Reference no: EM132276821
Recent research shows that more than 30 percent of female workers in the United States have been ...
Recent research shows that more than 30 percent of female workers in the United States have been harassed at work—virtually all of them by men. Forty-three percent identified the male harasser as a supervisor, 27 percent as an employee senior to them, and 19 percent as a coworker at the same level. In 2012 (the last year for which there is complete data), nearly 13,000 charges of sexual harassment were filed with the EEOC, 84 percent of them by women. Why does sexual harassment (mostly of women) occur in the workplace? “Power,” says researcher Debbie Dougherty, who conducted a study in conjunction with a large Midwestern health care organization. “It was the common answer. It came up repeatedly,” says Dougherty, a specialist in communications and power in organizations. She also found that men and women understand the idea of power differently, and that difference in understanding may play an important part in the persistence of harassing behavior in the workplace: ? For most men, power is something that belongs to superiors—managers and supervisors—who can harass because they possess the power to do so. By definition, a male coworker cannot actually harass a female coworker who’s at the same level because he doesn’t possess sufficient power over her. ? Women, on the other hand, see power as something that can be introduced into a relationship as it develops; it’s something more than the mere formal authority built into the superior’s job description. Harassment can be initiated by anyone who’s able to create the perception of power.
According to Dougherty, gender differences in the perception of power may account, at least in part, for gender differences in perceptions of behavior. “If a man,” she suggests, “thinks that sexual harassment only comes from a supervisor, he may feel free to make sexual comments to a female coworker,” reasoning that because he holds no power over her, she won’t perceive the behavior as harassment. She, however, probably regards power as something that can be sought and gained in a relationship and may therefore “see the sexual comments as a quest for power and label it as sexual harassment.” The findings of another recent study tend to support Dougherty’s conclusions. Researchers from the University of Minnesota discovered that women in supervisory positions were 137 percent more likely to be harassed than women in nonsupervisory roles. Although many of the harassers were men in superior positions, a large number were coworkers in equivalent positions. It would seem, then, that male coworkers felt free to behave in a harassing manner because they believed that their female targets would not perceive their behavior as efforts to exert power. As Dougherty predicts, however, they were wrong: The women perceived the harassing behaviors as power plays. “This study,” says researcher Heather McLaughlin, “provides the strongest evidence to date supporting the theory that sexual harassment is less about sexual desire than about control and domination.... Male coworkers... and supervisors seem to be using harassment as an equalizer against women in power.”
Case Questions
1. In light of the research discussed in this case, in your opinion, how should sexual harassment be punished?
2. What laws relate most closely to sexual harassment?
3. What legal protection, if any, should exist to protect an innocent individual from false charges of sexual harassment?
4. How might sexual harassment relate to bullying?