Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Male and Female Perspectives

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Introduction

Sexual harassment is one of the problems that bother populations around the whole world. People cannot control their needs and demands and cannot predict the wishes of other people around, which is why a number of unpredicted and undesirable misunderstandings may take place.

The workplace is the place, where certain rules, obligations, and expectations are considered. People use their degrees to find a good job and start earning money for living. However, the cases of sexual harassment in the workplace can happen, and they have to be analyzed, the majority of them has to be prevented, and some solutions need to be offered.

The current paper aims at discussing, defining, and evaluating the concept of sexual harassment in the workplace from male and female perspectives during different periods of time to comprehend how changeable a human opinion can be.

Definition of sexual harassment in the workplace

Sexual harassment in the workplace is usually defined as an unlawful pressure on an employee or “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature” (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, n.d., para. 1).

In fact, the law does not forbid such gestures like teasing or some inappropriate comments, this is why many employers and workers are provided with an opportunity to avoid possible punishment and explain their strange behavior within the frames of law and ethics. Ivancevich (2013) explains sexual harassment in the workplace as a promise of rewards at the expense of some sexual services that have to be offered.

In the USA, there are many cases, when the employers are able to use their power and influence in the way a harassed person is not a victim but a provocative.

Controversy surrounding sexual harassment in the workplace

Such inabilities to provide a clear definition of the concept of sexual harassment in the workplace create a number of controversies. People cannot understand when they have to take care of their personality, when a case of sexual harassment can take place, and how they can protect themselves against the powerful employer hard by.

Some employees admit that they are eager to use their opportunities to get the desired promotion, some employers say about the weaknesses of their workers, and some workers believe that there is no other way to get a job or not to lose a working place but to follow the demands of their bosses, even if these demands are of sexual nature. All these controversies have reasons, and different centuries introduce different pictures of how men and women understand and treat the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace.

Discussion

Sexual harassment in the workplace was identified as a problem of sex discrimination characterized by “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature” in 1964 (McLaughlin, Uggen, & Blackstone, 2012, p. 626). The investigations show that the present and past experiences of sexual harassment differ considerably.

If several decades ago, there were women, who usually suffered from the necessity to meet the sexual demands of their employers, then nowadays, more and more women are eager to use their positions and power over some men to satisfy their sexual needs and develop business on the rewards and conditions more or less connected with the services offered sexually.

Past issues related to sexual harassment in the workplace

In the past centuries, many researchers admitted the power threat theories as the means to explain the cases of sexual harassment in the workplace (McLaughlin et al., 2012). From a pure female perspective, sexual harassment in the workplace happened because of the men’s desire to demonstrate their abilities and availabilities in comparison with those possessed by women.

In fact, the 1980s and 1990s were the years, when women could not allow themselves taking too high positions or running the huge corporations and use their authorities to use sex as a means to satisfy their needs. In the past, the cases of sexual harassment were frequent indeed, still, people did not know how to report on them properly, not to be ashamed, or not to lose a job.

Anyway, as a rule, the frequent responses to workplace sexual harassment were ignorance and doing nothing. People could not make their weakness or inabilities to resist public. And some male and females cases remain to be unknown even now. People were in need of special legal and psychological support as soon as the case of sexual harassment took place.

At the same time, a number of women got used to be the victims of their employers and even tried to find out the benefits of the situations. In the 2000s, the situation was dramatically changed: women were able to enter the workforce in a variety of occupations. Even one of the most weaken society in regards to the female position, India, underwent some changes (Banerjee & Sharma, 2011).

Gender inequalities were the social problem that had to be solved, still, the changes could not be neglected, and the world was changed in a way that sexual harassment turned out to be a threat to many men. At the same time, men demonstrated their abilities and imagination to use the idea of sexual harassment as a means to meet their professional goals.

The interviews proved that some men made women believe that the latter were able to use some power over the former but did it only in order to succeed in work. However, some men could not even guess that the same way was used by many women several years ago.

Current issues related to sexual harassment in the workplace

During the last decade, more women are able to enter the workforce (AWARE, n.d.). However, it does not mean that the problem of sexual harassment has been solved and eliminated. Nowadays, more than a half of all working women experience sexual harassment that has a variety of forms: verbal abuse, unwelcome comments, rape, assaults, etc. (AWARE, n.d.).

The point is that many people have already found the way of how to prove that sexual harassment in the workplace is not a criminal act that has to be punished. Another way to ignore the problem is to pay off of it. This is why, it is hard to say whether the current situation (when people know about sexual harassment in the workplace and try to take some preventive steps) is better than the period when sexual harassment was not that open problem and was punished by law.

