Sexual Harassment Essay, Research Paper
Over the years, many people have believed that the issue of sexual
harassment should not be discussed in public. Sexual harassment was to be
discussed behind closed doors. In spite of this, the social and political
systems have changed instantaneously. This social problem has affected men
and women throughout time, however, it seems that the women of our society
more closely look at this issue. This social topic has encouraged women to
establish organizations in order to help them discuss the issues more openly
and to demand equality including fairness and justice throughout the
workplace and in their social lives as well.
In recent years, sexual harassment has been one of the most serious and
widespread problems found in the workplace. For this reason, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed, by the United Nations in 1948, to
help everyone in their fight for self-respect and dignity. Indeed sexual
harassment is an issue that complicates employment decisions. People also
recognize that it is an issue involving the creation of an antagonistic or
offensive work environment. In many instances, the issue of sexual
harassment is not something minor that can be easily solved.
The issue of sexual harassment pertains to everyone’s apprehension of an
individual’s comportment due to our societal social norms. Sexual
harassment, in most cases, involves a superior’s behavior towards a
subordinate. As mentioned before, most forms of sexual harassment occur in
the workplace. An employee can charge an employer with sexual harassment as a
result of the misconduct of managers, fellow employees, vendors, and even
customers. Eventually, this can cause a hostile work environment.
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It is true, for the most part, that sexual harassment comes in many
forms in the workplace. There are two significant ways in which one can
identify sexual harassment. They are called the “Quid Pro Quo” and the
“Hostile Environment Harassment.” The essence of the Quid Pro Quo theory of
sexual harassment occurs when an employee is confronted with sexual demands
to keep her job or obtain a promotion. This is a true violation of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, which is also referred to as the Title VII Act. Even
though sexual harassment by its very nature is complicated to define, the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission provides a general description of
sexual advances. The several basic varieties of the Quid Pro Quo harassment
indicate the unwelcome sexual advances and requests for sexual favors. It
also consist of other verbal or physical conducts dealing with a sexual
nature of constituting sexual harassment when the submission to such conduct
is made either explicitly or implicitly just because a term or a condition of
an individual’s employment. Secondly, the individual is used as a basis for
employment decisions affecting such individual. Finally, the result of such
conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an
individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or
offensive working environment. (Aggarwal, 89-93)
Another form of sexual harassment is a hostile work environment. The
hostile environment theory involves sexual advances between the supervisor
and the employee. An employee’s work performance will be less effective due
to these so-called sexual advances. However, a victim can file a complaint
against their harasser so that they do not continuously force them to
participate. Consequently, they will be forced to hand in their resignation.
This issue of power has nothing to do with sex. For this reason, both
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male and females can be the harasser. The harasser’s main purpose is to
force another to feel or act in a certain way. Sometimes, sexual harassment
causes an individual from effectively performing his/her job. As a result,
is undermines an individual’s dignity.
In our society, there are three essential factors that relate to the
issue of sexual advances. These elements are a divergence of perceptions,
the complexity of human behavior and the attitudes of a sexist. (Lindemann,
46-48) It is often difficult to draw a line between what is acceptable and
what is unacceptable in a working environment because of the existence of
these ingredients. Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination, which can
manifest itself in terms of physical and psychological acts. Physically, the
recipient may be the victim of pinching, grabbing, hugging, patting, leering,
brushing against and forms of touching. Psychological harassment can occur
through the proposal of physical intimacy by requesting dates and sexual
favors.
In 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was established, by various
state legislation, to prohibit sex discrimination in the working environment.
After a decade of the enactment of Title VII, the Supreme Court confronted
its first case, Barnes vs. Train, which pertained to the is
harassment. In the case of Barnes vs. Train, a woman was hired as an
administrative assistant. She filed a lawsuit against her male director
through the Environment Protection Agency’s Equal Opportunities Division
because she refused to engage in sexual relations with him. Nevertheless,
the district court dismissed this case. The district court believed that
even though Barnes was treated unjustly, the discrimination was not because
she was a woman. It was because she refused to engage in sexual behavior
with her supervisor. (Baridon, 12,13) Another
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leading case recognized under the enactment of Title VII was Corne vs.
Bausch & Lomb Inc. In this particular case, there were two women who resigned
their positions in order to prevent their male supervisor from continuing to
take unsolicited and unwelcome sexual liberties with them. They sued their
supervisor for verbal and physical sexual advances. The district court in
Arizona dismissed the case on the ground that sexual discrimination exists in
many firm’s regulations. They decided that it would be unjust to those men
who had also been victims of harassment because there would not be any
grounds for a lawsuit. Under these circumstances, the district court only
recognizes sexual harassment when an employer avoids such charges due to the
fact that employees are against this kind of harassment. Thus, these cases
prove that the courts have a narrow interpretation of “sex discrimination”
and views inappropriate sexual conduct in the workplace as an issue to be
decided under criminal law. The court believes that sexual harassment is not
sex discrimination because it proves that discrimination was based on the
willingness or non-willingness to engage in sexual activity rather than
gender.
Another famous case, which had a strong impact on today’s society, was Hill
vs. Thomas. In 1992, Anita Hill sued Clarence Thomas, a well-respected
politician, for sexual harassment. The court ruled in favor of Thomas
because they believed that her argument wasn’t strong enough. As a result of
this, Anita Hill began a feminist movement ranging from college campuses to
the U.S. Navy. She also encouraged women to run for political office,
inspiring academic scholarships and debate. She has a awaken many people to
the injury of sexual harassment conflicts. (Caggiano, 111-114)
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The rate of sexual harassment increased dramatically in recent years. Most
respondents think that sexual harassment is a major problem in this country.
Not surprisingly, 82% of women and 43% of men recognize this problem in our
society. Only 42% categorize it as a minor problem. During 1987, a spokesman
who works in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Company realized
that the agency’s limited statistics on the number of claims filed were not
published. At this time, the agency began to collect and record this data.
The number of claims filed since that year has been unbelievable. There were
5,499 reported cases in 1988. In 1989 there were 5,623 cases and the cases
have been increasing annually. By 1993, 64% of females and 17% of males have
experienced some form of sexual harassment. (Serepca, 23)
Many people assume that sexual harassment is an expression of sexuality.
But most experts see it as a reflection of unequal power in the workplace.
Certainly, most victims are women in lowly positions. As more victims of
harassment have gone public, the damage the practice causes people to
repeatedly quite their jobs, switch professions, change majors or even drop
out of college. Sexuality is emotional, not rational. It may be an
important aspect of life, however it is also viewed as a frivolous concern at
work compared to the matters of government and education. For this reason,
most biologists, philosophers and theologians have a different notion
pertaining to the issue of sexual harassment due to their professional
standpoints. Indeed the work world in continuously dominated by men, many
women are still looking over their shoulders worrying whether they have
established their professional worth. Sexual harassment surveys demonstrate
that men view sexual advances as a minor problem in their work environment
but women
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consider it as a major problem. Whatever the case may be, the true
realization of this is that men are still the dominant group in our society.
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References
1. Aggarwal, Arjun P. “Sexual Harassment in the Workplace” Butterworths
Canada Ltd. 1992
2. Lindemann, Barbara and Kadue, David D. “Sexual Harassment in Employmet
Law” Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) Transactional Reporting Services 1993
3. Caggiano, Christopher “The Inc. Faxpoll” Mutimedia Publications Inc.
1992
4. Baridon, Andrea P. “The New Rules and Realities for Managing Men and
Women at Work” McGraw Hill Inc. 1994
5. Serepca, Beth “Sexual Harassment” Internal Auditor October 1995
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