08/11/2017 Sexual Harassment - Causes of Sexual Harassment

Stop Violence Against Women

Sexual Harassment

3. Causes of Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is, above all, a manifestation of

power relations women are much more likely to be
victims of sexual harassment precisely because they
more often than men lack power, are in more vulnerable
and insecure positions, lack self confidence, or have
been socialized to suffer in silence. In order to
understand why women endure the vast majority of
sexual harassment, it is important to look at some of the
underlying causes of this phenomenon.

Violence and Male Self-Perception

The relationship between the sexes in many countries

around the world includes a considerable amount of
violence against women. Data about the United
States, for example, indicate that one out of every ten
women are raped or sexually assaulted during their
lives, while more than half of all women living with
men have experienced a battering or similar incident of
domestic violence.

Violence by men against women exists in the

workplace, as it does in other settings. Some scholars,
such as Susan Faludi, the author of Backlash: The
Undeclared War Against American Women, suggest that
male hostility toward women in the workplace is closely
connected to male attitudes about the proper role of
a man in society. Surveys on mens perception of
masculinity, carried out in the U.S., for example,
indicate that the leading definition of masculinity is
being a good provider for his family. Ms. Faludi
concludes that some men perceive the feminist drive
for economic equality as a threat to their traditional
role. Thus, sexual harassment is a form of violence
perceived as self-protection.

The problem of sexual harassment relates to the roles

which are attributed to men and women in social and
economic life, which, in turn, directly or indirectly,
affects womens positions in the labor market.

The Economics of Womens Work

Focusing on the economics of men's work and women's

work exposes sexual harassment as a way for the men

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who harass women to express their resentment and try

to reassert control when they view women as their
economic competitors

Despite impediments women face in obtaining

employment, there has been a massive influx of women
into the labor force in the 1960s and 1970s, not only in
the U.S., but on a global scale. Women's entry into
the workforce has been prompted by necessity, since
many families cannot make ends meet if the wife and
husband do not both work full-time.

Furthermore, the number of single-parent families

headed by women in growing. There are a large
number of families in which a woman is the sole means
of support. Data from the U.S. indicate that between
1980 and 1990, the number of female-headed families
increased by 27%. By 1997, two out of every five
working women were the sole head of their households,
and within that group, more than one-quarter had
dependent children. (Source: The American
Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial
Organization, [AFL-CIO] Working Women's
Department).

This new and sudden influx of women into the labor

force brought about two simultaneous, but seemingly
opposite reactions to women at work. On one hand,
some men resented female employees and perceived
them as a threat in traditionally male dominated work
environments. In these cases the women were subject
to overt discrimination, that is, they received lesser-
valued job assignments, lack of promotions, lower pay,
and sexual harassment to cause embarrassment and
humiliation.

The second reaction was to exploit the presence of

women and make sexual favors and submission to
sexual behaviors conditions of employment, that is to
keep from being fired, demoted, or otherwise adversely
affected at work. Both are forms of sexual harassment
Discrimination as a Form Of Workplace Control

Catherine MacKinnon, author of Sexual Harassment of

Working Women, was the first legal scholar to draw
attention to the connection between sex discrimination
and sexual harassment:
... [W]omen tend to be in low-
ranking positions, dependant upon
the approval and goodwill of male
[superiors] for hiring, retention
and advancement. Being at the mercy
of male superiors adds direct
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economic clout to male secual
demands.... It also deprives women
of material security and
independence which could help make
resistance to unreasonable job
pressures practical ...

... [S]exual harassment of women can

occur largely because women occupy
inferior job positions and job
roles; at the same time, sexual
harassment works to keep women in
such positions.

If sex discrimination forces women into lower-paying

jobs, sexual harassment helps keep them there. This
may not be the intention of the harasser in every
instance, but it is often the effect.

Seen in this context, male workers who harass a woman

on the job are doing more than annoying her. They
are reminding her of her vulnerability, creating tensions
that make her job more difficult and making her hesitant
to seek higher paying jobs where she may perceive the
tension as even greater. In short, sexual harassment
creates a climate of intimidation and repression. A
woman who is the target of sexual harassment often
goes through the same process of victimization as one
who has suffered rape, battering or other gender-related
crimes- frequently blaming herself and doubting her
own self-worth.

Women employed in fields that are traditionally

considered woman's work, such as waitresses and
secretaries, are often given menial, degrading tasks.
They are often called demeaning names, and they are
led to believe that a certain amount of male domination
and sexism is normal. All of this reinforces the idea
that women workers are of little value in the
workplace. Women who try to break into traditionally
all-male work, such as construction jobs, medicine or
investment banking, often suffer even more intense
harassment clearly aimed at forcing them to leave.

Thus sexual harassment often accomplishes informally

what laws against sex-based discrimination theoretically
prohibit: gender-based requirements for a job. A
woman subjected to sexual harassment endures
pressure, degradation or hostility that her male co-
workers don't have to endure- making it just that much
harder to compete for the job and for advancement.

Excerpted from: Sexual Harassment On The Job: What

It Is & How To Stop It (4th Ed.), by William Petrocelli,
Barbara Kate Repa.

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