Women Are Always the Victim of Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

In this new era of globalization, it is possible for both men and women to become the victim but women are always being the vast majority victim of sexual harassment no matter where they are. It can occur at workplace or school where men have power over women. The harasser may be between doctors and patients, teachers and students, and supervisors and employee. But, most of the sexual harassment against women occurs in the workplace. Before I move deep about my topic, I would like to explain the definition of sexual harassment so that there will be no misunderstood between sexual harassment and sexual violence or abuse. There is no actual definition for sexual harassment, but, according to the web definition, sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that tends to create an unfriendly or offensive work (TheFreeDictionary). It also includes leering, pinching, patting, and repeated comments such as bitch or whore. Different from it, sexual violence is defined as any act of gender-based violence that result in physical, sexual or mental harm and suffering to women includes threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life (Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, 1993). It is quote that a person must not pursue a course of conduct which amounts to harassment of another, and which he knows or ought to know amounts to harassment of the other (Protection from Harassment Act, 1997).

Back to my topic, can we conclude that women always the victim of sexual harassment in the workplace? Before I can answer my question, I would like to explain a statistic that has been done by researcher which can prove my topic that woman always the victim of sexual harassment in the workplace. According to the statistic of sexual harassment against women that has been done on 782 workers in United States shows that woman are the major victim in the workplace. Statistic also shows that men can the victim of sexual harassment in the workplace, but, the number of their cases is small compare to the women. 31% of the female workers reported they had been harassed at work while there are only 7% reported by the men. 100% of the women reported that their being harassed by men where 43% were harassed by a supervisor, 27% were harassed by an employee senior to them, 19% were harassed by a coworker at their level and 8% were harassed by a junior employee (Louis Harris and Associates). From this statistic, I can conclude that women are the vast victim of sexual harassment in the workplace by the people who are senior and higher position than them and the harasser is always be the men.

Sexual harassment against women in the workplace still occurs in this era although there is a law to prevent this case from becomes worse. The question here is, why woman always become the victim of sexual harassment in the workplace? Is it because women always in silence all the time? Are they scared to speak out their right? Yes, it is true that women always silenced and scared to speak out their right, but, there is a reason why women have to be silenced when they are being harassed. One of the articles that I read on the internet saying that women employee has to keep silence because there are being blackmailed by their supervisors itself. The supervisors scared them by asking them not to make a report or they will loss their jobs in the workplace (Murtadha, 2009; Chiara, 2010). So, in this case women with low-status or having a financial problem in their family are more likely to experience with sexual harassment because they scared of loosing their job (Uggen & Blackstone, 2004). In addition, women also are reluctant to make a report because they fear of not being believed, the belief that nothing can or will be done to stop the harassment, and they scared that they will embarrass their life in the society (Sexual harassment support).

Sexual harassment also happens in the workplace because of the work power. Here, men always have the higher position or level in the workplace, so, they take this advantage to harass the women who are under them (Rogers and Henson, 1997). Most of this case happens between the supervisors and the employee where men are the supervisors and the women is their employee. It is also said that, women with high level of organizational power always become the target of sexual harassment because it makes the men feel angry and dislike them especially women who work at the place where the men control