Sexual Harassment and Gender - Literature review Example

Sexual Harassment and Gender Introduction The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission describes Sexual Harassment as a “form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 , and includes unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individuals employment, unreasonably interferes with an individuals work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.” (Sexual Harassment, US EEOC website). This definition of sexual harassment is quite elaborate and takes into account the work settings of an individual – meaning that the scope of sexual harassment is limited to acts performed in the work environment of the person. This is in contrast to other crimes of sexual nature, like sexual assault, sexual abuse, rape, molestation etc. that can occur in any surroundings home, office, or other. Till lately, and especially in lesser developed nations, the concept of sexual harassment was not explicit – the workforce was mostly homogeneous (though research has shown that the culprit and the victims need not be of opposite gender), and awareness of human rights was very low. However, in most nations, sexual harassment has now been defined, and punitive action set to punish the perpetrator. There have been a few highly publicized cases of sexual harassment – e.g., the alleged sexual harassment of Paula Jones that ultimately lead to President Bill Clinton’s Impeachment trial in 1999(Clinton Impeachment, Eagleton Institute of Politics website), and several others that have gone unnoticed or undecided. It has been seen that the general assumption about the gender of the party involved was that women were largely the victims while men were the offenders. However, recently there have been increasing number of sexual harassment cases filed by male workers against their female co-workers, a la Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas) in “Disclosure”. (Disclosure, 1994). This paper endeavors to discover if it’s only the female workers who are victims of sexual harassment, and if, by its definition, sexual harassment can exclude a male from becoming the victim. The author has compiled his findings based on several researches undertaken on similar topics, as well as statistics published by government and non-government organizations. Literature Survey In 2000, in the United States there were 15,618 cases filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on the grounds of sexual harassment. Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), an organization that has been dealing in women-related issues since 1974, states that almost two-thirds sexual harassment complaints are brought against a woman’s immediate supervisor or another person with greater power and 50% of all offenders are the direct supervisors of their target. According to ERA, it is estimated that 95 percent of sexual harassment cases go un-reported. An interesting finding was that fifteen percent of all sexual harassment suits are filed by men. (Nixon Wendy, 2002). In 1976, Redbook magazine poll found that nine out of ten women said they had been subjected to unwanted sexual advances at work. In 1980, the federal government (U S) surveyed its own employees and found that 42% of women stated they had experienced some form of work-related sexual harassment while fifteen percent of men reported the same. A similar survey seven years later, revealed that the statistics have not changed. Also, Surveys done in the private sector revealed similar results. (Barry S. Roberts and Richard A. Mann, 2005). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) receives about 15,000 sexual harassment cases each year, and the trend shows that harassment complaints filed by men has more than tripled in recent years - currently, standing at 11%. (Nikki Katz, Sexual Harassment Statistics in the Workplace, online at http://womensissues.about.com/cs/governornews/a/sexharassstats.htm). A study conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine in Ontario found that 77% of female family physicians reported sexual harassment by their patients. (Mauricio Velasquez, 2006). According to Velasquesz, a sexually harassed male faces embarrassment, and is therefore unable to speak out about the problem – a cause attributed to the society’s stereotypes of man, that a man would almost always enjoy such behavior from a woman, and not fear it. There have been increasing cases of sexual harassment of men by women in power – either by creating a hostile work environment or by quid pro quo for sexual favors. Example, in 1997, Professor Joanne Marrow, a tenured professor and lesbian activist, was alleged to have sexually harassed the male students of her class by creating a hostile environment for the men attending her lecture.(Baron A. Robert and Donn Byrne, 2000). In 2002, The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Tyson Foods, accusing the food producer of subjecting a male manager to sexual harassment and then firing him when he complained about a female workers unwelcome advances. (The Associated Press, 2002). Research by Christopher Uggen, published in the American Sociological Review describes workplace conditions for men and women who might be vulnerable to sexual harassment. (Uggen C and Amy Blackstone, 2004). Uggen and Blackstone did several small-scale surveys and intensive interviews with 700 men and women, and found that increasingly, sexual harassment victims include men and adolescents as well as women. They found that “one of every three women and one of every seven men that took part in their study reported they were sexually harassed by their mid-twenties. Yet, those men and women had never told anyone about their experience prior to the study.” (Uggen C and Amy Blackstone, 2004). Conclusion The exhaustive Literature survey brought to light that, by definition – creating a hostile work environment, and/or quid pro quo for sexual favors - sexual harassment is applicable to both male and female. However, statistics and survey results show that a larger population of the harassment victims is comprised of women, though cases filed by male victims are also found. Women, by their physicality and by their nature (less dominating) are more susceptible to sexual harassment. Though, men too are facing increasing numbers of sexual harassment scenarios in their work life, the reporting of such cases is yet very low – a possible reason being the gender stereotyping and male ego not permitting a man to go ahead with a case which might make him bear the brunt of jokes. Organizations are recognizing the existence of sexual harassment – for both men and women, and there has been considerable steps taken by them towards educating it’s employees on what comprises sexual harassment, as well as in preventing it. Finally, it can be concluded that sexual harassment is very real, is happening to both male and female workers, and it is a topic that should be dealt with sensitivity – especially when male victims are involved. References 1. Sexual Harassment, US EEOC website, available at http://www.eeoc.gov/types/sexual_harassment.html, accessed on 12th March 2006. 2. Clinton Impeachment, Eagleton Institute of Politics website, available online at http://www.eagleton.rutgers.edu/e-gov/e-politicalarchive-Clintonimpeach.htm, accessed on 17th March 2006. 3. Disclosure, 1994. Review available online at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109635/, accessed on 14th March 2006. 4. Nixon Wendy, 2002, Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: A Research Brief, Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University, available online at http://www.cww.rutgers.edu/dataPages/rbshintheworkforce.pdf. 5. Barry S. Roberts and Richard A. Mann, 2005, Sexual Harassment In The Workplace, online at http://www3.uakron.edu/lawrev/robert1.html 6. Nikki Katz, 2005, Sexual Harassment Statistics in the Workplace, Women’s Issues, at About.com, online at http://womensissues.about.com/cs/governornews/a/sexharassstats.htm 7. Mauricio Velasquez, 2006, A New Era in Sexual Harassment, Sexual Harassment Prevention Centre, online at http://stopharass.com/article-sexual-harassment.htm. 8. Baron A. Robert and Donn Byrne, 2000, “Beyond Headlines”, Prejudice and Discrimination, in Social Psychology, pg. 247. Pearson Education, (Singapore) Pvt. Ltd., Indian Branch: India. 9. Government Sues Tyson Foods For Sexually Harassing Male Production Manager, The Associated Press, June 17, 2002, available online at http://www.vachss.com/help_text/archive/sues_tyson.html, accessed on 20th March 2006. 10. Uggen C. and Amy Blackstone, 2004, Males, Adolescents Are Increasingly Victims of Sexual Harassment in The Science of Mental Health, 20th April 2004, available online at http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/abuse/a/maleharass404.htm, accessed on 21st March 2006. Read More