In the past, people were afraid to underline and make known their connection to possible sexual harassment cases, this was a kind of control. Nowadays, people do not have a fear and get a number of possibilities to avoid punishment. Instead of being solved, the problem becomes more urgent.

People have to understand that their understanding of the problem and the intention to solve it influence the possible further development of the events. The ideas of how to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace vary considerably. Starting from the end of the 1980s, people used different explanations for the cases of sexual harassment that happen in the workplace.

In the 2010s, the ways of interpretations of sexual harassment achieve their highest points: some people (both men and women) can use the experience and threaten each other about what has happened to achieve the desired goal, some people, both genders may undergo sexual harassment in the workplace of the same level (nowadays, women have the same amounts of power or even more and are eager to use their opportunities to make men obey their dreams and demands).

There are also the people, who enjoy sexual harassment in the workplace. They find it as an easy way to achieve a promotion or earn money. They agree to be harassed. Christensen (2006) admits that today is probably the hardest period for many business developers. They have to face a variety of changes, they need to find out unexpected solutions, and, what is more important, they have to be ready to use different means to get the goals set.

Some of their steps can be ethically wrong, still, they should take place because people need to be active to benefit from development. This is why it is not a surprise to observe sexual harassment as one of the possible means to achieve a goal or to prevent someone achieving the goal.

Conclusions/Implications

In general, sexual harassment in the workplace is the concern that has to bother society. Due to the people’s intentions to make fun of the cases of sexual harassment, or avoid the people involved, or simply ignore the situation, this issue remains to be unsolved and properly developed nowadays.

In the past, people did suffer from sexual harassment in the workplace; still, not many were ready to report on it. This is why the concept was not that urgent and did not require solutions. Nowadays, the situation has been changed. People know a lot about sexual harassment in the workplace.

They have a chance to address a professional and try to solve a problem, to make a personal use of the situation that takes place, or to realize that only certain activities are necessary to avoid the same in the future. The main peculiar feature of the past and current situation about sexual harassment in the workplace is the gender of the victims.

In the past, women usually suffered from men’s power in the workplace. Nowadays, both, men and women, have equal chances to become the victims of rape, sexual domination, verbal abuse, etc. in the workplace.

Prevention

To prevent the cases of sexual harassment in the workplace, people should be ready to take certain steps and solve this problem openly. There is no necessity to avoid or hide from a person, who uses sex as a weapon or a proof of power.

The following preventive steps may be considered nowadays in the USA as well as in the whole world:

1. Distribution of the information about the possibility of sexual harassment in the workplace.
2. Education of people of how they should behave as soon as they notice something wrong or inappropriate in the workplace.
3. Explanation that there is always a kind of support (anonymous or public) for those, who have already become a victim of sexual harassment in the workplace.
4. Improvement of the law and promotion of a new statute about the punishment of those, who use sex and inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.
5. Creation of the groups for who, who need some support and understanding as a result of sexual harassment in the workplace.

The modern life is not an easy thing, and the cases of sexual harassment in the workplace are not an exception. People want to believe that they are protected against each other at work, where a number of people can be found. Still, the threat of being a victim exists, and the government, as well as the society, should consider this possibility and never stop solving the problem or being on guard for those in need.

Current/future guidelines

The only known existing law in the United States is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) within the frames of which sexual harassment is classified as one of the existing forms of sexual discrimination (McLaughin, 2012). The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (n.d.) provides a clear explanation of what sexual harassment is and is not, this is why as soon as the similar situation is identified in the workplace, the organization with its employer have to be punished accordingly.

As a rule, the punishment has an oral form. The employer has to talk to an HR representative at a special conference, be warned and notified about the possible consequences. Depending on the severity of the crime, the offender may also be jailed or asked to pay some compensation (Ivancevich, 2013). Every situation, condition, and possible solution have to be solved separately because each situation where sexual harassment takes place differs considerably with its outcomes and impacts on human lives.

References

McLaughlin, H., Uggen, C., & Blackstone, A. (2012). Sexual harassment, workplace authority, and the paradox of power. American Sociological Review, 77(4), 625-647.

AWARE: Association of Women for Action and Research. (n.d.). Workplace Sexual Harassment. Web.

Banerjee, A., & Sharma, B. (2011). Gender differences in perception of workplace sexual harassment among future professionals. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 20(1), 21–24. Web.

Christensen, R. (2006). Roadmap to strategic HR: Turning a great idea into business reality. New York, NY: AMACON.

Ivancevich, J. M. (2013). Human resource management. New York, NY: McGraw Hill/Irwin.

U.S. equal employment opportunity commission. (n.d.). Sexual harassment. Web.

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