of women faculty and staff and 20–50 percent of women students encounter or experience sexually harassing conduct in academia.
• Women students in academic medicine experience more frequent gender harassment perpetrated by faculty/staff than women students in science and engineering.
• Women students/trainees encounter or experience sexual harassment perpetrated by faculty/staff and also by other students/trainees.
• Women faculty encounter or experience sexual harassment perpetrated by other faculty/staff and also by students/trainees.
• Women students, trainees, and faculty in academic medical centers experience sexual harassment by patients and patients’ families in addition to the harassment they experience from colleagues and those in leadership positions.

Chapter 4: Outcomes of Sexual Harassment

• When women experience sexual harassment in the workplace, the professional outcomes include declines in job satisfaction; withdrawal from their organization (i.e., distancing themselves from the work either physically or mentally without actually quitting, having thoughts or

intentions of leaving their job, and actually leaving their job); declines in organizational commitment (i.e., feeling disillusioned or angry with the organization); increases in job stress; and declines in productivity or performance.

• When students experience sexual harassment, the educational outcomes include declines in motivation to attend class, greater truancy, dropping classes, paying less attention in class, receiving lower grades, changing advisors, changing majors, and transferring to another educational institution, or dropping out.
• Gender harassment has adverse effects. Gender harassment that is severe or occurs frequently over a period of time can result in the same level of negative professional and psychological outcomes as isolated instances of sexual coercion. Gender harassment, often considered a “lesser,” more inconsequential form of sexual harassment, cannot be dismissed when present in an organization.
• The greater the frequency, intensity, and duration of sexually harassing behaviors, the more women report symptoms of depression, stress, and anxiety, and generally negative effects on psychological well-being.
• The more women are sexually harassed in an environment, the more they think about leaving, and end up leaving as a result of the sexual harassment.
• The more power a perpetrator has over the target, the greater the impacts and negative consequences experienced by the target.
• For women of color, preliminary research shows that when the sexual harassment occurs simultaneously with other types of harassment (i.e., racial harassment), the experiences can have more severe consequences for them.
• Sexual harassment has adverse effects that affect not only the targets of harassment but also bystanders, coworkers, workgroups, and entire organizations.
• Women cope with sexual harassment in a variety of ways, most often by ignoring or appeasing the harasser and seeking social support.
• The least common response for women is to formally report the sexually harassing experience. For many, this is due to an accurate perception that they may experience retaliation or other negative outcomes associated with their personal and professional lives.
• The dependence on advisors and mentors for career advancement.
• The system of meritocracy that does not account for the declines in productivity and morale as a result of sexual harassment.
• The “macho” culture in some fields.
• The informal communication network , in which rumors and accusations are spread within and across specialized programs and fields.
• The cumulative effect of sexual harassment is significant damage to research integrity and a costly loss of talent in academic science, engineering, and medicine. Women faculty in science, engineering, and medicine who experience sexual harassment report three common professional outcomes: stepping down from leadership opportunities to avoid the perpetrator, leaving their institution, and leaving their field altogether.

Chapter 5: Existing Legal and Policy Mechanisms for Addressing Sexual Harassment

• An overly legalistic approach to the problem of sexual harassment is likely to misjudge the true nature and scope of the problem. Sexual harassment law and policy development has focused narrowly on the sexualized and coercive forms of sexual harassment, not on the gender harassment type that research has identified as much more prevalent and at times equally harmful.
• Much of the sexual harassment that women experience and that damages women and their careers in science, engineering, and medicine does not meet the legal criteria of illegal discrimination under current law.
• Private entities, such as companies and private universities, are legally allowed to keep their internal policies and procedures—and their research on those policies and procedures—confidential, thereby limiting the research that can be done on effective policies for preventing and handling sexual harassment.
• Various legal policies, and the interpretation of such policies, enable academic institutions to maintain secrecy and/or confidentiality regarding outcomes of sexual harassment investigations, arbitration, and settlement agreements. Colleagues may also hesitate to warn one another about sexual harassment concerns in the hiring or promotion context out of fear of legal repercussions (i.e., being sued for defamation and/or discrimination). This lack of transparency in the adjudication process within organizations can cover up sexual harassment perpetrated by repeat or serial harassers. This creates additional barriers to researchers

and others studying harassment claims and outcomes, and is also a barrier to determining the effectiveness of policies and procedures.

• Title IX, Title VII, and case law reflect the inaccurate assumption that a target of sexual harassment will promptly report the harassment without worrying about retaliation. Effectively addressing sexual harassment through the law, institutional policies or procedures, or cultural change requires taking into account that targets of sexual harassment are unlikely to report harassment and often face retaliation for reporting (despite this being illegal).
• Fears of legal liability may prevent institutions from being willing to effectively evaluate training for its measurable impact on reducing harassment. Educating employees via sexual harassment training is commonly implemented as a central component of demonstrating to courts that institutions have “exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior.” However, research has not demonstrated that such training prevents sexual harassment. Thus, if institutions evaluated their training programs, they would likely find them to be ineffective, which, in turn, could raise fears within institutions of their risk for liability because they would then knowingly not be exercising reasonable care.
• Holding individuals and institutions responsible for sexual harassment and demonstrating that sexual harassment is a serious issue requires U.S. federal funding agencies to be aware when principal investigators, co-principal investigators, and grant personnel have violated sexual harassment policies. It is unclear whether and how federal agencies will take action beyond the requirements of Title IX and Title VII to ensure that federal grants, composed of taxpayers’ dollars, are not supporting research, academic institutions, or programs in which sexual harassment is ongoing and not being addressed. Federal science agencies usually indicate (e.g., in requests for proposals or other announcements) that they have a “no-tolerance” policy for sexual harassment. In general, federal agencies rely on the grantee institutions to investigate and follow through on Title IX violations. By not assessing and addressing the role of institutions and professional organizations in enabling individual sexual harassers, federal agencies may be perpetuating the problem of sexual harassment.
• To address the effect sexual harassment has on the integrity of research, parts of the federal government and several professional societies are beginning to focus more broadly on policies about research integrity and on codes of ethics rather than on the narrow definition of research misconduct. A powerful incentive for change may be missed if sexual harassment is not considered equally important as research misconduct, in terms of its effect on the integrity of research.

Chapter 6: Changing the Culture and Climate in Higher Education

• A systemwide change to the culture and climate in higher education is required to prevent and effectively address all three forms of sexual harassment. Despite significant attention in recent years, there is no evidence to suggest that current policies, procedures, and approaches have resulted in a significant reduction in sexual harassment. It is time to consider approaches that address the systems, cultures, and climates that enable sexual harassment to perpetuate.
• Strong and effective leaders at all levels in the organization are required to make the systemwide changes to climate and culture in higher education. The leadership of the organization—at every level—plays a significant role in establishing and maintaining an organization’s culture and norms. However, leaders in academic institutions rarely have leadership training to thoughtfully address culture and climate issues, and the leadership training that exists is often of poor quality.
• Evidence-based, effective intervention strategies are available for enhancing gender diversity in hiring practices.
• Focusing evaluation and reward structures on cooperation and collegiality rather than solely on individual-level teaching and research performance metrics could have a significant impact on improving the environment in academia.
• Evidence-based, effective intervention strategies are available for raising levels of interpersonal civility and respect in workgroups and teams.
• An organization that is committed to improving organizational climate must address issues of bias in academia. Training to reduce personal bias can cause larger-scale changes in departmental behaviors in an academic setting.
• Skills-based training that centers on bystander intervention promotes a culture of support, not one of silence. By calling out negative behaviors on the spot, all members of an academic community are helping to create a culture where abusive behavior is seen as an aberration, not as the norm.
• Reducing hierarchical power structures and diffusing power more broadly among faculty and trainees can reduce the risk of sexual ha

rassment. Departments and institutions could take the following approaches for diffusing power:

