Overview of Two Lectures on Harassment in the Workplace

• Types of violence in human service workplaces:  Lecture 7b: Sexual harassment (today’s topic)
• Lecture 10b: Workplace bullying and mobbing (a form of psychological harassment)
• Physical violence: Less common but may be an outcome if bullying continues
• The focus is on harassment from colleagues (peers, managers, supervisors) and towards service users, but harassment of workers by service users also occurs

What is sexual harassment?

• How did sexual harassment come to be defined as a human rights issue? How do definitions help and hinder?
• Human Rights as Workers’ Rights

Human Rights and Sexual Harassment: How they relate

Sexual harassment began to be identified as a significant workplace issue during the 1970s

• Lawyer Catharine MacKinnon is often credited with defining sexual harassment as sex discrimination, but this was not the work of only one person
• Key arguments included the notion that women were disadvantaged in the workplace
• “. . . rape and workplace sexual harassment were very different issues because of the ongoing nature of workplace sexual harassment and the relationship of workplace sexual harassment to women’s economic well-being” (Baker, 2007, p. 171-172)

When/where does the HR Act protect you?

• “Areas where the Act protects people from sexual harassment include:
• Employment (including unpaid work)
• Education and vocational training
• Provision of goods and services
• Land, housing and accommodation
• Access to public places, vehicles and facilities
• Government services.
• The Harmful Digital Communications Act 2014 (HDC Act) makes sexual comments or behaviour in digital form (online) unlawful” (NZHRC, n.d., p. 3).
• See also: Cyberbullying: Protections against online/digital harassment – Community Law

What about on the street? Street Harassment

In NZ street harassers can be fined up to $1000 under the Summary Offences Act (1981): http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1981/0113/lates t/DLM53500.html?search=sw_096be8ed8173e3c0_stre et_25_se&p=1

Types of Workplace Sexual Harassment

Quid pro quo harassment

• Hostile environment
• People of all genders are harassed
• Some studies suggest that proportionally more men are harassed in some human services occupations and educational programmes
• Under-reported
• Shame, fear of being labelled negatively, retaliation,
•  Source: Chapter 7 Rudeness, bullying and violence in the workplace – van Heugten, K. (2011). Social work under pressure: How to overcome stress, fatigue and burnout in the workplace. London: Jessica Kingsley publishers.

Lack of attention to LGBTIQ+

• Lack of attention to sexual harassment of LGBTIQ+. Minimal research has been done.
• A survey in the UK found 68% of LGBT reported sexual harassment in the workplace (2019)
• Most did not report, many feared being “outed” in the workplace

Trades Union Congress (2019). Sexual harassment of LGBT people in the workplace A TUC report. London: TUC. https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/LGBT _Sexual_Harassment_Report_0.pdf

Impacts

“. . . Distress, depression, low self-esteem, fear of more unwanted sexualized encounters, isolation, work withdrawal and absenteeism, problems with sleeping, difficulties in sexual functioning in intimate relationships, and substance abuse . . . PTSD. Traumatization may result not only from the actual harassment, but from the gossip, isolation, retaliation and financial losses that may accompany it. When victims make complaints, their private lives may be exposed and this loss of privacy is also traumatic” (van Heugten, 2011, pp. 154-155)

Sexual harassment and structural issues in human services

• Sexual exploitation is dehumanising and oppressive of people who are frequently already oppressed—links can be made with gendered violence, postcolonial critique
• Sexual harassment in human services has been related to structural problems with accountability and governance, and value and mission drift in part consequent to neoliberalisation of services
• NGOs are required to be accountable to donors, and contractees such as government departments, but less so to service users, local communities
• At last, repeated concerns are being re-addressed since 2018 #MeToo

Consequences of defining sexual harassment as a legal human rights issue

• Human rights legislation tends to govern the public sphere
• Legal approaches require particular forms of evidence and apply formal rules to how evidence may be brought forward and responded to—can be complex, expensive, and do not always fit well with real life situations
• #MeToo and other social movements challenge legal and other discursive boundaries/confines. These ruptures of the status quo may help bring about qualitative changes to the social construction of sexual harassment, and to approaches to prevention and intervention—e.g. placing more emphasis on changing workplace cultures and shared responsibility for workplace behaviours

Complex networks of power

• Organisations, and as a result proposals for solutions, may become entangled in issues relating to elitism, politics, power.
• This happened in relation to Time’s Up; in 2021, two board members resigned following their interference in investigations against the New York Governor. The organisation shut down in January 2023