ANSWER
Sexual harassment is a type of harassment that involves the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, such as unwanted and inappropriate offers of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. [1] Sexual harassment encompasses various behaviors, from verbal infractions to sexual abuse or assault. [2] Harassment can occur in multiple social settings, including the workplace, home, school, and religious institutions. Harassers and victims can be of any gender or sex.
ORDER WITH US AND GET FULL ASSIGNMENT HELP FOR THIS QUESTION AND ANY OTHER ASSIGNMENTS (PLAGIARISM FREE)
Sexual harassment is illegal in modern legal contexts. Because they do not impose a “general civility code,” sexual harassment laws generally do not prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or minor isolated incidents. [4] Harassment in the workplace may be illegal if it is frequent or severe, resulting in a hostile[CitationCitation needed] or offensive work environment, or if it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim’s demotion, firing, or quitting). However, the legal and social definitions of sexual harassment differ by culture.
Employer sexual harassment is a form of illegal employment discrimination. Preventing sexual harassment and defending employees accused of sexual harassment have become critical goals of legal decision-making for many businesses or organizations.
History and etymology
Although similar concepts have existed in many cultures, the modern legal understanding of sexual harassment was developed in the 1970s.
The term “sexual harassment” refers to inappropriate sexual behavior.
Although Catharine MacKinnon, a legal activist, is sometimes credited with establishing sexual harassment laws in the United States with her 1979 book Sexual Harassment of Working Women,[5] she did not coin the term. The phrase first appeared in print in a 1972 issue of Toronto’s The Globe and Mail newspaper. [6] The time was first used in a 1973 report on discrimination called “Saturn’s Rings” by Mary Rowe, Ph.D. Rowe was the Special Assistant to the President and Chancellor for Women and Worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at the time (MIT). [8] As a result of her efforts at MIT, the university was one of the first large organizations in the United States to develop specific sexual harassment policies and procedures.
According to Rowe, workplace harassment of women was discussed in women’s groups in Massachusetts in the early 1970s. Lin Farley, an instructor at Cornell University, discovered that women in a discussion group frequently described being fired or quitting a job because they were harassed and intimidated by men. [9] In May 1975, she and colleagues coined the term “sexual harassment” to describe the problem and generate interest in a “Speak Out” event. She later detailed sexual harassment in her testimony before the New York City Human Rights Commission in 1975. [10] [11] According to journalist Susan Brownmiller’s book In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (1999), the women at Cornell became public activists after being asked for assistance by Carmita Dickerson Wood, a 44-year-old single mother who was being harassed by a faculty member at Cornell’s Department of Nuclear Physics. [12] [13] [14] Farley wrote the book Sexual Shakedown: The Sexual Harassment of Women on the Job, published by McGraw-Hill in 1978 and Warner Books in paperback in 1980. [9]
Lin Farley, Susan Meyer, and Karen Sauvigne went on to found Working Women United, which, along with the Alliance Against Sexual Coercion (founded in 1976 by Freada Klein, Lynn Wehrli, and Elizabeth Cohn-Stuntz), was a pioneer in bringing sexual harassment to public attention in the late 1970s. One of the first legal formulations of sexual harassment as consistent with sex discrimination and thus prohibited behavior under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 appeared in Catharine MacKinnon’s seminal book “Sexual Harassment of Working Women,” published in 1979. [15]
Important sexual harassment cases
Sexual harassment was first codified in U.S. law in the 1970s and 1980s due to several sexual harassment cases. Many of the first women to take on these cases were African Americans, often former civil rights activists who applied civil rights principles to sex discrimination. [16]
Williams v. Saxbe (1976) and Paulette L. Barnes, Appellant, v. Douglas M. Costle, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (1977), ruled that firing someone for refusing a supervisor’s advances was sex discrimination.
[16]
[17] Around the same time, Bundy v. Jackson (1981) was the first federal appeals court decision to rule that workplace sexual harassment constituted employment discrimination.
[18] In Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, the Supreme Court agreed with this decision five years later. Alexander v. Yale (1980) was another trailblazing legal case that established that sexual harassment of female students could be considered sex discrimination under Title IX and thus illegal. Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co. was the first class-action lawsuit, filed in 1988. (concluding nine years later).