• Make use of egalitarian leadership styles that recognize that people at all levels of experience and expertise have important insights to offer.
• Adopt mentoring networks or committee-based advising that allows for a diversity of potential pathways for advice, funding, support, and informal reporting of harassment.
• Develop ways the research funding can be provided to the trainee rather than just the principal investigator.
• Take on the responsibility for preserving the potential work of the research team and trainees by redistributing the funding if a principal investigator cannot continue the work because he/she has created a climate that fosters sexual harassment and guaranteeing funding to trainees if the institution or a funder pulls funding from the principal investigator because of sexual harassment.
• Orienting students, trainees, faculty, and staff, at all levels, to the academic institution’s culture and its policies and procedures for handling sexual harassment can be an important piece of establishing a climate that demonstrates sexual harassment is not tolerated and targets will be supported.
• Institutions could build systems of response that empower targets by providing alternative and less formal means of accessing support services, recording information, and reporting incidents without fear of retaliation.
• Supporting student targets also includes helping them to manage their education and training over the long term.
• Confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements isolate sexual harassment targets by limiting their ability to speak with others about their experiences and can serve to shield perpetrators who have harassed people repeatedly.
• Key components of clear anti-harassment policies are that they are quickly and easily digested (i.e., using one-page flyers or infographics and not in legally dense language) and that they clearly state that people will be held accountable for violating the policy.
• A range of progressive/escalating disciplinary consequences (such as counseling, changes in work responsibilities, reductions in pay/benefits, and suspension or dismissal) that corresponds to the severity and frequency of the misconduct has the potential of correcting behavior before it escalates and without significantly disrupting an academic program.
• In an effort to change behavior and improve the climate, it may also be appropriate for institutions to undertake some rehabilitation-focused measures, even though these may not be sanctions per se.
• For the people in an institution to understand that the institution does not tolerate sexual harassment, it must show that it does investigate and then hold perpetrators accountable in a reasonable timeframe. Institutions can anonymize the basic information and provide regular reports that convey how many reports are being investigated and what the outcomes are from the investigation.
• An approach for improving transparency and demonstrating that the institution takes sexual harassment seriously is to encourage internal review of its policies, procedures, and interventions for addressing sexual harassment, and to have interactive dialogues with members of their campus community (especially expert researchers on these topics) around ways to improve the culture and climate and change behavior.
• Cater training to specific populations; in academia this would include students, postdoctoral fellows, staff, faculty, and those in leadership.
• Attend to the institutional motivation for training , which can impact the effectiveness of the training; for instance, compliance-based approaches have limited positive impact.
• Conduct training using live qualified trainers and offer trainees specific examples of inappropriate conduct. We note that a great deal of sexual harassment training today is offered via an online mini-course or the viewing of a short video.
• Describe standards of behavior clearly and accessibly (e.g., avoiding legal and technical terms).
• To the extent that the training literature provides broad guidelines for creating impactful training that can change climate and behavior, they include the following:
• Establish standards of behavior rather than solely seek to influence attitudes and beliefs. Clear communication of behavioral expectations, and teaching of behavioral skills, is essential.
• Conduct training in adherence to best standards , including appropriate pre-training needs assessment and evaluation of its effectiveness.
• Creating a climate that prevents sexual harassment requires measuring the climate in relation to sexual harassment, diversity, and respect, and assessing progress in reducing sexual harassment.
• Efforts to incentivize systemwide changes, such as Athena SWAN, 1 are crucial to motivating organizations and departments within organizations to make the necessary changes.
• Enacting new codes of conduct and new rules related specifically to conference attendance.
• Including sexual harassment in codes of ethics and investigating reports of sexual harassment. (This is a new responsibility for professional societies, and these organizations are considering how to take into consideration the law, home institutions, due process, and careful reporting when dealing with reports of sexual harassment.)
• Requiring members to acknowledge, in writing, the professional society’s rules and codes of conduct relating to sexual harassment during conference registration and during membership sign-up and renewal.
• Supporting and designing programs that prevent harassment and provide skills to intervene when someone is being harassed.
• Strengthening statements on sexual harassment, bullying, and discrimination in professional societies’ codes of conduct, with a few defining it as research misconduct.
• Factoring in harassment-related professional misconduct into scientific award decisions.
• Professional societies have the potential to be powerful drivers of change through their capacity to help educate, train, codify, and reinforce cultural expectations for their respective scientific, engineering, and medical communities. Some professional societies have taken action to prevent and respond to sexual harassment among their membership. Although each professional society has taken a slightly different approach to addressing sexual harassment, there are some shared approaches, including the following:

___________________

1 Athena SWAN (Scientific Women’s Academic Network). See https://www.ecu.ac.uk/equalitycharters/athena-swan/ .

• There are many promising approaches to changing the culture and climate in academia; however, further research assessing the effects and values of the following approaches is needed to identify best practices:
• Policies, procedures, trainings, and interventions, specifically how they prevent and stop sexually harassing behavior, alter perception of organizational tolerance for sexually harassing behavior, and reduce the negative consequences from reporting the incidents. This includes informal and formal reporting mechanisms, bystander intervention training, academic leadership training, sexual harassment training, interventions to improve civility, mandatory reporting requirements, and approaches to supporting and improving communication with the target.
• Mechanisms for target-led resolution options and mechanisms by which the target has a role in deciding what happens to the perpetrator, including restorative justice practices.
• Mechanisms for protecting targets from retaliation.
• Rehabilitation-focused measures for disciplining perpetrators.
• Incentive systems for encouraging leaders in higher education to address the issues of sexual harassment on campus.

RECOMMENDATIONS

RECOMMENDATION 1: Create diverse, inclusive, and respectful environments.

• Academic institutions and their leaders should take explicit steps to achieve greater gender and racial equity in hiring and promotions, and thus improve the representation of women at every level.
• Academic institutions and their leaders should take steps to foster greater cooperation, respectful work behavior, and professionalism at the faculty, staff, and student/trainee levels, and should evaluate faculty and staff on these criteria in hiring and promotion.
• Academic institutions should combine anti-harassment efforts with civility-promotion programs.
• Academic institutions should cater their training to specific populations (in academia these should include students/trainees, staff, faculty, and those in leadership) and should follow best practices in designing training programs. Training should be viewed as the means of providing the skills needed by all members of the academic community, each of whom has a role to play in building a positive organizational climate focused on safety and respect, and not simply as a method of ensuring compliance with laws.
• Academic institutions should utilize training approaches that develop skills among participants to interrupt and intervene when inappropriate behavior occurs. These training programs should be evaluated to deter

mine whether they are effective and what aspects of the training are most important to changing culture.

• Anti–sexual harassment training programs should focus on changing behavior, not on changing beliefs. Programs should focus on clearly communicating behavioral expectations, specifying consequences for failing to meet these expectations, and identifying the mechanisms to be utilized when these expectations are not met. Training programs should not be based on the avoidance of legal liability.

RECOMMENDATION 2: Address the most common form of sexual harassment: gender harassment.

