Sexual Harassment, Does Education Help?

Sexual Harassment, Does Education Help?

I recently observed sexual harassment behavior at work. Here's what I did. In my ENG Research in Human Sexuality class at Glendale Community College, I set out to observe whether or not MY definitions of sexual harassment actually occurred in my workplace on a regular basis. I define female harassment the same for males: touching, verbal terms, sexual questions, and sexual flirting were my most obvious concerns. From January 20 to 22 2002, I spent one hour each day, for three days, observing my co-workers in the cafeteria and lobby area of my place of employment, the City of Phoenix. Here is what I saw.

On three different occasions I saw female workers unnecessarily touching other co-workers, male and female, while they were talking by putting their hands on their shoulder and standing quite close while talking. The first instance occurred in the first floor lobby. I saw the occurrence form a distance, a woman worker talking to a male coworker. The male co-worker made a joke and the female employee found the joke hysterical and put her hands and head on his shoulder while she was laughing. From a distance it looked like it could be taken for something else. The second case also transpired in the first floor lobby. What I saw were two female coworkers; I guess they hadn't seen each other in a while. The first female worker gave the second worker a hug while the female worker just seem to take the hug rather than hug back. Through the five-minute conversation the initial female continuously stood face to face with the other worker while they talked. The third situation was similar to the first being that the female worker touched the male worker on the shoulder after a joke was made. The only difference is that it was in a group of workers.

As for verbal terms, sexual questions, and sexual flirting, I didn't witness any of that during my observation. I believe that employer/employee education of sexual harassment in the workplace would be helpful in preventing it from occurring.

Background

My first question is what is sexual harassment? I know that sexual harassment is a vague term that falls under the context of many situations and can be applied to many different circumstances. The actual definition of sexual quoted from the Bureau of National Affairs is: "Sexual harassment at work occurs whenever unwelcome conduct on the basis of gender affects a person's job. It is defined by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when:

 Submission to the conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual's employment, or

 Submission to or rejection of the conduct by an individual is used as a basis for employment decisions affecting such individual, or

 The conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's performance or creating an intimidating, or hostile, or offensive working environment "(Bureau 1).

Another less complex definition of sexual harassment from the Bureau of national affairs," Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of sex in defining the terms and conditions of employment. ...Actionable sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other forms of physical and verbal conduct of a sexual nature. ...Rather, if the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation or insults, or sexually oriented ridicule, conduct, or humor that is objectively severe and pervasive, the workplace is impermissibly hostile (Bureau 4).

I believe this definition tells me what sexual harassment is generally, but it's pretty broad, and alone doesn't actually teach or inform a person what sexual harassment is. That's why I think education is necessary.

To see what people consider sexual harassment, and if it falls in the legal definition of sexual harassment, I created a survey. I asked the question, "What is considered legal sexual harassment?" The questions and the responses were: commenting on a person's physical appearance 12% Discussing Sexual Activities with coworkers 23% Using terms such as "honey"23% and Touching scored 38% (Ireland). This survey showed me that most of the people surveyed thought actual physical contact and sexual references at work constituted sexual harassment.

Legal definition of sexual harassment

Here I will define sexual harassment by according to the court cases and lawsuits that have taken place. Sexual harassment is a term that has been developed and redefined over time by prior proceedings and court rulings. When I was trying to find the meaning of the term sexual harassment I believed that it was a good idea to look at previous lawsuits to see what situations the phrase sexual harassment applied to. One court case that helped classify sexual harassment was the case of Harris v. Forklift Systems. That case stated "...the Supreme Court rules that a discriminatorily abusive work environment is unlawful even if it does not affect an employee's psychological well being. It is enough if (1) the employee subjectively perceives a hostile work environment as a result of gender-based conduct and (2) the conduct was severe or pervasive enough to create an objectively hostile work environment-one that a reasonable person would find (Bureau 4). This case stated that a victim of sexual harassment does not have to be emotionally or mentally hurt, if the job feels hostile because of sexual conduct than that is considered sexual harassment.

Here is another look at a case that changed the way sexual harassment is dealt with. "A sexually hostile enforcement violation Title VII is found where women were a small minority of the work force and crude language, sexual graffiti, and pornography pervaded the workplace. Title VII is ' a sword to battle such conditions' not a shield to protect preexisting abuse environments the court declared. Robinson v. Jacksonville Shipyards" (Bureau 4). These examples help to identify the phrase sexual harassment giving a clear image of the instances that took place, which I feel is easier to understand rather than a lengthy definition.

In the survey I created I gave two examples of sexual harassment situations to see which one people would consider sexual harassment. The first example was: Two guys are talking about a sexual encounter while a female co-worker overheard.