Male sexual harassment in the workplace on the rise

Male Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

Sexual harassment in the workplace is a familiar problem that thousands of women are subjected to on a daily basis. But now there is a rising movement of men who are filing claims of harassment in the workplace. In a report by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission there were a record number of harassment complaints filed by men in 2006. The figures given state that of the 12,025 sexual harassment claims made in 2006 15.4% of these claims were from men. This reveals a significant increase of male harassment cases that have been filed in the last ten years (Male Sexual Harassment in the Workplace on the Rise, 2007).

In 2008 the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed suit after six Cheesecake Factory workers claimed they were subjected to recurring sexual harassment at the chain's Chandler Mall location in Phoenix. The complaint included accusations of sexual fondling, simulated rape, and being physically dragged into the restaurant's refrigerator. The Cheesecake Factory denied the charges but settled the dispute with $340,000 being paid to the victims. Amazingly, it wasn't a group of female workers who had brought this suit, but a group of male employees who claimed they were sexually harassed by other men on the job. According to new EEOC filings his situation is not unusual anymore. From 1992 until 2008, the number of sexual-harassment charges that were filed by men with the EEOC grew from 8% to 16%. While some people may think sexual harassment of male employees is a joke, the fact is that the issue is real and becoming more widely known (Gesaman, 2010).

Experts feels that by subjecting the men to jeering about their genitalia, sexually suggestive simulations, and lewd comments, the men committing the harassment are seeking to embarrass and target the male victims, not sexually stimulate or flirt with them. Sexual harassment consists of one person using power in a way to hurt another person. Same-sex harassment has only been recognized by the courts in the last 20 years. In 1998 the U.S. Supreme Court held in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services that a person can bring a claim for workplace harassment when the harasser and the harassed employee are the same sex (Gesaman, 2010).

For a lot of men, sexual harassment is without a doubt becoming a serious issue, and some men are deciding not to just brush away the unwelcome advances from women and men. Many people incorrectly believe that harassment is restricted just to females. The truth is that this kind of experience is just as harmful to men as it is to women. Even as the number of sexual harassment cases overall has recently declined in the past few years, sexual harassment filings by men have constantly increased, doubling over the last 15 years. Even though women filing charges makes up the bulk of the EEOC's sexual harassment workload, men are becoming a bigger piece of the pie, with nearly 2000 filing charges last year. And that's cases that get to the EEOC. Many labor experts have found that men are less likely than women to speak up about such cases of harassment for fear of being made fun of by coworkers, and even fewer are willing to take the charges to a government agency and risk widespread knowledge of their predicament (Tahmincioglu, 2007).

Just like with other forms of sexual assault, sexual harassment brings a set of impacts and consequences such as having physical effects, emotional effects, job and school related effects and current and future financial penalties. Harassment also has harmful costs on the environment that victims are in and can lead to an aggressive and less productive work and school surroundings. It costs businesses and schools due to the damaged morale, lawsuits and absenteeism that occur because of it. It permits for the degradation of women and men and the continuation of gender inequalities (Anderson, 2006).

The psychological brunt on the victim of sexual harassment can be huge. Understanding the psychological effects of harassment is difficult because very often the victim's reactions are masked or minimized. Sexual harassment has negative impacts on the victim, often reporting that they are distracted during the day and do not perform to their potential. They are emotionally stressed and suffer from feelings of anxiety, fear, anger, guilt, embarrassment, and lower self-esteem. Damage that occurs because of sexual harassment is often very severe, and includes things like humiliation, loss of dignity and harm to both professional reputation and a person's career. Victims also often experience physical stress including headaches, sleeping problems, and other physical ailments (Dealing with Sexual Harassment, 2002).