Leaders in academic institutions and research and training sites should pay increased attention to and enact policies that cover gender harassment as a means of addressing the most common form of sexual harassment and of preventing other types of sexually harassing behavior.

RECOMMENDATION 3: Move beyond legal compliance to address culture and climate.

Academic institutions, research and training sites, and federal agencies should move beyond interventions or policies that represent basic legal compliance and that rely solely on formal reports made by targets. Sexual harassment needs to be addressed as a significant culture and climate issue that requires institutional leaders to engage with and listen to students and other campus community members.

RECOMMENDATION 4: Improve transparency and accountability.

• Academic institutions need to develop—and readily share—clear, accessible, and consistent policies on sexual harassment and standards of behavior. They should include a range of clearly stated, appropriate, and escalating disciplinary consequences for perpetrators found to have violated sexual harassment policy and/or law. The disciplinary actions taken should correspond to the severity and frequency of the harassment. The disciplinary actions should not be something that is often considered a benefit for faculty, such as a reduction in teaching load or time away from campus service responsibilities. Decisions regarding disciplinary actions, if indicated or required, should be made in a fair and timely way following an investigative process that is fair to all sides. 2
• Academic institutions should be as transparent as possible about how they are handling reports of sexual harassment. This requires balancing issues of confidentiality with issues of transparency. Annual reports,

2 Further detail on processes and guidance for how to fairly and appropriately investigate and adjudicate these issues are not provided because they are complex issues that were beyond the scope of this study.

that provide information on (1) how many and what type of policy violations have been reported (both informally and formally), (2) how many reports are currently under investigation, and (3) how many have been adjudicated, along with general descriptions of any disciplinary actions taken, should be shared with the entire academic community: students, trainees, faculty, administrators, staff, alumni, and funders. At the very least, the results of the investigation and any disciplinary action should be shared with the target(s) and/or the person(s) who reported the behavior.

• Academic institutions should be accountable for the climate within their organization. In particular, they should utilize climate surveys to further investigate and address systemic sexual harassment, particularly when surveys indicate specific schools or facilities have high rates of harassment or chronically fail to reduce rates of sexual harassment.
• Academic institutions should consider sexual harassment equally important as research misconduct in terms of its effect on the integrity of research. They should increase collaboration among offices that oversee the integrity of research (i.e., those that cover ethics, research misconduct, diversity, and harassment issues); centralize resources, information, and expertise; provide more resources for handling complaints and working with targets; and implement sanctions on researchers found guilty of sexual harassment.

RECOMMENDATION 5: Diffuse the hierarchical and dependent relationship between trainees and faculty.

Academic institutions should consider power-diffusion mechanisms (i.e., mentoring networks or committee-based advising and departmental funding rather than funding only from a principal investigator) to reduce the risk of sexual harassment.

RECOMMENDATION 6: Provide support for the target.

Academic institutions should convey that reporting sexual harassment is an honorable and courageous action. Regardless of a target filing a formal report, academic institutions should provide means of accessing support services (social services, health care, legal, career/professional). They should provide alternative and less formal means of recording information about the experience and reporting the experience if the target is not comfortable filing a formal report. Academic institutions should develop approaches to prevent the target from experiencing or fearing retaliation in academic settings.

RECOMMENDATION 7: Strive for strong and diverse leadership.

• College and university presidents, provosts, deans, department chairs, and program directors must make the reduction and prevention of sexual

harassment an explicit goal of their tenure. They should publicly state that the reduction and prevention of sexual harassment will be among their highest priorities, and they should engage students, faculty, and staff (and, where appropriate, the local community) in their efforts.

• Academic institutions should support and facilitate leaders at every level (university, school/college, department, lab) in developing skills in leadership, conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation, and de-escalation, and should ensure a clear understanding of policies and procedures for handling sexual harassment issues. Additionally, these skills development programs should be customized to each level of leadership.
• Leadership training programs for those in academia should include training on how to recognize and handle sexual harassment issues, and how to take explicit steps to create a culture and climate to reduce and prevent sexual harassment—and not just protect the institution against liability.

RECOMMENDATION 8: Measure progress.

Academic institutions should work with researchers to evaluate and assess their efforts to create a more diverse, inclusive, and respectful environment, and to create effective policies, procedures, and training programs. They should not rely on formal reports by targets for an understanding of sexual harassment on their campus.

• When organizations study sexual harassment, they should follow the valid methodologies established by social science research on sexual harassment and should consult subject-matter experts. Surveys that attempt to ascertain the prevalence and types of harassment experienced by individuals should adopt the following practices: ensure confidentiality, use validated behavioral instruments such as the Sexual Experiences Questionnaire, and avoid specifically using the term “sexual harassment” in any survey or questionnaire.
• Academic institutions should also conduct more wide-ranging assessments using measures in addition to campus climate surveys, for example, ethnography, focus groups, and exit interviews. These methods are especially important in smaller organizational units where surveys, which require more participants to yield meaningful data, might not be useful.
• Organizations studying sexual harassment in their environments should take into consideration the particular experiences of people of color and sexual- and gender-minority people, and they should utilize methods that allow them to disaggregate their data by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity to reveal the different experiences across populations.
• The results of climate surveys should be shared publicly to encourage transparency and accountability and to demonstrate to the campus community that the institution takes the issue seriously. One option would be for academic institutions to collaborate in developing a central repository for reporting their climate data, which could also improve the ability for research to be conducted on the effectiveness of institutional approaches.
• Federal agencies and foundations should commit resources to develop a tool similar to ARC3, the Administrator-Researcher Campus Climate Collaborative, to understand and track the climate for faculty, staff, and postdoctoral fellows.

RECOMMENDATION 9: Incentivize change.

• Academic institutions should work to apply for awards from the emerging STEM Equity Achievement (SEA Change) program. 3 Federal agencies and private foundations should encourage and support academic institutions working to achieve SEA Change awards.
• Accreditation bodies should consider efforts to create diverse, inclusive, and respectful environments when evaluating institutions or departments.
• Federal agencies should incentivize efforts to reduce sexual harassment in academia by requiring evaluations of the research environment, funding research and evaluation of training for students and faculty (including bystander intervention), supporting the development and evaluation of leadership training for faculty, and funding research on effective policies and procedures.

RECOMMENDATION 10: Encourage involvement of professional societies and other organizations.

• Professional societies should accelerate their efforts to be viewed as organizations that are helping to create culture changes that reduce or prevent the occurrence of sexual harassment. They should provide support and guidance for members who have been targets of sexual harassment. They should use their influence to address sexual harassment in the scientific, medical, and engineering communities they represent and promote a professional culture of civility and respect. The efforts of the American Geophysical Union are especially exemplary and should be considered as a model for other professional societies to follow.
• Other organizations that facilitate the research and training of people in science, engineering, and medicine, such as collaborative field sites (i.e., national labs and observatories), should establish standards of behavior

3 See https://www.aaas.org/news/sea-change-program-aims-transform-diversity-efforts-stem .

and set policies, procedures, and practices similar to those recommended for academic institutions and following the examples of professional societies. They should hold people accountable for their behaviors while at their facility regardless of the person’s institutional affiliation (just as some professional societies are doing).

RECOMMENDATION 11: Initiate legislative action.

