Sexual harassment is so widespread today that it leaves very few areas of daily life are untouched. Women are the most frequent victims since we still live in a male dominant society. The courts have just begun to recognize sexual harassment as a cause for legal action. The literature here is by no means comprehensive, but gives an idea of how pervasive sexual harassment has become in today's society.
There is no legislation which prohibits sexual harassment, though it is rampant throughout the workplace, universities, schools, the church and the military. The number of sexual harassment complaints filed with the agency which reviews them rose to 15,836 in 2000, and more than $54.6 million was spent on out-of-court settlements of harassment claims against private companies, and state and local governments (Gowen, 2001). Socio-cultural theory proposes that women are more likely victims of sexual harassment than men because male-dominant behavior of this type carries over to organizations from our patriarchal society (Stepp, 2001). Women are socialized in our society to be passive, subordinate, non-assertive, sexually attractive and to avoid conflict with men, whereas men are trained for the opposite behavior. Although women are most often the targets, men are also the victims of sexual harassment, particularly gay men. An extensive literature search failed to turn up any studies specifically looking at differences between the sexual harassment of single women and married women, but there is no doubt that it occurs to both from anecdotal evidence. This paper will therefore review some of the diverse places where it does occur, beginning with a brief history of sexual harassment.
In 1980 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission expanded its guidelines to include sexual harassment, which led to the courts recognizing it as a cause for action (Shenvyn, Kaufman and Klausner, 2000). Sexual harassment was declared a cause for...