THE NEWS CHICK BLOG

A reality check on sexual harassment

Nov 8, 2011, 6:40 PM | Updated: 7:33 pm

Alexandra was walking by her boss when she felt a slap on her butt.

“I was shocked. I turned around and didn’t know who was there. I couldn’t think of who would possibly come up from behind and do that,” says the Seattle woman who didn’t want me to use her last name. When she saw her boss, he apologized and said he thought she was someone else.

“Who does he think that he works with that he can do that to?” she wondered. When he did it more than once, Alexandra says she knew her supervisor’s actions were intentional.

In the past decade, large workplaces all over the country have had employees watch videos about sexual harassment in the workplace and sit through a sensitivity training classes.

Still, harassment happens.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alone received 11,717 charges of sexual harassment in 2010. People who study workplace issues estimate 10 percent of employees are dealing with sexual harassment – verbal or physical – today. Women still file the majority of claims, but from 1990 to 2009, the percentage of sexual harassment claims filed by men doubled from 8 percent to 16 percent of all claims.

Most experts believe only a fraction of those who suffer from harassment will report it to a supervisor.

Alexandra didn’t tell anyone about what happened to her. She broke down crying when her boss called her into his office. He realized he had a problem and she says he made it go away by reassigning her to another department.

“It was a male-dominated environment. A lot of the men looked up to this guy. I would almost say he was beloved. Everybody loved him, so if I had said anything I’d become the bad guy by stepping forward,” she says.

Instead of stepping forward, she stepped aside. Alexandra is now at the University of Washington taking classes and training for a new career.

Why did she feel she had to leave her job? Haven’t most workplaces today become enlightened enough to know sexual harassment is illegal?

“No way. No way are we there. People are more than willing to jump on the bandwagon to denigrate a sexual harassment victim,” says Gary Namie, PhD, director of The Workplace Bullying Institute based in Bellingham.

He’s been watching case of alleged sexual harassment against Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain with concern.

CainAt a news conference Tuesday, Cain categorically denied having all of the allegations leveled at him, saying, “I have never acted inappropriately with anyone. Period.” He says the claims will not derail his campaign for the White House because, “They simply didn’t happen. They simply did not happen.”

“We’re getting more and more ignorant in the workplace,” says Namie. “I’m seeing a rise in this aggressive tone. It’s like he’s wearing this as a badge of honor. He’s raised $2 million more and doubled his campaign coffers since the problem began for him.”

Namie says every decade or so “we need to reminder” that sexual harassment in the workplace is not okay. He says a lot of managers and employees, especially younger ones, haven’t gotten the message that harassment is illegal as outlined in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

“I was around when the law against sexual harassment was enacted and I heard the grumbling about it,” he says “and now I’m hearing not grumbling about it that ‘oh, I have to adjust’ but more of a questioning about ‘why do I have to adjust?'”

Many think “to hell with it” women need to become more tolerant of some behaviors in the workplace that weren’t meant to offend.

“The law doesn’t take that position. We’ve said as a society ‘stop it,'” he says.

Stop what? A lot of men are confused about what kinds of phrases or behaviors cross the line. I’ve heard male talk show hosts on the radio say there’s nothing wrong with saying to someone, “You’re about as tall as my wife.”

The law does not prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments or isolated incidents. When it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment, then the EEOC says it rises to the level of being illegal harassment. They further define sexual harassment as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature…when 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.”

“You must monitor or adjust your behavior to accommodate the person with the lowest threshold for personal remarks in the workplace, not the highest,” Namie says.

His advice for women, or men for that matter, who’ve been harassed at work is different from what I’ve heard before.

“Most harassers are repeat offenders,” he says. “You need to talk among your co-workers and break the silence. There will be emotional support there and it allows you to gather strength as a collective group to perhaps go to the employer and show more have been harmed. You’ll likely find out you were victim number 17 not victim number one.”

(AP photo)

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