Guess What? Men Get Sexually Harassed Too!

Sexual harassment is by no means a new epidemic in this country.  For decades, women have been victimized in the workplace by their male superiors, often winning large settlements in court as a result.  Statistics show that sexual-harassment within the workplace is by no means dwindling, with a recent telephone poll conducted by Louis Harris and Associates on 782 U.S. workers revealing:

• 31% of the female workers reported they had been harassed at work
• 62% of targets took no action
• 100% of women reported the harasser was a man

Of the women who had been harassed:

• 43% were harassed by a supervisor
• 27% were harassed by an employee senior to them
• 19% were harassed by a coworker at their level
• 8% were harassed by a junior employee

The numbers are indeed staggering, but it would not be inaccurate to say that it is not entirely surprising to think that women are being harassed so frequently at work these days, especially considering how high-profile some cases have become, with many having been turned into feature films.  Hollywood actress Charlize Theron, for example, portrays real-life Lois Jenson in 2005′s  “North Country” in which a sexually-harassed woman working for the Eveleth Taconite Co. mine in Minnesota brings various lawsuits against the company that lasted into the 1990′s and led to her being awarded her 3.5 million in damages.

What most people fail to acknowledge, however, is how frequently acts of sexual-harassment occur against men within the workplace.  Indeed, social structures have made it so that we could hardly expect a man to either reject or react negatively to sexual advancements, and any idea of them doing so can seem humorous to a majority of the public.  For this reason fewer cases involving victimized men have been reported, with most men expressing they would fear being ridiculed as a consequence.  Nevertheless, the same Harris & Associates survey shows that of those persons called nearly 7% of the male workers reported they had been harassed, showing that while the number is significantly lower than women, it should not be taken any less seriously.

Sexual harassment cases have not gone unnoticed in the public eye, and some have not only been extremely high-profile, but have led to groundbreaking decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court.  One such case known as Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services involved an oil-rigger named Joseph Oncale who spent considerable time on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.  Oncale claims to have been repeatedly sodomized, humiliated and abused by other members of his crew and was ignored by company officials after he reported the incidents.  Oncale eventually quit and sued the company, but the District Court of Eastern Louisiana ruled that because he was a man, he was not protected under the 1964 legislation that prohibits sexual harassment.  After an appeal, however, the Supreme Court ruled in 1998 that sexual harassment also “applied to harassment in the workplace between members of the same sex” (hrworld.com).

The law, then, is on your side, and men who feel harassed in any professional environment needn’t be afraid that their case will not be taken seriously by authorities.  Additionally, employers should consider all reports of sexual harassment within their work-place to be of the utmost importance and take the necessary steps to fix the situation.

Below are a few tips for both employee and employers alike on dealing with sexual harassment in the work-place:

EMPLOYEE

1.) After you have experienced personally objectionable sexual content, ask yourself if you believe that the sexual content you experienced will lead to future discrimination against you.

2.) Monitor your environment to see if negative or positive workplace events occur because of the sexual situation you experienced. A positive workplace event might occur when you are given a promotion only to find it was due to your supervisor wanting you more available to listen to his or her sexual content.

3.) Document and obtain witnesses, if possible, to the sexual content and discrimination. Document the nature of the sexual content and discrimination, date/time, situation, and witnesses to the event.

4.) File a complaint with your supervisor or human resource (HR) department. Ask for a prompt investigation, to be reassigned during the investigation to a different supervisor if your supervisor will potentially be involved in the investigation. Lastly, ask for an outcome report.

EMPLOYER

1.) Update your sexual harassment policies to include same-sex harassment. Communicate this policy to all the employees.

2.) Educate your supervisors about same-sex harassment.

3.) Educate your employees that sexual harassment means sexual discrimination.

4.) Investigate all forms of sexual harassment quickly and fairly to all participants. Remember, that the sexual orientation of the participants is not necessarily all that important.

(Tips provided by Employer-Employee.com)