The Definition of Harassment - Essay Example

Institute Affiliation

Introduction

The term harassment is often misunderstood by people, or even generalized at certain instances to fit a certain set of incidents only. To properly define what harassment is, it is ANY such instance when a person repeatedly and purposefully gets unwanted behavior from a certain someone or a group of people. As the definition lays here, it can be seen how extremely broad the term is and to what extent it can go, when describing someone else's behavior. The main part to keep in mind here is the unwanted and unwillingness of the victim at hand, which is often confused as people refuse to regard people's consent and permission. Some of the things which may classify as harassment are verbal or written abuse, defamatory content on social media without backing, images, physical actions and gestures, facial expressions and any other thing which might be offensive to a certain person, is considered as harassment. (Yahnke, 2020)

Another thing to keep in mind here is that this behavior must be coming from the intent to harm, defame, torture, intimidate, or negatively affect the person in any way, for it to be classified as harassment. The part where the intent becomes a compulsory part of harassment is where most people tend to get away since the intent is purely personal and cannot be proven at most times, which is why MILLIONS of victims of all kinds of harassment choose to stay quiet about whatever they went through, rather than speak up and be challenged to provide proof. Thus harassment can also be classified as a certain type of discrimination against a certain person due to a personal characteristic based on which they are being discriminated against.

Nature and Scope of Harassment

Most of the harassment cases anyone ever hears about takes place in some sort of workplace. And even then, there are multiple types of harassment that people have to face. The most common one is discriminatory harassment against a person based on either their race, their gender, or any other personal characteristic that is in no way linked to what they do at the workplace. People are also faced with harassment based on what kind of religion they have or if they are disabled. This is done so by excluding them from positions and opportunities just based on any of these factors, thus discriminating. The second type is the personal harassment where on a one-to-one level, someone either passes remarks or says something offensive to a person, or tries to intimidate someone by using their power or status. Some common examples of this might be derogatory remarks, extreme criticism, inappropriate jokes, etc. The third kind is the physical and sexual harassment in which things take a step forward, and someone physically harms you or inappropriately touches you. It can also include spoken threats and clear intent to hurt someone else violently. A new and rising form of harassment in today’s day and age is the cyberbullying concept, where the social media and the internet are used to spread false information about someone or harass them by sending them unnecessary and inappropriate emails, texts, or content.

When it comes to explaining the extent to which harassment occurs in the United States, there are some statistics according to which about 80% of women and 45% men have been victims of some sort of harassment in their entire lives. When it comes to sexual harassment, about 75% of women have been subject to it, and about 30% of men. And this is just verbal sexual harassment. About 40% of women are subject to cyberbullying and cyber sexual harassment, and about 20% of men. About 35% of women have been followed in real life by harassers, and about 10% of men have seen the same. All the statistics of the kind show that in every aspect, women are subject to almost twice as much harassment, whether it’s the workplace, or even if they are simply walking in the street. (Chatterjee, 2020)

How Harassment has effected lives

Since women are the primary victim in harassment as the issue being talked about, thus the effect and toll harassment take on the personal and work lives of such women is huge. The first factor to consider here is that when a woman comes forward with a case of harassment, there is a lot that she has to face. What’s most surprising is that whenever they came forward, they weren’t met by immediate concern and apologies, rather a whole lot of questioning and doubts as to whether they are even telling the truth or not. And even if the complaints are believed, they are often blamed for how they handled the situation or ‘why were they so late in coming forward?’ giving no regard to the emotional trauma they had to go through, and the level of confidence that a woman needs to even decide to come forward. Therefore women aren’t just under-confident but reluctant because they have to face such questions and even more problems at work like not being able to get a promotion for not being a 'team player.' (Hart, 2020)

In another source, this is taken one step further, and it is discussed that one woman coming forward doesn't just affect her life only but affects the lives of all the women in the similar space, and they too have to be subject to the same kind of doubt and discrimination in terms of promotions and opportunities. Women start feeling detached from the workplace when they start seeing the repercussions of coming forward about such an incident. And even if women don’t report, the type of harassment that they may have to face, can force MANY women to leave their jobs rather than come forward, especially when they know how the upper officials will take the allegation and what is coming next. In other cases, even if the employee doesn’t leave, they are unable to do their jobs efficiently and achieve similar outcomes that they could before, thus affecting their overall performance as well. So they have to face negative consequences either way; come forward or stay quiet about it. ("Sexual Harassment - Effects of Sexual Harassment," 2020)