State legislatures and Congress should consider new and additional legislation with the following goals:

• Better protecting sexual harassment claimants from retaliation.
• Prohibiting confidentiality in settlement agreements that currently enable harassers to move to another institution and conceal past adjudications.
• Banning mandatory arbitration clauses for discrimination claims.
• Allowing lawsuits to be filed against alleged harassers directly (instead of or in addition to their academic employers).
• Requiring institutions receiving federal funds to publicly disclose results from campus climate surveys and/or the number of sexual harassment reports made to campuses.
• Requesting the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health devote research funds to doing a follow-up analysis on the topic of sexual harassment in science, engineering, and medicine in 3 to 5 years to determine (1) whether research has shown that the prevalence of sexual harassment has decreased, (2) whether progress has been made on implementing these recommendations, and (3) where to focus future efforts.

RECOMMENDATION 12: Address the failures to meaningfully enforce Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination.

• Judges, academic institutions (including faculty, staff, and leaders in academia), and administrative agencies should rely on scientific evidence about the behavior of targets and perpetrators of sexual harassment when assessing both institutional compliance with the law and the merits of individual claims.
• Federal judges should take into account demonstrated effectiveness of anti-harassment policies and practices such as trainings, and not just their existence , for use of an affirmative defense against a sexual harassment claim under Title VII.

RECOMMENDATION 13: Increase federal agency action and collaboration.

Federal agencies should do the following:

• Increase support for research and evaluation of the effectiveness of policies, procedures, and training on sexual harassment.
• Attend to sexual harassment with at least the same level of attention and resources as devoted to research misconduct. They should increase collaboration among offices that oversee the integrity of research (i.e., those that cover ethics, research misconduct, diversity, and harassment issues); centralize resources, information, and expertise; provide more resources for handling complaints and working with targets; and implement sanctions on researchers found guilty of sexual harassment.
• Require institutions to report to federal agencies when individuals on grants have been found to have violated sexual harassment policies or have been put on administrative leave related to sexual harassment, as the National Science Foundation has proposed doing. Agencies should also hold accountable the perpetrator and the institution by using a range of disciplinary actions that limit the negative effects on other grant personnel who were either the target of the harassing behavior or innocent bystanders.
• Reward and incentivize colleges and universities for implementing policies, programs, and strategies that research shows are most likely to and are succeeding in reducing and preventing sexual harassment.

RECOMMENDATION 14: Conduct necessary research.

Funders should support the following research:

• The sexual harassment experiences of women in underrepresented and/or vulnerable groups, including women of color, disabled women, immigrant women, sexual- and gender-minority women, postdoctoral trainees, and others.
• Policies, procedures, trainings, and interventions, specifically their ability to prevent and stop sexually harassing behavior, to alter perception of organizational tolerance for sexually harassing behavior, and to reduce the negative consequences from reporting the incidents. This should include research on informal and formal reporting mechanisms, bystander intervention training, academic leadership training, sexual harassment and diversity training, interventions to improve civility, mandatory reporting requirements, and approaches to supporting and improving communication with the target.
• Approaches for mitigating the negative impacts and outcomes that targets experience.
• The prevalence and nature of sexual harassment within specific fields in

science, engineering, and medicine and that follows good practices for sexual harassment surveys.

• The prevalence and nature of sexual harassment perpetrated by students on faculty.
• The amount of sexual harassment that serial harassers are responsible for.
• The prevalence and effect of ambient harassment in the academic setting.
• The connections between consensual relationships and sexual harassment.
• Psychological characteristics that increase the risk of perpetrating different forms of sexually harassing behaviors.

RECOMMENDATION 15: Make the entire academic community responsible for reducing and preventing sexual harassment.

All members of our nation’s college campuses—students, trainees, faculty, staff, and administrators—as well as members of research and training sites should assume responsibility for promoting civil and respectful education, training, and work environments, and stepping up and confronting those whose behaviors and actions create sexually harassing environments.

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Over the last few decades, research, activity, and funding has been devoted to improving the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in the fields of science, engineering, and medicine. In recent years the diversity of those participating in these fields, particularly the participation of women, has improved and there are significantly more women entering careers and studying science, engineering, and medicine than ever before. However, as women increasingly enter these fields they face biases and barriers and it is not surprising that sexual harassment is one of these barriers.

Over thirty years the incidence of sexual harassment in different industries has held steady, yet now more women are in the workforce and in academia, and in the fields of science, engineering, and medicine (as students and faculty) and so more women are experiencing sexual harassment as they work and learn. Over the last several years, revelations of the sexual harassment experienced by women in the workplace and in academic settings have raised urgent questions about the specific impact of this discriminatory behavior on women and the extent to which it is limiting their careers.

Sexual Harassment of Women explores the influence of sexual harassment in academia on the career advancement of women in the scientific, technical, and medical workforce. This report reviews the research on the extent to which women in the fields of science, engineering, and medicine are victimized by sexual harassment and examines the existing information on the extent to which sexual harassment in academia negatively impacts the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women pursuing scientific, engineering, technical, and medical careers. It also identifies and analyzes the policies, strategies and practices that have been the most successful in preventing and addressing sexual harassment in these settings.

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What it really takes to stop sexual harassment

Psychologists call for a comprehensive approach with real-world impact

By Brendan L. Smith

February 2018, Vol 49, No. 2

Print version: page 36

11 min read

• Sexual Assault and Harassment
• Healthy Workplaces

As the list of high-profile men accused of sexual harassment or assault grows, a cultural shift demanding increased accountability for workplace sexual harassment may be occurring in the public eye. But behind closed doors, many companies and institutions have done little to address sexual harassment, which has contributed to hostile work environments not only for victims of sexual harassment but also for other employees who are merely bystanders.

Sexual harassment is a pervasive problem with a devastating toll on employee well-being and performance, according to psychologists who study workplace harassment or provide consultation to companies on how to prevent it. There also is a dearth of research identifying which training programs may help reduce sexual harassment, while some ineffective training may even exacerbate the problem. Companies often still have a problematic knee-jerk reaction to sexual harassment complaints, says C. Brady Wilson, PhD, a psychologist in Scottsdale, Arizona, who specializes in sexual harassment and workplace trauma.

"There is a pattern to close ranks, admit nothing and blame the victim," Wilson says. "Some companies hate the EEOC and hate their own human resources department. They just see sexual harassment complaints as something that slows them down and as an unnecessary expense. There is such a reluctance to cooperate and participate."

In the 2015 fiscal year, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received approximately 28,000 charges alleging harassment or discrimination from employees working for private employers or state or local governments. Almost half of those complaints were based on gender, exceeding race (34 percent) or disability (19 percent). The EEOC estimates that less than 14 percent of individuals experiencing harassment ever file a formal complaint.

Sixty percent of American women voters said they have experienced sexual harassment, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll. Almost 70 percent of the women who experienced harassment said it occurred at work, more than any other setting. And the poll found almost 90 percent of both male and female voters believe sexual harassment of women is a serious problem.

The current media spotlight on sexual harassment may motivate more companies to adopt sexual harassment training programs, but some efforts aren't successful in changing attitudes or reducing sexual harassment. Conducting a one-time training for new employees is ineffective and is usually just window dressing by companies seeking protection from lawsuits, says Columbia University psychology professor Elissa Perry, PhD, who has researched sexual harassment training programs.

"It's not just about providing one training and you're done. It's got to be a comprehensive approach," she says. "The tone is set at the top. Are they just checking a box? If they are only doing it for legal reasons, then they don't care if it works."

Decades of research has documented the extensive damage suffered by victims of sexual harassment, including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse, job turnover and post-traumatic stress.

