Despite the serious consequences that can stem from sexual harassment, whether it involves men or women, sexual harassment against men is often not taken that seriously.
There has been extensive research looking at how sexual harassment can affect women, both in terms of the emotional consequences and reduced job prospects, but fewer studies have looked at how men are affected.
Many cases of workplace sexual harassment never get reported. People quit or hush things up to avoid going public. However in reported instances, about 55% are perpetrated by co-workers. Occurrences involving a supervisor or manager total 39%. Those committed by a client or customer account for 13%.
Kinds of Sexual Harassment at Work.
According to Canadian Labour Relations, an industrial relations management & training consultancy, sexual harassment incidents usually fall into one of the following four categories:
Gender Harassment
Includes negative remarks, belittling jokes about the opposite sex or about sexual orientation .
Non-Verbal Sexual Advances
Inappropriate or forced touching, intentionally getting too close, leering, making sexual gestures, displaying sexually explicit material such as pornography or degrading images in the workplace, and sexual assault.
Verbal Sexual Attention
Unwanted vocal flirting, asking questions about or referencing someone’s sex life, and pestering for dates or sexual favours.
Sexual coercion
Threats of demotion or job loss, or offering job benefits, in exchange for sexual favours.
A fifth category includes any of the above unwanted actions conducted electronically (e.g. by text, phone, email or social media posts).
Your rights As A Victim
Employers have a legal duty to protect their staff from physical or psychological harm. If you are being victimized by any of the above behaviours, you’re experiencing a "poisoned work environment".
This is illegal and accounts for most of the complaints received by Human Rights Commissions across the country. The Commission will prosecute both the offending employee and the employer (for not putting an immediate stop to it).
Sexual coercion involving job-related threats or bribes to force unwilling workers to enter into a sexual relationship with the harasser.
One example of this is when an employer threatens to fire an employee if he/she doesn't agree to sex.
While often the most damaging, most harassment tends not to be this blatant.
Unwanted sexual attention involving unwelcome sexual advances towards someone else in the workplace that are regarded as unwelcome or offensive.
This can include sexual touching and pressuring for a date. Since it can involve threats or bribes, there can be considerable overlap between this category and the first one.
Then there is gender harassment involving hostile behavior aimed at undermining workers simply due to their gender. This can include denigrating comments, off-color jokes that are intended to be offensive, mocking, and even violent threats. Women expressing strong feminist ideals are often targeted this way.
While this is the most common form of sexual harassment in the workplace, it is also the least likely to be seen as harassment.
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Many women suffer silently after being sexually harassed out of fear of retaliation. Admittedly, even though retaliation is illegal, there is no guarantee an employer will not engage in such behavior.
To remain silent, however, and hope the problem will go away on its own rarely works. Harassers typically escalate their behavior to the point where an employment relationship is no longer possible for the victim.
Further, harassers typically do not victimize only one individual, but often harass others. Thus, asserting your rights can make all the difference in stopping a cycle of abuse and affecting real change in the workplace.
Don’t let the lack of discussion lead you to believe sexual harassment is not prevalent. Many factors keep people from speaking up, and accusations are often swept under the rug.
Somebody dealing with sexual harassment may be too humiliated to speak out, or the person sexually harassing them may be in a position of authority.
We all know that managers have a lot of sway over team cultures. To ensure everyone feels safe and secure at work, managers need to help cultivate workplaces that don’t tolerate any form of sexual harassment. Managers need to encourage employees to speak up, and they need to support and listen to workers who do come forward.
Adopt a Clear Policy.
Every business should have an employee handbook, and this handbook should clearly outline your company’s attitude and policy toward sexual harassment.
This is the first step in making it clear that your organization won’t shy away from such matters, which will go a long way toward making employees feel safer.
Your sexual harassment policy should:
Clearly define sexual harassment.
State that your business will not tolerate this behavior.
Stipulate that sexual harassment will be met with discipline or termination.
Outline a procedure for filing sexual harassment complaints.
Explain that HR and management will investigate fully any complaint received.
Make it clear that retaliation against sexual harassment complaints will not be tolerated
Sexual harassment at work can have very serious consequences both for the harassed individual as well as for other working women who experience it secondhand.
The consequences to the individual employee can be many and serious.
In some situations, a harassed woman risks losing her job or the chance for a promotion if she refuses to give in to the sexual demands of someone in authority.
In other situations, the unwelcome sexual conduct of co-workers makes the working conditions hostile and unpleasant- putting indirect pressure on her to leave the job.
Sometimes, the employee is so traumatized by the harassment that she suffers serious emotional and physical consequences and very often, becomes unable to perform her job properly.
The effect on the morale of all employees can also be serious.
Both men and women in a workplace can find their work disrupted by sexual harassment even if they are not directly involved.
Sexual harassment can have a demoralizing effect on everyone within range of it, and it often negatively impacts company productivity on the whole.
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