Harassment and Women

Jacob McManus

Harassment and Women

Place yourself in the perspective of a woman worker who was just asked by your boss to exchange her body for a promotion at work. If I was in her position, it would feel uncomfortable and my mentality and health would be compromised, just because of a simple question like that. This vague situation is deemed as sexual harassment in the workplace. By law, sexual harassment is defined as any form of sex discrimination that can include: Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment 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 (Facts About Sexual Harassment). Sexual harassment victims can be either a man or woman, but for this topic I want to concentrate sexual harassment on women in their work environment. Women are substantially increasing the quantity of their gender in the workplace, but face many forms of sexual harassment when it concentrates the inequalities presented every day. Examples of harassment in women can include unequal pay, discrimination, and objectifying, with financial and mental effects. With this, we need a broad view on what causes women to experience sexual harassment, its effects on women in the workplace, and to induce a remedy to decrease or even eliminate sexual harassment presented at work.

What causes and creates sexual harassment can be vague and opaque. One scholar named Susan Faludi, the author of Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, states that “male hostility toward women in the workplace is closely connected to male attitudes about the ‘proper’ role of a man in society.  Surveys on men’s perception of masculinity, carried out in the U.S., for example, indicate that the leading definition of masculinity is being ‘a good provider for his family.’” Ms. Faludi then adds “…that some men perceive the ‘feminist drive for economic equality’ as a threat to their traditional role.  Thus, sexual harassment is a form of violence perceived as self-protection” (Petrocelli).

It sounds true, because of the evidence of lesser pay, lack of promotions, and exploitation that will be shown in further reading correlated to what Faludi explained. As a man, I am exposed to the male culture developed here in California and the United States. I witness the relationships between men and women in the workplace and I agree with Faludi where it seems like males are presenting females to be of an inferior kind because of the roles that were placed for women in the past. I believe it was the industrial revolution that was the start of gender inequality in the United States, where males were heavily supporting the contribution towards innovations of new technology because the roles of women were not used towards the masculinity of hard work and labor during that time. Already women’s rights were blinded and hindered with society pushing women towards the roles as mothers in a house. Women didn’t fit into the male centered technological society because of the thoughts of men thinking women could not produce any innovations in their work. So I witness women not being involved with major roles in the workplace as they should have been, since culture tips the scale of equality towards the male majority during that time, and from what we see, is shown frequently.  

The cause of harassment and discrimination can affect many different outcomes throughout
women. A woman who is the target of sexual harassment often goes through the same process of victimization as one who has suffered rape, battering or other gender-related crimes- frequently blaming herself and doubting her own self-worth (Petrocelli). These demoralizing effects have discouraged women from asserting themselves in the workplace, where it reinforces stereotypes in women to be employed as objects. It creates a hostile environment and raises issues of discouragement for further promotion inside of that environment, as well as developing higher turnover rates. Both men and women can be disrupted by sexual harassment so all employees can be effected even if they are not directly involved, so it also affects the company as a whole. One form of harassment is unequal pay for women for the same amount of work. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) based on 2013 American Community Survey Data, has developed a state rankings chart for gender pay for 2013; it states that for every dollar that a man makes in the United States, a woman makes 78.3 cents per dollar.  This is clearly unfair for the amount of money that is being unaccounted for, to where it should have reparations for equal work. Victims of sexual harassment lose 4.4 million dollars in wages and 973,000 hours in unpaid leave each year in the United States. With this, women are nine times more likely than men to quit their jobs, five times more likely to transfer, and three times more likely to lose jobs because of harassment (2014 Feminist Majority Foundation).

Most women take psychological effects on sexual harassment too. According to data compiled by Equal Rights Advocates, a women’s law center in the U.S., 90 to 95% of sexually harassed women suffer from some debilitating stress reaction, including anxiety, depression, headaches, sleep disorders, weight loss or gain, nausea, lowered self-esteem and sexual dysfunction (University of Minnesota). Looking at this statistic I was personally ashamed of the outcomes of sexual harassment towards women in the workplace. As a man I have no empathy towards the effects on women, but I understand the position women have with how they are objectified in society. I take afternoon walks with my fiancé frequently for us to have fresh air and to relax our mind from our days, but we never seem to relax because whenever each car that drives by us walking, I see a large percentage of men staring and objectifying my fiancé. It does create hostility where she feels helpless and victimized on the effects of men blatantly staring at her. Its sexual harassment and it’s demoralizing and frustrating.

To legally remedy and solve sexual harassment in the workplace we need to be able to place the victim where he or she would have been if the discrimination had not existed.  When discrimination was a significant factor in the case, the victim is usually entitled to compensation for the consequences of the discriminatory action. These compensations can include where the person: has lost an employment opportunity, lost wages, expenses, and for injury to dignity, feelings, or self respect. If a person has a case determining sexual harassment, they can file their claim under the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC). The EEOC conducts its own investigation of the company or organization. Through the investigation, the EEOC determines whether or not harassment occurred, whether harassment is provable in court, and whether other employees have suffered from sexual harassment as well. Upon finishing the investigation, the EEOC makes a determination. If the EEOC finds in the favor of the victim (agrees you were harassed), it can pursue (settle) the case for you (happens in less than 1% of cases filed) or issue you a 'right-to-sue' letter so you and your lawyer can file a lawsuit independently (2014 Feminist Majority Foundation). For wages, because of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, it prohibits sex discrimination in the payment of wages to women for doing the same amount of work. With that, you are entitled to all or part of the lost wages or benefits which can be linked towards the case of sexual harassment. Any psychological impact of the harassment on the victim, physical or verbal, can be rated by the frequency, duration, and nature of the harassment and will be reparations for the damages caused.

Sexual harassment is unwelcome to any situation and can be avoided through obtaining liability through our own actions. We have not come far to eliminate sexual harassment towards women in the workplace, and it usually is because of the spending hours that causes harassment to be pushed aside. It is impossible to truly know what it feels like to be a victim of sexual harassment, unless you have personally experienced it. Again as a manager or supervisor, you are liable for the people that work for you, and it is noted to have zero tolerance for any type of uncomfortable situations in your workplace. If there is clear evidence that the accused is guilty, terminate the offender to set a precedent for your company and to show that sexual harassment will not be dealt with lightly. In my opinion, our American culture does a good job on objectifying women in the workplace. From man's perspective, we have a predisposition that women are the weaker gender, and that could be true in a physiological perspective but not true with a cognitive perspective.  As for the past years, women have been subject to inferior roles in the workplace and pushed away from higher positions because of these predispositions, which causes sexual harassment to be used in the workplace for competitive reasons. This act needs to be stopped.  The opportunity cost of withholding women from achieving goals could result in losing women capable of helping our culture and ourselves. It is too big of a problem that has been pushed aside for too long.