Types Of Sexual Harassment Can Manifest Differently In The Workplace:-

Favoritism or Preferential Treatment

A supervisor’s isolated acts of preferential treatment in favor of an employee with whom he has a consensual sexual relationship may disadvantage other female workers, but it disadvantages men working under his supervision as well. A female employee denied an employment benefit as a consequence of such favoritism is not treated less favorably because she is a women. Since women in these circumstances are treated as well or as badly as their male co-workers, the supervisor’s conduct, though notably unfair, cannot be said to be discriminatory. Thus, female workers may not validly assert a claim of sexual harassment in this type of setting.

Claims of sexual harassment based on preferential treatment are likely to succeed expect where the favored employee has entered into a consensual relationship with the provider of the job benefits. Where the relationship is not consensual, but instead a condition for receiving favored treatment, other female workers denied favored treatment may assert a claim for sexual harassment.

Harassment by Non supervisory Co-workers

Under certain conditions, employers are liable for the sexually harassing conduct of nonsupervisory employees, just as for that of supervisory employees. An employer will be held responsible for co-worker act of harassment if it knew, or it should have known, of the conduct. Thus, in most cases in volving co-workers sexual harassment, the primary issue under adjudication is the extent of the employer’s knowledge of the harassing behavior.

Obviously, if the victim of the harassment reports the offensive conduct to a supervisor or management level employee the employer’s knowledge will not be an issue in the case. However, as noted earlier women are not often motivated to disclose immediately acts of sexual harassment committed against them. Except where the harassment is pervasive, the failure to report the harassing conduct of a non supervisory co-worker usually proves fatal to the victim’s case. Where the harassment is pervasive, however the court may assume that the employer had to have known of its presence even if it was never reported.

Where workplace harassment is pervasive, the court will charge the employer with “constructive” knowledge of its presence. The court assumes that management must have been aware of the co-worker harassment, whether or  not the victim of the harassment reported it.

Harassment by Non employees

An employer’s duty to provide its employees with a working environment free of sexual harassment may require it to exercise control, not only over its own employees, but over non employees as well.

Sexual Harassment and the Sexually Active Plaintiff

Women are often concerned that their sexual history may be opened to examination once they allege workplace harassment. Because the possibility of such disclosure undoubtedly discourages some complaints from prosecuting lawsuits against their harassers, the courts generally look askance at defendant tactics that require inquiry into matters entirely personal to the plaintiff.

The privacy rights of victims of sexual harassment generally have been protected by most courts through the exclusion of any proffered evidence of past sexual conduct with anyone other than the person alleged to have committed acts of sexual harassment against women.

Gender Harassment

The courts will consider acts of harassment of a woman as acts of sexual harassment even if they are unrelated to sex, provided they are directed against the woman solely because of her gender. The term “sexual harassment” may appear to be a misnomer. But the essence of a sexual harassment claim is not necessarily constructed upon sexual advances or other incidents having sexual overtones. Intimidation and hostility towards women-merely because they are women-may be as harassing as conduct involving explicit sexual advances. Thus, the courts generally employ the term “gender harassment” to distinguish “nonsexual” harassment from harassment that is sexual or erotic in nature. All such behavior, however qualifies as sexual harassment.