Sexual harassment refers to undesirable sexual advances, sexual favors requests, as well as other physical conduct that are suggestive for sexual requests. Sexual harassment may happen in different platforms. In most cases, it happens when a person seeks to extend favor to another person in exchange for sexual advances. This has been a major problem in many workplaces, where women have been the main victims with minimal cases reported to having affected men. Sexual harassment may extend massive effects to the persons exposed to it as well as the other members of the society within which the individual lives. These issues would be important to discuss in order to help people understand the exclusive negative effects that the behavior of sexual harassment may have in the society.
The first effect is to the immediate victims of sexual harassment. Most victims of the behavior get exposed to psychological effects. In most cases, sexual harassment exposes victims to extensive embarrassment such that they would not wish to face the society. Embarrassment is a psychological element which is a definition of the extensive internal pain that a victim may undergo after the experience (Havelin, 2000). Also, the victim is always stressed if there was any sexual intercourse. This is because they are not sure of the health status of the person who harassed them. The individual is likely to develop high levels of stress that may build up to the level of suicide. There have been extremely many cases in the world about the effects of sexual harassments where victims have been forced to suicide ( Avina & O'donohue, 2002). This is an indication that extensive efforts must be made to ensure that cases of sexual harassment are reduced or eliminated completely.
The other effect of sexual harassment is among the immediate neighbors of the victim. The families of the victims are usually exposed to equal stress following their inability to accept the dangers that the family member experienced. It may take massive time of the family members as they try to console their member and make him or her heal from the dangers that he or she had been exposed to in the society. This may cost the family a lot of money as it tries to make the member heal from the sexual harassment. If, the victim is a mother, the effects would be extremely dangerous or wide since the members of the family mainly relies on the mother for support on various activities. The husband would be extremely stressed up with the wife had an intercourse with another man. This is because he would not be sure of the proper health status of the wife (Boland, 2005).To children; they would be stressed up as their mother cannot execute some of the tasks that she is supposed to extend to her children
The third effect that comes with sexual harassment is lack of adequate development strategies. This is based on the fact that individual will not be willing to exchange sexual favors for jobs. Therefore, highly skilled individuals will be locked out of job opportunities as they may not be willing to exchange their bodies with jobs. In the long run, the society will have lost massive talent to the ill element of sexual harassment (Itaru, 2003).
Sexual harassment is a major social problem that needs to be addressed as soon as possible. The massive effects of the behavior must be outlined to assist in controlling the ill behavior. Different stakeholders must be willing to corporate in the elimination of sexual harassment as a social problem. Work places have been ranked as the main places for sexual harassment.
References
Avina, C., & O'donohue, W. (2002). Sexual harassment and PTSD: Is sexual harassment diagnosable trauma?. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 15(1), 69-75.
Boland, M. L. (2005). Sexual harassment in the workplace. Naperville, Ill.: Sphinx Pub..
Havelin, K. (2000). Sexual harassment: "this doesn't feel right!". Mankato, Minn.: LifeMatters.
Itaru, I. (2003). Contextual effects of personal network on individuals’ tendency to blame the victims of sexual harassment. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 6(3), 201-214.
