Stop sexual harassment and show some respect

By Suolan Jiang on 07/21/2011 @ 04:00 PM

Early this week, the United States Studies at the Wilson Center and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research held a briefing, discussing sexual harassment at work. Sexual harassment, according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, means "uninvited and unwelcome verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature especially by a person in authority toward a subordinate (as an employee or student)". A panel of women specialists presented facts and gave opinions at the briefing.

Thanks to various women’s movements in recent decades, women nowadays not only obtain high education and have suffrage rights, but are getting closer to receiving equal pay and medical leave. Sexual harassment, as one of the worst forms of disrespect towards women, was also put into law. According to The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), “Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964”. However, writing a policy into law doesn’t necessarily mean success in implementing it. Various court cases turn women victims down citing “insufficient evidence” or saying “the city's sexual-harassment policy was not detailed enough”. Meanwhile, other remedies like harassment training or posting of job notices don’t stop sexual harassment either. Among women, immigrant & migrant workers are considered the most vulnerable group, 80 percent reporting that they have experience sexual harassment. Since many of these women are poorly educated or don’t speak English, they usually work in dangerous environments with low wages. When harassed by their supervisor or co-workers, they usually keep quiet since they can’t afford to lose their jobs or don’t know how to protect their rights.

Based on EEOC’s research, employers should take the responsibility to create suitable circumstances where women are comfortable to make complaints about sexual harassment through a reasonable mechanism. Besides that, specialists pointed out that the best way to combat sexual harassment at work is to prevent harassment from happening. While punishing a harasser only solves one case, good prevention work can protect all women. One of the best preventions is to improve workplace conditions by making it women-friendly.

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