Sexual harassment refers to the coercion or bullying whose nature is sexual. It can also be the promise made whose rewards is the exchange of sexual favors. The US EEOC spells out vividly that it is illegal to harass an employee or an applicant in accordance to his or her sex. Sexual harassment can include; sexual advances that are unwelcome, sexual favor requests, physical or verbal sexual harassment, among other ways.
The existence of the laws that surround sexual harassment doesn’t discourage mild teasing, some comments, or minor wretched comments. Harassment in the workplace can be considered illegal when frequent or practiced severely up to an extent of creating a hostile working environment for the worker. Such a victim may actually decide to quit the job on those grounds. Most harassers happen to be the victim’s supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a workmate, a customer or a client. To most organizations, sexual harassment or bullying of the sort has been an issue and it has been put on a spotlight so as to defend employees from sexual harassment.
Harassment occurs in many instances. In most cases, the harasser is the one who is authority or power. This may arise due to political, age, social, employment or educational differences. Expectations for promotion so as to acquire such power can also invite harassment of sexual nature.
During sexual harassment, there may be witnesses or not. The harassment can occur once but in most cases its nature is repetitive. The victim may not notice but the behavior might affect him or her in the long run. It is also funny that the victim and the harasser can be same or different sex. At some situations, actions can be misinterpreted. For example, a person may think he/she is making himself well understood only to be misunderstood.
According to Dzeich et al, harassers are broadly classified in two classes. Firstly, he said that public harassers are fond of being flagrant in their seductive motives towards the victims. Secondly he talked about private harassers whom he said that maintain a respectable surface image but change their demeanor when alone with their target.
Most sexual harassment incident often happen to be very annoying and may cause prolonged or temporary stress. Severe sexual harassment acts like rape are capable of causing serious psychological effects. Victims who do not give in to harassment sometimes may also face different forms of retaliation. In overall, this harassment has discouraged most women to take part in most productive ventures.
Since this always happens, various methods have been put forward as guidelines to cope with and handle stress that may arise from sexual harassment. This is because sexual harassment is not tolerable and many people get injured hence they need to overwhelm the harassment, rehabilitate their socialization and relationships and uphold social approval hence be able to concentrate with their profession and become productive and dependable. In the beginning, legal and psychological counseling is very vital and helpful. Ignorance of the victim may lead to diverse harmful social effects subjecting the victim to trauma.
Most organizations and companies have regulations that govern conduct but the same policies do not regulate romancing since it is against human urges.
Works Cited
Paludi, Michele Antoinette; Barickman, (1991). Academic and Workplace Sexual Harassment. SUNY Press. pp. 2–5.
"Sexual Harassment". U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Schickman, Mark I. Sexual Harassment. The employer's role in prevention. American Bar Association
Sexual harassment bad for victims and for business June 22, 2005
"For Help with the Handling of Harassment". Western Cape Government. Retrieved 2012-10-07.
Vladutiu, C.J. et al. (2011) "College- or university-based sexual assault prevention programs: a review of program outcomes, characteristics, and recommendations"
Heyman, Richard (1994). Why Didn't You Say That in the First Place? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers
