Sexual Harassment and Gender Equality

Introduction

There has been an ongoing debate over the past year about gender equality claiming that men are more favoured in our world today compared to women. The debate led to the rise of issue like feminism and women empowerment. What people do not understand about gender equality is that it goes both ways affecting both men and women but the scale tips more towards women. Both men and women sharing the same rights, responsibilities, opportunity, and resources regardless of gender equates to gender equality. Today, gender inequality exist globally and it derails the growth of a country economically. Moreover, in order to understand gender equality better you have to take the gender and development approach. We have a clear picture of gender equality and inequality at a work place through sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment is unwelcome of sexual behaviour and the inappropriate promise of reward in exchange for several sexual favours either verbal or physical. At a workplace, either an individual can experience sexual harassment explicitly or implicitly through sexual advancement affecting the employee, employment decisions, employees work performance or creating a hostile working environment. There are three types of sexual harassment, physical conduct (unwanted physical touch which are an appropriate), verbal conduct (offensive flirtations), and non-verbal conduct (display of pornographic materials). There are two forms of sexual harassment mainly quid pro-quo-where a supervisor or a senior staff in control a subordinate staff solicit sexual favours in exchange for a job-related benefit. The second form is a hostile environment- where a hostile working environment is created by unwelcome sexual advances to anyone in a workplace. Both men and women experience sexual harassment but most cases reported are female related. Most cases of sexual harassment always end up unheard and unsolved making many individuals to suffer in pain and in silence.

Impact of sexual harassment 

Sexual harassment can influence either in a personal way or in the organization. The effects on a personal level can range from physiological implication; irritation to severe debility can lead to long-term physical implication. The situation can make a person feel humiliated, angry, degraded others experience guilt, blaming themselves that somehow they drove to the treatment. Victims always feel intimated not knowing the right action leaving them the choice to resign immolating permanent damage to their career. It can also cause unwanted pregnancies, contraction of sexually transmitted diseases and alteration of someone’s life in a negative way.

In an organization, it can lead to legal and ethical implications. To individuals who are sexually harassed tend to either resign, take sick leaves, or reduce the productivity due to poor job satisfaction this cost an organization to refill vacant position, deal with poor performance of affected employees or pay medical claims to affected victims is also the organization reputation in a negative way.

Tools to deter sexual harassment

Adaptation of an explicit sexual harassment policy – supervisors, managers, and employees should always follow the policy put in place to prevent cases of sexual harassment Training of supervisors, managers and employees-each year an organization should conduct training session teaching and explaining what sexual harassment is and teach how to deal with cases of sexual harassment. Complaint procedure- workers should have a clear vision of what to do in case they experience sexual harassment. A complain procedure should provide a staged process, assuring confidentiality, allow for external investigation and least possible disciplinary action. Consent – many sexual harassments occur due to lack of consent. This happens because most individual lack respect for there colleges. If approval is put out straight forward to an individual, it can cub the causes of sexual harassment.

The culture of sexual harassment

Most of the employers and employees always ignore the problem of sexual harassment limiting legal protection. Most companies use the nondisclosure agreement that prevents victims from reporting sexual harassment. While in some workplaces they have a culture that turns a blind eye even in some cases encourage unwanted sexual behavior. This culture was demeaning an individual making a toxic working environment. Research carried out shows that in the British industry that touching sexual assault and grouping is part of a culture. The British sector has little insensitive for employers to take action or prevent unwanted sexual behavior. The most predominant cause for sexual harassment is the cultural silence, silence is what makes sexual harassment thrive. The culture of secrecy is driven by control and power. If an employer wants the body of an employee, will threaten the employee with loose of a job to make them adhere to their demand. A culture of silence is heavily supported by the culture of acceptance making it a contributing factor. Victims remain silent since they are contradicted by human nature, legal standards, and organization dynamics. They always go through a cost-benefit analysis of whether to stay silent or go public with the issue. Victims of sexual harassment are always in a position of low power and voice making it difficult to speak out.

Doctor Rob Bogosian carried out a research that revealed four types of silence in workplace cost by sexual harassment; defensive silence which is rooted by fear, the silence passive safety to an employee where he views the working environment as a threat. Offensive silence-rooted in pursuit of justice. Fortility silence; rooted by apathy and cynicism. Social silence which is motivated protectionism.

Women all over the globe use the hashtag MeToo to talk about sexual harassment. The movement was a way to eradicate the culture of silence that allowed the continuation of sexual harassment in workplaces. This packed the formation of Times up movement that highlighted hoe victims are always silent about their sexual harassment experience. The movement surprisingly showcases to the world how women have been suffering for years in silence. Some reporting incidence that happened to them many years ago. Most women are always told that such behaviors were common and significant that did not amount to sexual harassment others were told to present proof before filing a formal complaint. To break the culture of silence, it’s crucial to have a channel where can report sexual harassment. The channels should ensure that the victims complain taken seriously and their concern validated and heard.

Conclusion

All complaint of sexual harassment should be taken seriously and handled sensitively in line with the company policy. Sexual harassment is an epidemic that if not addressed the female gender are the ones feeling the heat. We have seen the effects of sexual harassment in one’s life, and we can say it’s not pretty. In some cases, the victim may go to the extent of committing suicide because they could not live with the situation always haunting them. The hashtag used as helped may victims to come out of the closet and discuss their encounter whether it was physical or verbal harassment. More organization and self-help group should follow the idea and create public awareness on the types of sexual harassment since most assume only physical harassment counts as sexual harassment. They can do this by printing out flyers monthly or weekly and distributing them to show the harassments. An organization should also have a mandate and cultural behaviors that protect its employees. There can start by a zero-tolerant of sexual harassment in the workplace guiding the employees to keep their actions in the check. The sexual allegation can result in negative media attention and long-standing reputation damage making people distance themselves from the company. In the end, if the organization express bad reputation resulting in poor sales resulting in low income making them bankrupt. There are both bad for the employer and employees since they would be both jobless. We can conclude that sexual harassment exists under the following conditions-condition of employment or condition used a basis of the employment decision.

References

1. Hulin, Charles L., Fitzgerald, Louise F. & Drasgow, Fritz. Organizational Influences on Sexual Harassment. (Chapter 7)
2. Stockdale, Margaret S. (Ed.) (1996) Sexual Harassment in the Workplace. Thousand Oakes, California: Sage Publications, Inc. Especially
3. Thomas R. Roosevelt, Jr. (1991) Beyond Race and Gender: Unleashing the Power of YourTotal Work Force by Managing Diversity. New York: ACACOM.