Situations
Sexual harassment can occur in various settings, including factories, schools, colleges, the theater, and the music industry.
The perpetrator frequently has or is about to have power or authority over the victim (owing to differences in social, political, educational, or employment relationships as well as in age). Harassment relationships can be defined in a variety of ways:
A client, a coworker, a parent or legal guardian, a relative, a teacher or professor, a student, a friend, or a stranger can all be the perpetrator.
Harassment can occur in various settings, including schools, colleges, workplaces, and public places.
Harassment can occur whether or not witnesses are present.
The perpetrator may be unaware that their actions are offensive or constitute sexual harassment. The perpetrator may be completely unaware that their activities are potentially illegal. [3]
Harassment can occur when the target person is unaware or does not understand what is happening.
An incident could occur only once.
Stress, social withdrawal, sleep disorders, eating difficulties, and other health problems can result from harassment.
Both the victim and the perpetrator can be of any gender.
The perpetrator and victim may be of the same gender.
The incident could result from a misunderstanding between the perpetrator and the victim. These misunderstandings can be rational or irrational.
With the advent of the internet, social interactions, including sexual harassment, have become more common online, such as in video games or chat rooms.
According to 2014 PEW research on online harassment statistics, 25% of women and 13% of men between the ages of 18 and 24 have experienced sexual harassment online.
[27]
At the office
More information: Sexual harassment in the classroom and Workplace sexual harassment in the United States
Icon of the globe.
The examples and perspectives in this section primarily focus on the United States and do not represent a global perspective. You may improve this section, discuss the issue on the talk page, or create a new paragraph. (June 2019) (Find out when and how to remove this template message.)
Workplace sexual harassment is defined as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature… when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment” by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
[28] “The challenged conduct must be unwelcome in the sense that the employee did not solicit or incite it, and that the employee considered the conduct to be undesirable or offensive.” [29] “Especially when the alleged harasser has reason to believe (e.g., prior consensual relationship) that the advances will be welcomed, it is critical for the victim to communicate that the conduct is unacceptable.” [29]
In the United States, 79% of sexual harassment victims are women, while 21% are men. A supervisor harassed 51% of those who reported being harassed. [CitationCitation required] The industries with the most sexual harassment reports between 2005 and 2015, according to EEOC data, were restaurant and hospitality, health care, academia, and the military. [30] If the victims did not comply with their predators’ request, 12% were threatened with termination. [CitationCitation required]
See also: Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill Supreme Court Nominations.
An “I Believe Anita Hill” pin in support of Anita Hill’s Senate Judiciary Committee testimony in 1991, in which she accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.
Anita Hill testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991 against Supreme Court of the United States nominee Clarence Thomas, citing sexual harassment.
[31] Hill claimed in televised hearings on October 11, 1991, that Thomas sexually harassed her while he was her supervisor at the Department of Education and the EEOC. [32] According to Hill, Thomas asked her out on social occasions numerous times during her two years as his Assistant [33]. When she declined, he used work situations to discuss sexual topics and make advances. [34] [33] Since Hill’s testimony in 1991, the term “sexual harassment” has gained currency outside of academic and legal circles, and the number of cases reported in the United States and Canada has steadily increased. [31]
See Paula Jones and Bill Clinton’s allegations of sexual assault and misconduct.
In a 1994 lawsuit, Arkansas state employee Paula Jones accused President Bill Clinton of sexual harassment.
Paula Jones, a civil servant and former Arkansas state employee filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1994. Jones accused Clinton of sexual harassment on May 8, 1991, at the Excelsior Hotel in Little Rock, Arkansas. Jones v. Clinton reached the United States Supreme Court on May 27, 1997, after a series of civil suits and appeals through the United States District Court and the United States Court of Appeals from May 1994 to January 1996. On November 13, 1998, a federal appeals court resolved the case. [35] Jones maintains that Clinton sexually harassed her. [36] Clinton retains her denial. [37]
Bribery of a sexual nature
A sexual bribe promises an increase in work status or pays in exchange for the solicitation of sex, any sexual activity, or other sex-related behavior. It occurs in the workplace when a sexual relationship with an employer or superior is made an explicit or implied condition for obtaining/retaining employment or its benefits. A sexual bribe can be overt or subtle, but it is still considered quid pro quo sexual harassment. [38][39]
In the armed forces
Main article: Military sexual harassment
Sexual harassment is far more common in the military than in civilian settings, according to studies.
