Sexual Harassment Essays - Workplace Bullying, Business Ethics

Sexual Harassment Over the years, many people have believed that the issue of sexual harassment should not be discussed in public. Sexual harassment was to be discussed behind closed doors. In spite of this, the social and political systems have changed instantaneously. This social problem has affected men and women throughout time, however, it seems that the women of our society more closely look at this issue. This social topic has encouraged women to establish organizations in order to help them discuss the issues more openly and to demand equality including fairness and justice throughout the workplace and in their social lives as well. In recent years, sexual harassment has been one of the most serious and widespread problems found in the workplace. For this reason, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed, by the United Nations in 1948, to help everyone in their fight for self-respect and dignity. Indeed sexual harassment is an issue that complicates employment decisions. People also recognize that it is an issue involving the creation of an antagonistic or offensive work environment. In many instances, the issue of sexual harassment is not something minor that can be easily solved. The issue of sexual harassment pertains to everyone's apprehension of an individual's comportment due to our societal social norms. Sexual harassment, in most cases, involves a superior's behavior towards a subordinate. As mentioned before, most forms of sexual harassment occur in the workplace. An employee can charge an employer with sexual harassment as a result of the misconduct of managers, fellow employees, vendors, and even customers. Eventually, this can cause a hostile work environment. 3 It is true, for the most part, that sexual harassment comes in many forms in the workplace. There are two significant ways in which one can identify sexual harassment. They are called the "Quid Pro Quo" and the "Hostile Environment Harassment." The essence of the Quid Pro Quo theory of sexual harassment occurs when an employee is confronted with sexual demands to keep her job or obtain a promotion. This is a true violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is also referred to as the Title VII Act. Even though sexual harassment by its very nature is complicated to define, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission provides a general description of sexual advances. The several basic varieties of the Quid Pro Quo harassment indicate the unwelcome sexual advances and requests for sexual favors. It also consist of other verbal or physical conducts dealing with a sexual nature of constituting sexual harassment when the submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly just because a term or a condition of an individual's employment. Secondly, the individual is used as a basis for employment decisions affecting such individual. Finally, the result of such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment. (Aggarwal, 89-93) Another form of sexual harassment is a hostile work environment. The hostile environment theory involves sexual advances between the supervisor and the employee. An employee's work performance will be less effective due to these so-called sexual advances. However, a victim can file a complaint against their harasser so that they do not continuously force them to participate. Consequently, they will be forced to hand in their resignation. This issue of power has nothing to do with sex. For this reason, both 4 male and females can be the harasser. The harasser's main purpose is to force another to feel or act in a certain way. Sometimes, sexual harassment causes an individual from effectively performing his/her job. As a result, is undermines an individual's dignity. In our society, there are three essential factors that relate to the issue of sexual advances. These elements are a divergence of perceptions, the complexity of human behavior and the attitudes of a sexist. (Lindemann, 46-48) It is often difficult to draw a line between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable in a working environment because of the existence of these ingredients. Sexual harassment is a form of discrimination, which can manifest itself in terms of physical and psychological acts. Physically, the recipient may be the victim of