Sexual Harassment

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Unwanted sexual advances or other forms of harassment, including verbal, non-verbal, and physical behaviors.

Definition of Sexual Harassment: This is the first topic to cover when learning about sexual harassment. It involves defining what sexual harassment is, what constitutes sexual harassment, and differentiating between harassment and consensual behavior.
Types of Sexual Harassment: Understanding the different types of sexual harassment, such as quid pro quo, hostile work environment, and third-party sexual harassment is crucial when learning about the subject matter.
Forms of Sexual Harassment: This topic delves into the various forms of sexual harassment, including physical, verbal, and non-verbal behavior.
Legal Requirements: Legal requirements that cover sexual harassment apply to employers to protect employees from harassment. Learning these requirements will provide a better understanding of how organizations handle harassment cases.
Sexual Harassment Policies: Policymakers in different organizations enact sexual harassment policies which are measures put in place to prevent harassment from occurring in the workplace, and also provide a clear framework to report incidents of harassment.
Reporting Harassment: This topic helps people to identify how to report harassment incidents to authorities, as well as to encourage victims to speak out about their experiences.
Sexual Harassment Awareness Training: This includes training that employers give to their employees to ensure that they understand what sexual harassment is and what steps to take if they or someone they know has experienced harassment.
The Impact of Sexual Harassment: This topic covers the short and long-term effects of sexual harassment on victims and their families.
Prevention Technologies: Technology has been used to prevent as well as improve the reporting of sexual harassment in various organizations.
Addressing Underlying Issues: Revealing the underlying issues that lead to harassment, such as power imbalances, gender stereotypes, and toxic masculinity, is important to enable prevention practices that contribute to a safer working environment.
Sexual harassment and the Media: This topic involves the media's portrayal of sexual harassment and how it spreads to change policies and attitudes towards harassment.
Addressing Harassment Challenges: This covers the challenges that organizations face in addressing harassment incidences, such as under-reporting and retribution.
Building Support Networks: Building supportive communities, such as social and professional support networks, to enable people to report harassment and increase the chance of experiencing a successful outcome.
Sexual Harassment within the legal system: This covers the integrity of the justice system when it comes to sexual harassment crimes, from complaints made to law enforcement to filing lawsuits.
Intersectionality and Sexual Harassment: Intersectionality is the understanding of how people's different sociological identities intersect to create unique experiences. This topic covers the intersectional factors that increase the likelihood of experiencing harassment.
Male Allies: This involves the role men have to play in preventing and addressing sexual harassment, and how male allies can help women in fighting harassment.
Workplace culture: This topic is crucial when understanding how workplace culture can either prevent or encourage sexual harassment. It explores how organizational culture and leadership can create a safe working environment.
Verbal Sexual Harassment: This type of Sexual Harassment involves verbal comments and remarks that are sexual in nature. It can also include sexual innuendos, jokes, and compliments.
Physical Sexual Harassment: This type of Sexual Harassment involves unwanted physical contact such as touching, groping, or lewd gestures. It can also include blocking someone's path or cornering them.
Visual Sexual Harassment: This type of Sexual Harassment involves inappropriate visual gestures, such as staring or leering at someone's sexual parts, making sexual gestures or showing sexually explicit images, drawings or photographs.
Cyber Sexual Harassment: This type of Sexual Harassment involves sexual harassment occurring through electronic communication like social media, messaging apps, or emails. It can include sexting, sending sexually explicit photographs or messages, and online bullying.
Quid Pro Quo: This type of Sexual Harassment occurs when a person in a position of power, makes an exchange of job benefits such as promotion, raise, or favorable treatment in exchange for sexual favors.
Hostile Work Environment Sexual Harassment: This type of Sexual Harassment occurs when there is inappropriate conduct, behavior or communication that makes a workplace hostile or offensive. It can include bullying, intimidation, inappropriate jokes, comments or non-consensual touching.
Institutional Sexual Harassment: This type of Sexual Harassment occurs in educational or academic institutions, where the recipient experiences harassment by fellow students or faculty members. It can include verbal, physical or visual harassment, and cyberbullying.
Gender-Based Harassment: This type of Sexual Harassment is based on gender or sexual orientation, it can include discrimination based on gender identity or gender expression, homophobic slurs or actions, and inappropriate jokes or comments.
Retaliatory Sexual Harassment: This type of Sexual Harassment occurs when a victim reports Sexual Harassment to their employer or authorities and faces retaliation, such as termination or demotion, for reporting it.
Non-verbal Sexual Harassment: This type of Sexual Harassment includes unwanted gestures, facial expressions, or sexual physical gestures that do not involve verbal communication.
"Sexual harassment is a type of harassment involving the use of explicit or implicit sexual overtones, including the unwelcome and inappropriate promises of rewards in exchange for sexual favors."
"Sexual harassment can either be physical or verbal, maybe even both."
"Harassment can occur in many different social settings such as the workplace, the home, school, or religious institutions."
"Harassers or victims may be of any sex or gender."
"Laws surrounding sexual harassment generally do not prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or minor isolated incidents."
"In the workplace, harassment may be considered illegal when it is frequent or severe, thereby creating a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision."
"Adverse employment decision (such as the victim's demotion, firing or quitting)."
"The legal and social understanding of sexual harassment, however, varies by culture."
"Sexual harassment by an employer is a form of illegal employment discrimination."
"For many businesses or organizations, preventing sexual harassment and defending employees from sexual harassment charges have become key goals of legal decision-making."
"Sexual harassment includes a range of actions from verbal transgressions to sexual abuse or assault."
"Harassment can occur in many different social settings such as the workplace, the home, school, or religious institutions."
"Harassers or victims may be of any sex or gender."
"Laws surrounding sexual harassment generally do not prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or minor isolated incidents."
"In the workplace, harassment may be considered illegal when it is frequent or severe, thereby creating a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision."
"The legal and social understanding of sexual harassment, however, varies by culture."
"Harassment can occur in many different social settings such as the workplace, the home, school, or religious institutions."
"Sexual harassment by an employer is a form of illegal employment discrimination."
"For many businesses or organizations, preventing sexual harassment and defending employees from sexual harassment charges have become key goals of legal decision-making."
"Sexual harassment includes a range of actions from verbal transgressions to sexual abuse or assault."