Sexual Harassment

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and any applicable state laws govern charges of sexual harassment in the US workplace. Legally, here are two forms. The first, quid pro quo, such as Hollywood’s infamous casting couches, exists whenever hiring, retention, salary, fringe benefits, firing or promotion require sexual favors.

Sadly, given the fuzziness of the meaning of terms such as “isolated and pervasive incidents,” “uninvited” and “appropriate response,” the cost of defense, and the risks of ludicrous punitive damage awards, it often makes financial sense for an employer to settle rather than fight. Even when trial is avoided and the employer prevails in the face of a nuisance or revenge charge, legal bills usually are in the six-figure range (Levey 2011). In the current climate, one also has to wonder when the first gay man (or woman) will accuse another man (or woman) of sexual harassment.

The sociobiologists offer the commonsense proposition that men are genetically programmed to be sexual aggressors. There may be times when it is inappropriate, such as in the workplace, but the reality is that men and women meet in the workplace, and both still seek spouses.

Some anthropologists hold that the root cause of sexual harassment is our patriarchal social structure. This structure gives men economic, political, and social power over women. Some men in positions of power assume that they have sexual access to the women working for them. Some traditional patriarchal cultures confine women to the home as wives and mothers and deny them formal education. In others, stereotypes about appropriate male and female behavior assign women a subordinate identity even in the workplace. Men do not see their overtures as harassment and many women either share the same assumptions or are too afraid to resist (Wyatt 2000).

Children learn culturally appropriate sex-specific behaviors that become entwined with personality. In most cultures, men learn to be adventurous, competitive, dominant, forceful, independent, logical, and strong-willed. Women learn to be caring, compliant, cooperative, dependent, emotional, sentimental, and submissive—and to choose dominant men as mates, reinforcing the system. Women who violate these norms to achieve professional success jeopardize their perceived femininity and risk pejorative labels (Putnam 1983), but it also is true that men who violate their norms jeopardize their perceived masculinity and risk pejorative labels.

Some sociologists hold that women and men are socialized into different cultures—different beliefs, values, and ways of communicating. The traditional workplace was male-dominated and characterized by competition, rude jokes, and disrespect for women (apparently, women spoke only in the most respectful terms about men). Women entering the workplace have had to adapt to its culture, while men have had to adapt to having women in it. Both are changing slowly (Taylor 1999). While we work to reduce sexual harassment, we must also guard against a return to the crippling protectionism of a time gone by, when someone else made all the decisions for women (Veraldi 1995).