Quick has researched sexual harassment for more than two decades and co-authored a recent article in APA's Journal of Occupational Health Psychology that examined advances in research and the changing dynamics of sexual harassment. More men now are reporting sexual harassment, and more research is needed in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. In the Quinnipiac University national poll, one in five male voters reported that he had experienced sexual harassment. Women also can be aggressors against other women or men, although that is less common, Quick says.

The quest for effective training

While there has been little research evaluating the effectiveness of sexual harassment training programs, there are some best practices that have been identified. Employees should learn about company policies and laws relating to sexual harassment, procedures for filing complaints, and expectations of behavior for all employees, says Chris Kilmartin, PhD, a psychologist and emeritus psychology professor at the University of Mary Washington.

Bystander intervention training also may help increase a sense of accountability, where employees are expected to speak up and even file their own complaints when they witness sexual harassment involving another employee. A toxic work environment can lower productivity and increase turnover and absenteeism, with employees less engaged in their work.

"A hostile environment affects the whole organization, not just the people who are harassed," Kilmartin says. "Basically, it poisons the organization."

Kilmartin has served as a sexual harassment training consultant for many organizations and the armed forces, including the U.S. Army, Air Force and Naval Academy. Training can be engaging, with real-life scenarios, rather than forcing employees to watch a dated video with stilted vignettes. Kilmartin used his chops as a stand-up comedian to incorporate humor into a sexual harassment training video he wrote for the Army. In the video, a clueless soldier is dressed down by a sergeant for telling sexist jokes.

Companies should use sexual harassment training programs that include pre-training, training and post-training components at the individual and group levels, Perry says. An anonymous employee survey or audit of the workplace before the training can be useful in identifying the extent of sexual harassment. The training should be interactive, with multiple training methods, including lectures, videos and role-playing. Follow-up after the initial training should include knowledge assessment tests and annual refresher training courses.

A successful training program might result in an increase in sexual harassment complaints in the short term as more employees feel empowered to report misconduct, but an elevated level of complaints for an extended period may indicate the training hasn't helped, Perry says.

Some ineffective training programs may even backfire and increase negative views or stereotypes, according to research. A study of a 30-minute training found that men who completed the program were more likely to say that sexual behavior at work was wrong, but they also were more likely to believe that both parties contribute to inappropriate sexual behavior. They also were less likely to view coercion of a subordinate as sexual harassment than were men or women who didn't take the training.

The role of workplace culture

Some common risk factors for sexual harassment include workplaces with a strict hierarchical power dynamic where men outnumber women and most supervisors are male. Hiring more women in leadership positions and creating a civil, respectful culture for all employees can help curb the problem, Kilmartin says.

The Defense Department has instituted a comprehensive training strategy to reduce sexual assault and harassment, including an anonymous help line, surveys of armed forces members, focus groups and procedures for reducing retaliation against victims.

In both the military and civilian worlds, sexual harassment complaints are sometimes dismissed as a "he said, she said" situation, says Quick, who co-wrote a forthcoming book on campus sexual assault. Companies need to have clear policies that sexual harassment won't be tolerated and that perpetrators will be punished, but the process needs to be fair to all parties. "You can't use a sledgehammer. Some people do some things unintentionally," Quick says. "You have to look at intentions and actions. It's a deliberative process you have to go through."

A harsh zero-tolerance policy toward sexual harassment also can backfire, where alleged perpetrators don't feel the process is fair and victims fear making a complaint because they may not want the perpetrator to be fired, Quick says. "Everyone potentially has a defense, so you have to listen to both sides of the conflict," he says.

More research is needed to identify personality traits that may contribute to sexual harassment. One study published last year in Personality and Individual Differences found a positive association between sexual harassment proclivity and the "dark triad" personality traits (narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism). While some people view sexist jokes as harmless, another study published in 2015 in the International Journal of Humor Research found that telling sexist jokes was associated with self-reported rape proclivity and blaming of victims.

The fate of harassment targets

One worrying trend is the increase in companies buying liability insurance to defend against sexual harassment lawsuits, because companies may treat sexual harassment as a cost of doing business rather than addressing it, Wilson says. "The fact is it's going to cost the company more to do the training and compliance than buying insurance. That's a hard reality," he says.

Wilson has trained EEOC staff about the differing ways that targets may respond to sexual harassment. Some women may try to avoid an aggressor or make weak pleadings for him to stop. They may downplay the misconduct and endure it for a long time before ultimately filing a complaint. Companies then may use those delays as ammunition against victims to question why they didn't file a complaint sooner or allege that the victims didn't really object to the inappropriate behavior, Wilson says. More than 70 percent of EEOC sexual harassment charges filed during the last two fiscal years included charges of retaliation, according to unpublished EEOC data obtained by the Center for American Progress.

Targets who face retaliation usually aren't fired outright, but their lives in the workplace are made so difficult that they eventually quit, says Wilson, a former president of the Arizona Psychological Association. He had one client whose desk was moved into a hallway outside her office and who had her computer and phone taken away after she filed a sexual harassment complaint.

That retaliation doesn't go unnoticed, and fellow workers often distance themselves from the target rather than helping. "Rarely do people stand up for them," Wilson says. "They don't want to get caught in that web or suffer retaliation themselves."

Bystander intervention training can help reverse that trend by training employees to be responsible for maintaining a safe office environment, even if it means getting involved in a situation they would rather avoid, Wilson says.

On another front, some large companies are compelling their suppliers to take action on sexual harassment, which can be a powerful tool because it affects those businesses' bottom line. McDonald's, Walmart, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Burger King and other companies have begun buying fruits and vegetables only from growers who abide by a human rights code of conduct to protect farmworkers called the Fair Food Program , which was developed by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida.

While high-profile men in politics, entertainment and the media are dominating the news coverage over allegations of sexual harassment, industries with large numbers of female low-wage workers have much higher rates of sexual harassment that go unnoticed with little public outcry. From 2005 to 2015, more than 41,000 charges of sexual harassment were filed with the EEOC, with the hotel and food industries recording the most charges (14 percent), followed closely by the retail industry (13 percent). The media and entertainment industries each accounted for less than 3 percent of sexual harassment complaints.

Shifts in cultural attitudes toward sexual harassment may ultimately be the most valuable tool in combating sexual harassment by creating a shared sense of public responsibility and accountability. The #MeToo social media messages that went viral after the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal illustrated in stark detail how many women have experienced sexual harassment. Kilmartin says he had male friends on Facebook who acknowledged they had previously engaged in sexual harassment, but they promised to stop after reading the heartrending accounts that women shared publicly, often for the first time.

"It was powerful and personalized the issue that it's not just something that happens in an evil Hollywood back room," Kilmartin says. "It helps sensitize men to the stories of people they know so it wasn't just an abstraction."

Greater public awareness of sexual harassment and more proactive involvement by companies and other institutions hopefully will reduce the prevalence of sexual harassment and the devastation it causes, Quick says.

"It's not just a woman's problem. Women continue to be the primary victims of sexual harassment, and they are carrying the burden of suffering," he says. "Until males own their responsibility in the problem, it's going to be really tough to get a big movement in addressing it."

This article originally appeared in Good Company , a newsletter from APA's Center for Organizational Excellence, which works to enhance the functioning of individuals, groups, organizations and communities through the application of psychology to a broad range of workplace issues..

Have we made any progress?

