Analyzing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Sexual harassment involves unwelcome, unsolicited and unwanted sexual behavior that in the workplace that offends, humiliates, embarrasses, intimidates or otherwise causes distress to the affected employee or employees. Employers in the public and the private sector should take appropriate steps to prevent sexual harassment. To do so, employees as well as supervisors and managers need a clear understanding of their rights in the workplace. Equally important, they must be educated and learn that sexual harassment in the workplace is ethically unacceptable.
According to Mauricio Velasquez in an essay published online on the Diversity Training Group website, the sexual harassment that occurs both in the public and private sector results in tensions of a workplace disrupted by sexual harassment that can lead to violence, poor teamwork, lower productivity, absenteeism, high employee turnover, and sexual harassment lawsuits. In the public sector, the following figures can serve as a kind of a barometer for sexual harassment. In 1980, the U.S. government reportedly paid more than $189 million to settle sexual harassment lawsuits adjudicated during the previous two years.á By 1987, the total cost to the federal government reached $267 million for the previous two years.á In 1994, payments by the federal government had climbed to $327 million for the previous two years.á Sexual discrimination and sexual harassment claims include issues involving pay equity, failure to offer equal opportunities for promotion, and a failure to protect workers from sexual harassment by co-workers or by supervisors (Velasquez, 2004).á
According to Mark Soycher in an article published in Westchester County Business Journal (2002), sexual harassment can take the form of sexual jokes and innuendos; it can take the form of groping, or in the case of a superior to subordinate relationship it can be coercive in...