Forms of Workplace Sexual Harassment

Forms of Workplace Sexual Harassment– The two specific forms of sexual harassment which have been established at the workplace are :

• Quid Pro Quo Harassment and
• Hostile Environment Harassment.

Quid pro quo means seeking sexual favors or advances in exchange for work benefits and it occurs when consent to sexually explicit behavior or speech is made a condition for employment or refusal to comply with a ‘request’ is met with retaliatory action such as dismissal, demotion, difficult work conditions. ‘Hostile working environment’ is a more pervasive form of sexual harassment involving work conditions or behavior that make the work environment ‘hostile’ for the woman to be in. Certain sexist remarks, display of pornography, or sexist/obscene graffiti, physical contact/brushing against female employees are some examples of hostile work environments, which are not made conditions for employment.

Quid pro quo Harassment

Quid-pro-quo is a Latin phrase that means ‘something for something’. Quid-pro-quo sexual harassment refers to the demand for sexual favor and the threat of adverse job consequences if the demand is refused. This is when the employer makes sex a pre-requisite to getting something in the workplace. For example, saying, “If you sleep with me, your works will be done”. This also occurs when an employee’s submission to unwelcome sexual conduct becomes an explicit condition of employment, or when personal actions such as promotion and transfers are determined on the basis of an employee & response to such conduct.

Some of the examples of Quid pro quo sexual harassment are:

• Requiring submission to a supervisor’s request for sexual favors a condition of continued employment.
• Granting specific job benefits such a salary increase or promotion in exchange for sexual favors.
• Withholding job benefits such as a wage increase or promotion or assigning more arduous tasks to an employee who has rejected a supervisor’s request for sexual favors.

Hostile Environment Harassment

This is an environment where an employer (a superior or a colleague) does or says things that are uncomfortable and offensive to her as individual sexual harassment does not need to only include a demand for an exchange of sex for a job benefit. It is the creation of an uncomfortable environment. If two employees are sharing sexual jokes and both of them are enjoying it then it may not be termed as sexual harassment.

Examples of sexual harassment could include various behaviors and are not limited to some of the examples given below:

• Acts from male to female, female to male, and between or among individuals of the same sex which are sexual in nature and unwelcome sexual harassment may be directed against a particular person, persons, or group.
• Nonverbal behavior is sexual in nature and unwelcome, e.g. staring, leering, lewd gestures.
• Verbal behavior is sexual in nature and unwelcome. For example epithets, jokes, comments, or slurs, repeated requests for dates which are unwelcome.
• Physical conduct is sexual in nature and unwelcome, e.g. assaults, sexual advances such as touching, patting, pinching, impeding or blocking movement, or any physical interference with normal works or movement.
• Visuals which are sexual in nature e.g. posters or signs, letters, poems, graffiti, cartoons or drawings, pictures, calendars, e-mail, and computer programs.

The most important aspect of workplace sexual harassment is of how the person takes it i.e. if she is mentally affected because of an act that actually would not be so serious in nature, it still would be called sexual harassment. So it is all to say of how she sees the situation.

When does an environment become hostile?

To create a sexually hostile environment, unwelcome conduct based on gender must meet

two additional requirements:

(1) it must be subjectively abusive to the person(s) affected,

(2) it must be objectively severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment, that a reasonable person would find abusive.

To determine whether the behavior is severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile environment, the finder of fact (a court or jury) considers the following factors:

• The frequency of the unwelcome discriminatory conduct;
• The severity of the conduct
• Whether the conduct was physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance;
• Whether the conduct unreasonably interfered with work performance;
• The effect on the employee’s psychological well-being; and
• Whether the harasser was superior in the organization.

Each factor is relevant – no single factor is required to establish that there is a hostile environment. Relatively trivial, isolated incidents generally do not create a hostile work environment. For example, one work environment found no legal violation where a woman’s supervisor, over the course of a few months, had asked her out on dates, called her a “dumb blonde,” placed his hand on her shoulder, placed “I love you” signs in her work area, and attempted to kiss her. (Weiss s. Coca Cola Bottling Co.)

Hostile environment sexual harassment also was not found where women were asked for a couple of dates by co-workers, subjected to three offensive incidents over 18 months, or subjected to only occasional teasing or isolated crude jokes or sexual remarks.

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