James Campbell Quick, PhD, and M. Ann McFadyen, PhD, seek to answer that question in the July issue of APA's Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (Vol. 22, No. 3, 2017). Their article reviews the literature on sexual harassment and finds that while sexual harassment complaints have decreased by 28 percent since 1998, complaints by males have increased, and merit resolutions and monetary benefits have increased. The authors also point out that one persistent problem related to sexual harassment is a lack of agreement on its definition. dx.doi.org/10.1037/ocp0000054

APA's Center for Organizational Excellence Resources on preventing and addressing workplace sexual harassment, including statistics, reports, trainings, book recommendations and more, can be found at apaexcellence.org/sexual-harassment .

Letters to the Editor

• Send us a letter

Sexual Harassment

You should be able to feel comfortable in your place of work or learning. If you are being sexually harassed, you can report it to the authorities at your job or school.

What is sexual harassment?

Sexual harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature in the workplace or learning environment, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ( EEOC ). Sexual harassment does not always have to be specifically about sexual behavior or directed at a specific person. For example, negative comments about women as a group may be a form of sexual harassment.

Although sexual harassment laws do not usually cover teasing or offhand comments, these behaviors can also be upsetting and have a negative emotional effect.

What does sexual harassment look like?

Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances. The harasser can identify with any gender and have any relationship to the victim, including being a direct manager, indirect supervisor, coworker, teacher, peer, or colleague.

Some forms of sexual harassment include:

• Making conditions of employment or advancement dependent on sexual favors, either explicitly or implicitly.
• Physical acts of sexual assault.
• Requests for sexual favors.
• Verbal harassment of a sexual nature, including jokes referring to sexual acts or sexual orientation.
• Unwanted touching or physical contact.
• Unwelcome sexual advances.
• Discussing sexual relations/stories/fantasies at work, school, or in other inappropriate places.
• Feeling pressured to engage with someone sexually.
• Exposing oneself or performing sexual acts on oneself.
• Unwanted sexually explicit photos, emails, or text messages.

What is the difference between sexual harassment and sexual assault? What about sexual misconduct?

Sexual harassment is a broad term, including many types of unwelcome verbal and physical sexual attention. Sexual assault refers to sexual contact or behavior, often physical, that occurs without the consent of the victim. Sexual harassment generally violates civil laws—you have a right to work or learn without being harassed—but in many cases is not a criminal act, while sexual assault usually refers to acts that are criminal. Some forms of sexual assault include:

• Penetration of the victim’s body, also known as rape.
• Attempted rape.
• Forcing a victim to perform sexual acts, such as oral sex or penetration of the perpetrator’s body.
• Fondling or unwanted sexual touching.

Sexual misconduct is a non-legal term used informally to describe a broad range of behaviors, which may or may not involve harassment. For example, some companies prohibit sexual relationships between coworkers, or between an employee and their boss, even if the relationship is consensual.

Where can sexual harassment occur?

Sexual harassment can occur in the workplace or learning environment, like a school or university. It can happen in many different scenarios, including after-hours conversations, exchanges in the hallways, and non-office settings of employees or peers.

What can I do when I witness sexual harassment?

You may have heard the term  bystander intervention  to describe stepping in to help if you see someone who might be in danger or at risk for sexual assault. Bystander intervention can also be a helpful strategy if you witness sexual harassment. You don’t have to be a hero to make a positive impact in someone’s life, and you can intervene in a way that fits your comfort level and is appropriate for the situation. If you choose to step in, you may be able to give the person being harassed a chance to get to a safe place or leave the situation. Below are some of the steps you can take if you see someone being sexually harassed—just remember to C.A.R.E., and of course, keep your own safety in mind at all times.

• Create a distraction.  Do what you can to interrupt the harassment, or distract those taking part in the harassment. But remember to make sure that you aren’t putting yourself in danger by doing this. 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 can be hard to step in alone, especially if you are worried about your own safety or if you don’t think you will be able to help on your own. It may be a good idea to enlist the help of a friend or another bystander.

What are some effects of sexual harassment?

Experiencing sexual harassment may cause some survivors to face emotional, physical, or mental health concerns. Some of them might include:

For more resources and information from RAINN about sexual harassment, visit That's Harassment .

Emotional effects:

• Humiliation
• Powerlessness and loss of control

Mental health effects:

• Panic attacks
• Difficulty concentrating
• Loss of motivation
• Substance abuse
• Suicidal ideation

Physical effects:

• Increased stress levels
• Sleep disturbances
• Eating disturbances

Where can I learn more about sexual harassment?

• Visit the  Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)  to learn more about sexual harassment laws and your rights in the workplace.
• If you are a minor, you can learn more at  Youth at Work , EEOC’s website for youth in the workforce.

To speak with someone who is trained to help, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800.656.HOPE (4673) or chat online at  online.rainn.org .

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Sexual Harassment Essays

1. introduction.

The introduction section of "Exploring the Impact and Prevention of Sexual Harassment" serves to provide a comprehensive overview of the topic at hand. This will include an exploration of the definition and scope of sexual harassment, outlining the various forms and contexts in which it can occur. By clearly defining sexual harassment and outlining its scope, this section aims to lay the groundwork for the subsequent discussions on its impact and prevention. Through a formal and informative tone, this section will delve into the various manifestations of sexual harassment, including verbal, physical, and non-verbal behaviors that create a hostile or offensive environment. Additionally, the introduction will highlight the wide-ranging impact of sexual harassment on individuals, workplaces, and society as a whole, emphasizing the urgency of addressing this issue. The inclusion of factual information and relevant examples will contribute to a nuanced and detailed exploration of the topic, enhancing the complexity of the text and ensuring that it reflects the key ideas and themes of the entire essay.

1.1. Definition and Scope of Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment can be defined as unwanted behavior of a sexual nature that affects an individual's employment or creates a hostile work environment. It can take various forms, including verbal, physical, or visual conduct, and can occur between people of the same or different genders. The scope of sexual harassment extends beyond the workplace and can also occur in educational institutions, public spaces, and online environments. Understanding the definition and scope of sexual harassment is crucial in addressing this issue effectively and implementing preventive measures. In the context of this exploration, it is important to delve into the various elements that constitute sexual harassment, such as unwelcome advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Additionally, understanding the scope of sexual harassment involves recognizing its impact on individuals, organizations, and society as a whole. By exploring the prevalence of sexual harassment and its repercussions, we can gain insight into the need for proactive measures to prevent and address this issue. This section aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of sexual harassment, setting the stage for further exploration of its impact and prevention strategies.

2. Historical Context

Section 2 of this essay, "Historical Context," delves into the evolution of laws and policies surrounding sexual harassment. Throughout history, the issue of sexual harassment has been addressed through various legal and policy measures, reflecting the changing societal attitudes towards this form of misconduct. It is crucial to examine the historical context in order to understand the progression of efforts aimed at preventing and addressing sexual harassment. Historically, laws and policies related to sexual harassment have developed in response to societal shifts and advocacy efforts. This section will explore key moments in the evolution of these measures, including significant legal cases, legislative changes, and the impact of social movements. By examining the historical context, we can gain insight into the factors that have shaped the current understanding and management of sexual harassment. Furthermore, understanding the historical context is essential for developing effective prevention and intervention strategies. By recognizing the progression of laws and policies, we can identify areas for improvement and build upon the advancements made in addressing sexual harassment. This section will provide a comprehensive overview of the historical landscape of sexual harassment laws and policies, offering valuable insights into the ongoing efforts to combat this pervasive issue.

