Sexual Harassment In The Workplace

The sexual harassment of a woman by a man higher on the corporate ladder conveys the message that she is primarily perceived, not as a workplace colleague and a valuable asset, but rather as a sexual object. The sexual harassment of women expresses the age-old belief that women should be sexually available to men, and it simultaneously reminds women that they are neither respected nor viewed as workplace equals.

Because sexual harassing acts generally evolve from unequal status between a man and a woman, the harassment of a female worker usually involves a power relationship affecting the terms and conditions of the woman’s employment. Since such acts generally culminate in a hostile and offensive work environment, the harassment woman must live and work under abusive and antagonistic conditions every working day. Women, therefore, perceive sexual harassment as a reflection of a status that emphasizes their sex roles over their work roles and thus threatens their livelihood.

Catharine A.MacKinnon, the first to argue that workplace sexual harassment constitutes a major problem for women, stated in her seminal book Sexual Harassment of Working Women. Soon after, federal appellate court ruled that if a supervisor, with the knowledge of his employer, makes sexual demands of a subordinate female employee and condition her employment status on a favorable response to those demands, he and his employer act in Violation of Title VII.

A sexually hostile environment is one that is both objectively and subjectively hostile : objectively, in that any reasonable person would find it hostile or abusive, and subjectively, in that the victim of the harassment also perceives it to be so. Whether a work environment is sufficiently hostile or abusive to support a sexual harassment claim is determined by viewing all the circumstances, including:-

• the frequency of the acts of sexual harassment.

• the severity of the offensive conduct.

• whether the offensive conduct was physically threatening or verbal.

• whether the victim was humiliated by reason of the conduct.

• whether the harasser was a co-worker or a supervisor.

• whether other workers joined in the harassment.

• whether the harassment was directed at more than one individual.

• whether the harassment unreasonably interfered with the victim’s work performance, thus altering the terms and conditions of her employment.

Title VII does not prohibit all sex-related conduct at the work site. Genuine differences in the ways men and women routinely interact fail to rise to the level of sexual harassment. Flirtation, teasing, off-hand comments, isolated incidents, and vulgar language that is trivial and annoying are generally insufficiently serious to support a sexual harassment charge.