[40]
[page required]
[41] In 2018, an estimated 20,500 people in the U.S. armed forces were assaulted (roughly 13,000 women and 7,500 men), an increase from 14,900 in 2016. [42] According to a Canadian study, key risk factors associated with military settings include personnel’s typically young age, the ‘isolated and integrated’ nature of accommodation, women’s minority status, and the disproportionate number of men in senior positions. [43] It is also thought that the traditional masculine values and behaviors that are rewarded and reinforced in military settings, as well as their emphasis on conformity and obedience, play a role. [44] [45] [46] [47] [48] Canadian research has also discovered that the risk increases during military operations. [49]
While some male military personnel is subjected to sexual harassment, women are far more likely to be affected.
According to research from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, younger women who join the military at a younger age are at a higher risk. [52][53][54]
Child recruits (those under the age of 18) and children in cadet forces are also at risk. Since 2012, hundreds of complaints of cadet sexual abuse have been filed in the United Kingdom. [55][56][57] One out of every ten complaints of sexual assault in military settings in Canada comes from child cadets or their parents. [55][56][57]
Individuals detained by the military are also vulnerable to sexual harassment. During the Iraq War, for example, U.S. army and CIA personnel committed several human rights violations against detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison, including rape, sodomy, and other sexual abuse[60]. [61][62][63]
Although the risk of sexual misconduct in the armed forces is widely acknowledged, research in Australia, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States have found that personnel is frequently reluctant to report incidents, typically due to fear of retaliation.
Women who have experienced sexual harassment are more likely than other women to develop stress-related mental illnesses.
According to research conducted in the United States, when sexual abuse of female military personnel is psychiatrically traumatic, the likelihood of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after deployment on operations increases by nine.
Variable behaviors
One of the challenges in understanding sexual harassment is that it encompasses a wide range of behaviors. In most (but not all) cases, the victim finds it difficult to describe their experience. This could be due to difficulty classifying the situation, or it could be due to the recipient’s stress and humiliation. Furthermore, behavior and motivations differ between cases.
Author Martha Langelan distinguishes four types of harassers.
A predatory harasser is someone who derives sexual pleasure from humiliating others. This harasser may become involved in sexual extortion and harass targets frequently to see how they react. Those who do not resist may become rape victims.
A dominance harasser: the most common type who engages in harassing behavior as an ego boost.
Strategic or territorial harassers who seek to maintain privilege in jobs or physical locations, for example, a man’s harassment of a female employee in a predominantly male occupation.
A street harasser: Another type of sexual harassment performed in public places by strangers. Street harassment includes verbal and nonverbal behavior, remarks that are frequently sexual, and comment on physical appearance or a person’s presence in public. [68]
Prevention
Poster created by the U.S. Army’s Sexual Harassment/Assault Response & Prevention (SHARP) (SHARP)
Sexual harassment and assault may be prevented by secondary school,[69] college,[70][71], and workplace education programs.
[72] At least one program for fraternity men produced “sustained behavioral change.” [70][73]
Many sororities and fraternities in the United States take preventive measures against hazing and hazing activities during the participants’ pledging processes (which may often include sexual harassment) (which may often include sexual harassment). Many Greek organizations and universities nationwide have anti-hazing policies that explicitly recognize various acts and examples of hazing and offer preventive measures for such situations. [74] [Full CitationCitation needed]
Anti-sexual harassment training programs have little evidence of effectiveness, and “Some studies suggest that training may, in fact backfire, reinforcing gendered stereotypes that place women at a disadvantage.”
The use of audio and video recording can help in preventing sexual harassment in the workplace.
Audio recording apps are available on smartphones and can, for instance, be used during job interviews.
QUESTION
What kinds of attitudes and behaviors are indicators that a man is likely to behave in a sexually coercive way? Give 4 example and explain each, and how do you prevent it?
Please be thorough with your response and be sure to back up all information with reputable sources
Topic 2
Imagine that you are asked to speak to incoming freshmen about sexual harassment. What information would you give them, and what advice would you offer to anyone who felt he or she was being sexually harassed?