2.1. Evolution of Laws and Policies

The evolution of laws and policies regarding sexual harassment has been a critical aspect of addressing and preventing this pervasive issue. Throughout history, there have been significant shifts in the legal framework surrounding sexual harassment, reflecting changes in societal attitudes and understanding of this form of misconduct. From early legal precedents to landmark legislation, the development of laws and policies has played a crucial role in shaping the way sexual harassment is addressed in various settings, including the workplace, educational institutions, and public spaces. Over time, these changes have led to a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of sexual harassment, encompassing different forms of behavior and providing clearer guidelines for prevention and response. Key legislative milestones, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent amendments, have contributed to the establishment of legal protections against sexual harassment and discrimination. Additionally, the implementation of policies in organizational and institutional settings has further expanded the scope of prevention and intervention measures. By examining the historical trajectory of laws and policies related to sexual harassment, we can gain valuable insights into the progress made in addressing this issue, as well as the challenges that remain in ensuring effective prevention and enforcement efforts.

3. Effects of Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment can have severe and lasting psychological effects on its victims. It can lead to feelings of fear, shame, and humiliation, as well as anxiety, depression, and even post-traumatic stress disorder. Victims may also experience a loss of self-esteem and self-confidence, as well as difficulties forming and maintaining relationships. These psychological impacts can significantly affect a person's mental well-being and overall quality of life. Furthermore, the effects of sexual harassment are not limited to the individual victim. They can also create a toxic work environment, leading to decreased productivity, increased turnover, and damage to the reputation of the organization. Employers should be aware of the psychological impact of sexual harassment and take proactive measures to prevent it, such as implementing clear policies, providing training for employees, and creating a supportive and respectful workplace culture. By addressing the effects of sexual harassment, organizations can protect their employees and promote a healthy and productive work environment.

3.1. Psychological Impact

The psychological impact of sexual harassment can be profound and long-lasting. Victims often experience feelings of shame, guilt, and powerlessness, which can lead to anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The trauma of sexual harassment can also affect a person's self-esteem, confidence, and overall mental well-being. Furthermore, the psychological impact of sexual harassment extends beyond the individual level and can also affect workplace dynamics. It can create a toxic work environment, leading to decreased morale and productivity, as well as increased turnover rates. Employers have a responsibility to address the psychological impact of sexual harassment on their employees and take proactive measures to prevent and address such behaviors. In conclusion, the psychological impact of sexual harassment is a significant and complex issue that requires careful attention and proactive intervention. By understanding the psychological effects of sexual harassment, employers and organizations can take steps to create a safer and healthier work environment for all employees. This section explores the intricate and far-reaching consequences of sexual harassment, emphasizing the importance of addressing and preventing such behavior.

4. Prevention and Intervention Strategies

In order to address and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, various prevention and intervention strategies can be implemented. One of the most effective approaches is through the implementation of educational programs. These programs can be designed to raise awareness about what constitutes sexual harassment, the negative impact it can have on individuals and the workplace, and how to recognize and report instances of harassment. Educational programs can also provide training on the importance of fostering a culture of respect and inclusivity within the organization, as well as the legal implications and consequences of engaging in harassment. Additionally, educational programs can incorporate bystander intervention training, empowering employees to recognize and respond to instances of sexual harassment occurring in their presence. By equipping employees with the knowledge and skills to intervene, organizations can create a supportive environment where harassment is not tolerated and individuals feel empowered to speak up and seek help when needed. Overall, educational programs serve as a proactive measure to prevent sexual harassment by promoting a culture of understanding, respect, and accountability within the workplace. By investing in comprehensive and ongoing educational initiatives, organizations can take significant strides towards combating sexual harassment and promoting a safe and inclusive work environment for all.

4.1. Educational Programs

Educational programs play a crucial role in preventing and addressing sexual harassment in various settings. These programs are designed to raise awareness about what constitutes sexual harassment, its impact on individuals and organizations, and the importance of creating a safe and respectful environment for all. Educational programs also aim to educate individuals on how to recognize and respond to instances of sexual harassment, including reporting procedures and support resources available. Effective educational programs utilize a multi-faceted approach, incorporating elements such as interactive training sessions, workshops, presentations, and informative materials. These programs are tailored to specific audiences, such as students, employees, or community members, and often include discussions on topics such as consent, boundaries, and respectful behavior. Moreover, educational programs seek to challenge harmful attitudes and beliefs, promote empathy and mutual respect, and empower individuals to take a stand against sexual harassment. In summary, educational programs are a vital aspect of comprehensive strategies to prevent and address sexual harassment. By equipping individuals with the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to understand and combat sexual harassment, these programs contribute to fostering a culture of respect and safety in all facets of society.

5. Conclusion

In conclusion, our exploration of the impact and prevention of sexual harassment has revealed several key findings. We have highlighted the pervasive nature of sexual harassment across various industries and its detrimental effects on individuals and workplace culture. Additionally, we have emphasized the importance of implementing proactive measures to prevent and address sexual harassment in the workplace, such as education and training, clear reporting procedures, and supportive organizational policies. Furthermore, our analysis has underscored the need for a comprehensive and multi-faceted approach to effectively combat sexual harassment. This approach should involve collaboration between employers, employees, and relevant stakeholders, as well as a cultural shift towards respect, equality, and accountability. Overall, our findings point to the urgent necessity of promoting a safe and inclusive work environment for all individuals, free from the threat of sexual harassment. By prioritizing prevention and fostering a culture of zero tolerance, we can work towards creating a more equitable and empowering future for all.

5.1. Summary of Key Findings

In summary, the key findings of this exploration into the impact and prevention of sexual harassment highlight the pervasive nature of this issue across various settings, including workplaces, educational institutions, and public spaces. The research has revealed that sexual harassment has significant negative effects on victims, leading to emotional distress, decreased job satisfaction, and impaired mental health. Additionally, the findings underscore the widespread underreporting of incidents due to fear of retaliation, lack of awareness about reporting procedures, and social stigma. In terms of prevention, the analysis has emphasized the importance of implementing comprehensive policies and training programs to create a safe and respectful environment. It has been established that organizations and institutions must prioritize the enforcement of strict anti-harassment measures, offer support to victims, and promote a culture of accountability. Furthermore, the research findings have indicated the need for continued efforts to challenge societal norms and attitudes that perpetuate sexual harassment, with an emphasis on promoting gender equality and empowerment. Overall, the key findings underscore the urgent need for proactive and concerted action to address and prevent sexual harassment in all its forms.

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Essays on Sexual Harassment

Writing a sexual harassment essay is a great way to highlight this pressing global issue. Sexual harassment exists in many forms – from unambiguous remarks to assault with the intent of rape. Most essay-writers define sexual harassment as intimidation, bullying, or coercion of sexual nature, as well as unwelcome or inappropriate sexual actions, and other verbal or physical harassment of sexual nature. Some sexual harassment essays research legislation that renders sexual harassment illegal. Other samples of essays on sexual harassment divide sexual harassment into types. In the United States, harassment can be divided into verbal (sexual comments, jokes of sexual nature, derogatory remarks), non-verbal (sexual pictures, photographs, offensive sounds, obscene gestures, etc.), and physical (touching and excessive proximity) harassment. Our sexual harassment essay samples will help you learn more about it before writing essays.

The authors of ‘The Silent Breakers' talks about sexual harassment, and abuse that affects celebrities and women at large. The issues of pervasive sexual harassments that criminalize and incidents that happened to women are not addressed. Being recognized as a group of people of the year 2017 in the time's...

