3 common sources of workplace sexual harassment

Workplace sexual harassment can cause a number of issues for workers. Career development can stall out in a harassment scenario. Both mistreatment by other people within the company and changes in the mental state of the targeted worker can affect their career progression. Leaving a job abruptly or losing it due to harassment can also make it harder for a professional to develop their career according to their original ambitions.

Those who experience workplace sexual harassment usually need to assert themselves by taking legal action if the company does not intervene to stop the harassment. People need to identify sexual harassment early to pursue the most effective solutions possible.

Recognizing that sexual harassment can come from multiple different sources is a key part of advocating for oneself. Who may sexually harass a worker?

1. A supervisor or manager

The best understood and most recognized form of harassment is quid pro quo sexual harassment. In these cases, a manager, business owner or other professional in a position of authority tries to use workplace rewards or punishments to coax a subordinate into romantic or sexual favors. People should not have to submit to distasteful comments or demands for favors to get a good performance review or avoid punishment at work.

2. Customers or clients

The people patronizing a business can often engage in the same kinds of harassment that people expect from supervisors. For example, people patronizing a bar or restaurant might make unwanted advances to servers.

They might even touch the employees inappropriately or threaten to withhold a gratuity if they don’t provide their number and play along with unwanted flirting. Businesses typically have an obligation to protect workers from sexual harassment even if it comes from the people patronizing the business.

3. Coworkers

While other employees at the company may not necessarily be in a position to control a worker’s schedule or wages, they can make their daily life miserable. Sexual harassment doesn’t always involve quid pro quo harassment.

Sometimes, it entails the creation of a hostile work environment. A single coworker or a group of other employees can target an individual based on their sex and abuse them. Hostile work environments are more than simple bullying. They create a scenario in which a worker feels that they must submit to abusive behavior in order to maintain their employment.

Those who recognize where sexual harassment can occur are in a better place to speak up when it starts happening. Documenting harassment, asking for support from management and taking legal action are all appropriate responses from those negatively affected by workplace sexual harassment.