Are You Sexually Harassed?
When the victim is lower in the hierarchy as the attacker, a relationship of dependency is formed between them.
Forms of sexual harassment in the work place are still whistling, hints and ambiguous comments. (Photoxpress)
Why does sexual harassment occur?
Expert researches show that in understanding sexual assault at a work place, the key factor is the distribution of power within a company and not a supposedly uncontrollable sexual urge. When a victim is lower in the hierarchy than the sexual attacker, a relationship of dependency is formed between them. The attacker has many possible measures at his disposal if the victim is disobedient, like making it harder to work and even firing the victim. The higher the position of a sexual predator in an organization, the more possibilities this person has to punish a victim’s disobedience, the less likely the chance the victim will try to defend him/herself is.
What are your options?
The victims of sexual harassment at the work place have three options: they can silently suffer and bare the attacks on their integrity until they lose it in one way or another. The second option is to stand up against the person who harasses (usually the superior) and so their conditions in the collective become even worse. The third option is to quit and thus threaten their own material existence.
Any of these options is treated as discrimination by American courts and a procedure can be filed against a company which allows these things to happen. Sexual harassment is an unwanted sexual act or any other act, based on sex, which threatens the dignity of men and women in the work place and it encompasses unwanted physical, verbal or non-verbal acts. A relevant question comes up here: What is wanted and what unwanted sexual behavior? By defining this difference, there is some objective, general criteria because the differences are always based on the subjective opinion of the people involved.
Forms of sexual harassment
The most common forms of sexual harassment in the work place are still whistling, hints and goggling, ambiguous comments concerning the appearance and the figure, ambiguous sexually explicit jokes, pornographic photos at the work place, telephone calls, letters or electronic messages containing sexual innuendo, promises of professional benefits for sexual favors, threats of negative professional consequences if you refuse sexual contact, coincidental physical contact, pinching and patting someone’s behind, coincidental touches of the breasts, forced hugs and kisses, exhibiting one’s sexual organs, invitations for intercourse and forcing someone to have intercourse.
During 1985 and 1987 there were almost 270 million dollars paid as compensation for sexual harassment at the work place in the USA. In the nineties, the figure went up to a billion dollars.
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