In many societies, pop culture is identified through objects, practices, and beliefs that are ubiquitous at a certain period in time. People in varied cultures share or differ culturally in various aspects yet everywhere, it is an identity; a sketch that society follows. Typically, individuals strictly follow their culture code...

Words: 1437

With the increasing cases of sexual harassment in the Latin America, the paper focuses on a special feature in which students from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education were moved by the social problem and invented a protective garment that would generate electronic shock of up to 90...

the paper shall focus on sexual harassment through its definition as a way of recognizing its occurrence, to determine the preventive measures, and how to deal with it before and after it occurs. Recognizing, Preventing, and Dealing With Sexual Harassment             The office of civil rights and the equal employment opportunity commission...

Words: 1025

The sexual harassment training program considers the impact of sexual harassment on the organizations and the individuals. The sessions are meant to inspire change in behavior and encourage reporting of harassment incidents. Ultimately, the goal is to create a favorable workplace environment. Planning The training targets all employees of all levels. However,...

Any sexual activity or contact that takes place without the recipient's express permission is referred to as sexual violence. There has been a noticeable increase in the number of sexual assault instances that have been reported to the authorities on college campuses across the country. However, because so few of...

Words: 1878

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Up until recently, only a small number of nations in the globe made the issue of elder care a top priority. However, significant progress has been made, and an increasing number of nations are passing laws to safeguard their senior citizens. Sexual abuse in nursing homes, typically committed by nurses,...

The Majority of Managers and Preventative Measures The majority of managers now take preventative steps to keep their staff, particularly those in senior positions, free from sexual harassment, sex discrimination, and favoritism. Due to cultural variety, managing people's behavior presents an ethical conundrum to managers or organizations. (Bimrose 109). Addressing Harassment and...

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The Supreme Court received a petition regarding the hostile atmosphere, which includes sexual harassment. What criteria should be used to determine the appropriate course of action in response to sexual prejudice in the workplace? What extent of sexual harassment that results in hostile work settings falls under the purview of...

Various groups around the globe have branded the Internet as a source of evil in society. This fact is primarily due to the abundance and supply of pornography that is available on different online websites. Porn on the Internet has had a significant impact on changing people's sexual orientation. The...

Words: 1592

The current event selected for examination in this article is from the online daily Washington Post. The article, headed Amazon Studios CEO Roy Price suspended amid sexual harassment allegations, discusses the sexual harassment issue involving Roy Price, the president of Amazon's video business, who was suspended by the firm following...

Words: 1763

Anyone who harasses someone (an applicant or employee) because of their sex is in violation of the law. Asking for sexual favors, unwanted advances, and other forms of physical or verbal sexual harassment are all considered harassment in this context. Both the harasser and the victim may be of the...

Words: 2359

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Sexual Harassment at the Workplace Opinion Essay

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Skaine (1996) defines sexual harassment as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature…when submission or rejection of this conduct explicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment ” (p. 11). The two types of sexual harassment identified by the law are quid pro quo and hostile environment.

Quid pro quo refers to a condition where an employee is forced to provide sexual favors to an individual at a higher job rank in exchange of benefits at the workplace. On the other hand, hostile environment refers to a state where employees are harassed by offensive sexual behavior or any other act or state that intimidates a person sexually at the workplace (Geffner & Braverman, 2005).

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects employees against discrimination of any nature at the workplace. The Act protects employees from discrimination by their employees either in terms of gender, ethnicity, racial background, religion or any other form (Repa, 2010).

The scenario being experienced at the workplace provides that members of staff are offended by the personal photos and calendars hung in the back of the kitchen that are sexual in nature. Some of these items have been given to the staff from suppliers. The objects hung do not belong to just one individual and are making the other staff members uncomfortable. The other staff members asked for the items to be taken down and have even taken them down themselves, but that has caused more items to be hung up in their place.

From this scenario it is evident that the employees are offended by the pictures and this is a case of a hostile work environment. The rights of the employees have been violated yet they have the right to be protected from sexual harassment. In this scenario, sexual harassment is experienced by the employees and the kitchen manager should take action to protect the rights of the employees.

As the kitchen manager I would ensure that all the complaints are dealt with immediately and appropriately. All pictures identified to cause sexual harassment should be removed and no more pictures of a similar kind should be displayed in future. It is good to discuss the issue with the employees and assure them that it is regrettable that such an offensive act has been happening and that a similar occurrence would not be experienced in future.

A comfortable work environment is a right to all employees and it would be my duty to ensure that all employees are comfortable at the workplace. Moreover, injunction should be placed against suppliers providing materials which are offensive. To add on that, personal photos bearing offensive photos should be banned at the workplace.

It is therefore conclusive that employees have a right to be protected against sexual harassment. Sexual harassment consists of all environmental conditions at the workplace which are sexual in nature and are offensive.

It is the responsibility of the management of the organization to ensure that all the employees are comfortable at the workplace. To avoid a similar occurrence in future, employees of the organization should have the freedom to express their grievances and to discuss matters that may affect them at the workplace.

Geffner, R. and Braverman, M. (2005). Aggression in organizations: violence, abuse, and harassment at work and in schools. Routledge. ISBN 0789028425, 9780789028426

Repa, B. K. (2010). Your Rights in the Workpla ce. Nolo. ISBN 1413312101, 9781413312102.

Skaine, R. (1996). Power and gender: issues in sexual dominance and harassment. McFarland. ISBN 0786402083, 9780786402083.

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Sexual Harassment

1 factors behind the surge in sexual harassment in the united states military.

Introduction Sexual assault reports have increased nearly 10% since 2016, a record high. Although it is hard to pinpoint a specific cause of the increased reports, studies have shown that the increased willingness of a victim to come forward, the male-dominated workplace, and a culture that has allowed sexual harassment to thrive may contribute to […]

2 Combat Sexual Harassment: The Me-Too Movement and the Future of Title IX

Introduction In recent years, sexual harassment victims are coming out more and more each day. Enough is enough. Women have been trained that sexual harassment or anything sexual or abusive is part of being a woman. Being treated this way is simply something we shall live with and accept and push through to go on […]

3 Unveiling Street Sexual Harassment: Analyzing the Complexities

Introduction Throughout the YouTube video, 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman, an actress is harassed by various men while she silently walks in different neighborhoods. This actress appears to be white and in her early twenties. As noted by the video, they recorded over 100 instances of what they classified as harassment, […]

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4 Sexual Harassment in the Armed Forces: Challenges, Causes, and Solutions

Introduction Sexual harassment and assault- the sound of those words alone is repulsive. The action is just as sickening as the sound of the title; as horrible as it sounds, it occurs quite often in the Armed Forces. Both genders are equally capable of being victims and perpetrators. Sexual Assault cases are not new to […]

5 Global Perspectives on Sexual Harassment: Challenges and Legal Measures

Introduction We can hardly obtain accurate figures on the incidence of sexual harassment in countries across the world, especially in areas where this topic of sexual harassment is sensitive and cannot be discussed publicly. Therefore, it is difficult to compare the figures among various countries, especially when the victims are reluctant to report. Issues related […]

Home — Essay Samples — Law, Crime & Punishment — Sexual Harassment — Workplace Sexual Harassment: Challenges and Solutions

Workplace Sexual Harassment: Challenges and Solutions

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Published: Jun 6, 2024

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Introduction, nature and impact of sexual harassment in the workplace, legal frameworks and organizational policies, practical measures to foster a harassment-free work environment.

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