The victims of sexual harassment also have to face certain mental and psychological effects after going through what they did. A study conducted was able to determine that there is truly quite a positive relationship between a person who has been through sexual harassment and mental health being disrupted afterward. They were able to narrow down harassment as a key source of stress for not just women but also men, and this stress eventually leading to the victims becoming depressed. They were also able to determine that harassment doesn't just have immediate effects, but the effects stay on for quite some time. So even if someone was harassed a child, they would show repercussions and signs of the harassment later on in their adult life as well. The study was also able to determine that if a woman or a man was subject to sexual harassment in the earlier years of their life, they have more chances of being subject to harassment again, as adults, in their work-life, thus showing the long stringing effect that is linked with harassment. (Houle et al., 2011)

There are some added health repercussions that women often have to face as victims of harassment, which includes severe issues like insomnia and high blood pressure for the rest of their lives. The high blood pressure stems from the anxiety and depressive episodes that women start experiencing after being harassed. According to the respective study, every 1 in 5 working women are open about being sexually harassed at their workplace. The study also indicates that to treat insomnia and blood pressure problems, the women need to be put in situations where the repetition of similar events does not occur. Some other psychological and mental impacts that women often have to face is the self-isolation from other people and crowds because of the added anxiety. Women also have severe panic attacks because of the ongoing PTSD of harassment incidents. (Ojong, 2020)

Some of the younger women, particularly students, are also faced with harassment during their college life. Thus a Stanford sexual harassment policy indicates that women as students also deteriorate in terms of their health, study performance, and personal life. Students start skipping classes and avoiding situations under which they faced harassment. This could also be the other way round where faculty is the one being harassed, in which case their performance will greatly suffer, and most of them will even consider leaving their jobs for good. Faculty will also start becoming less and less social, and may even avoid official meetings and announcements just to avoid confrontation with a harasser. Thus again affecting their role and position at their respective job. ("Effects of Sexual Harassment | Sexual Harassment Policy Office," 2020)

Intervention

One of the most successful interventions which have been introduced alongside the #MeToo movement is the bystander intervention movement, which contains a lot of strategies, covering the overall area of harassment. The bystander intervention works to protect and include all the different populations and persons in a certain environment where harassment may take place, so for instance, if there is a college, the bystander intervention would include the entire faculty, the students, the families of the students, and so much so that even the shop and business owners nearby, so basically anyone in the vicinity of the college will be included. The purpose is to make everyone aware and create prevention methods by using social media campaigns and different mediums, so everyone in the vicinity has easy access.

The movement itself has a few stages where it moves from an individual approach to a relational one to a communal approach, then an institutional approach, and eventually a societal approach so that everyone is well integrated on all the different levels. It doesn’t just increase the awareness of the people in the vicinity, but also helps them learn the different skills and actions which may be taken when either they or someone else is being harassed in front of them. The effectivity of this movement is generally much higher because of the different levels being targeted, so the chances of loopholes are very less. And since this movement collects everyone eventually, harassment at all levels can be avoided, and it helps bring light to out of the ordinary cases as well.

Is social work a remedy for Harassment?

Social workers play a similar role in this entire process as to what the different movements and interventions play; however, their work tends to be relatively steadier and slow rather than a jumpstart of emotions. Social work is a facility like therapy per se, so if social workers start working for a cause, they start from the very little basics and then make their way up to the broader things, which are why most of the work they do takes time. Since the main role of social workers is so somewhat controlled the extent to which an issue exists in a society, they do have a good chunk of role in defining how well controlled the situation becomes.

When it comes to harassment, social work is an important factor of the remedy mainly because anti-harassment strategies are mostly preventative, so creating awareness is key here. And that is exactly what social workers do. Their work starts with making sure everyone is aware of what is right, and what isn't, what should be tolerated and what shouldn't, and thus certain SOP's are defined. Even after that, social workers create a space for people who are harassed, so they feel comfortable enough to come forward and address the issue rather than conforming to 'solutions' like staying quiet or leaving their jobs. But at the end of the day, it can’t be said that social workers alone are the remedy to an issue as big as harassment. People and authorities on all different levels need to be involved for some actual effect to take place. The harassment policies need to be more stringent, punishments need to be stricter so that the avoidance and fear of the punishment stop the action itself, and this is something which cannot be done without the authorities taking some action, or being involved.

Conclusion

Harassment is becoming more common by the minute. Where previously women and other victims were afraid to come forward, they are slowly becoming more confident and outspoken about such incidents because many authorities and workplaces have started taking strict actions as well. However, there still is a large fraction of the women who are still afraid of the confrontation and what will happen if they come forward. The only motivators such victims have are the social workers who are constantly working to make the world a safer and better place for them. Their efforts and attention to spreading awareness make women and victims feel more confident to deal with the issue rather than bear it on their own.