Sexual harassment is one of the pressing issues in the modern corporate world. Did you know there are still increasing reports of sexual harassment at workplace? Any unwanted physical, verbal, or non-verbal sexual conduct violating a person’s dignity qualified for sexual harassment. Usually, two types of sexual harassment are recognizable.
At least one in three people have been sexually harassed at the workplace, with nearly 40-75% being women and 15-30% being men. Individuals – irrespective of gender – have at least once or twice experienced sexual harassment. This becomes problematic when you look at the millions affected worldwide.
Sexual harassment can look different – outside of the two major types – we will explore all these in the following sections and dissect the psychological factors. We will also look at the other ways sexual harassment can manifest.
Let’s dive right into it.
Two Types of Sexual Harassment | A Psychological Dive
The two types of sexual harassment that we know of are hostile work environments and quid pro quo sexual harassment. Both these types of sexual harassment types have been primarily and significantly present in the workplace – corporate or not.
Out of the two types of sexual harassment, quid pro quo sexual harassment has something for some motives behind it. Which is all the scarier because the perp is usually someone who is in a position of power. Harvey Weinstein to the ex-Harrods boss, all of them lured innocent victims by abusing their power.
It starts small and may look like approaches they take to make contact, which look harmless. By the time you’re aware of what’s happening, it’s either too late, and you have no way out, or you pick a fight at the risk of losing your job.
Diving Into Quid Pro Quo
Someone in a supervisory position can make sexual advances toward you in exchange for employment benefits. Looks easy to reject, right? Often, it isn’t straightforward – the perpetrator threatens punishment, which may look as severe as losing one’s job and bringing problems into the victim’s professional life.
There is a twisted side to this power play perps want to play into – there are a variety of factors behind the scenes. It can be their mindset, situational factors, or even mental health disorders that come into play.
This can be visible as situational factors that are influencing their action or cognitively link sexuality and social dominance. For instance, someone in a lucrative position may find a member of LGBTQIA+ as a suitable target due to their prejudice.
Then, their actions can start looking like passing comments on their sexuality, questions that sound like How do you…and never have a professional end.
These little things can pile on and take severe forms that may include their peers. Let’s face it – most people in corporate want to suck up to their bosses. In cases of quid pro quo sexual harassment that occurs in the above context – some of the victim’s peers might unknowingly promote sexual harassment without thinking about the consequences.
This can get out of hand very quickly, with often significantly less severe or zero consequences for the perp. The stories roll on with awful regularity, and they are never pretty. There are psychological commonalities that allow us to peek into the harasser’s mind.
Diving Into Hostile Work Environment Sexual Harassment
Next, out of the two types of sexual harassment, this is employment discrimination that occurs when an employee faces unwelcome sexual conduct. Leading to an intimidating work environment. Sexually suggestive comments, jokes, remarks, and gestures also contribute to it.
A hostile work environment is one that does not allow the targeted employee or employees to feel safe and respected in their workspace. This is concerning, as the unreasonable interference limits the employee’s productivity.
Sexual harassment in the workplace creates a hostile environment when there is any conduct that can intimidate the employee. An offensive environment develops that is damaging to the victim’s psychological, emotional, and mental well-being.
A work environment becomes so hostile that it alters the conditions and terms of employment. It is essential to note that there does not need to be adverse actions or economic effects for a work environment to become hostile.
The disturbingly common occurrence of sexual harassment can occur anywhere – be it in a federal setting or corporate. In the corporate setting, it can stem from the perp’s opinions and other psychological factors discussed below.
These factors play a significant role in sexual harassment. And these have a role in making the environment unworkable for the victim. Female and male employees both feel that they have felt uncomfortable in their workplace at least once.
Nearly 50-80% of female employees have experienced a hostile environment of sexual harassment. We used a small survey to find out the truth about the hostile environment in the modern workplace.
The cohort comprised 100 participants, with equal distribution between men and women employees in a modern workspace.
Following were the findings:
40% of the respondents had an experience of at least one of the following in their professional life –
- Gender harassment – with the majority claiming they had a supervisor or co-worker who made crude sexual remarks, offensive remarks, displayed offensive materials, and made sexist comments.
- Unwanted sexual attention where respondents claimed a supervisor or co-worker attempted to discuss sex, staring, leering at them, and repeated requests for dinner drinks, despite rejection and touching in a way that made them uncomfortable.
- Sexual coercion, where respondents claimed they experienced their supervisor or co-worker subtly threatening them and made them afraid of poor treatment if they did not cooperate.
Another interesting inference from this survey found that female co-workers were more likely to experience one of the abovementioned incidences than their male counterparts.
The shocking part is that there were male respondents who had never experienced any of the above instances of a hostile environment. It must be nice to be them!
Other Types of Sexual Harassment
Unwelcome can look much different than the two types of sexual harassment. For instance, non-verbal sexual harassment, where the perp may ogle, show lewd behavior, and have highly inappropriate actions.
Verbal sexual harassment is where the perp cracks jokes with sexual innuendoes such as acts, orientation, or suggestive things. Sharing offensive, sexual pictures, and videos or pressuring for sexual favors – are all acts of sexual harassment.
Of course, any act that makes the victim uncomfortable also qualifies for sexual harassment – it is what makes them feel worse in the long run. This is also what creates an environment of intimidation and fear.
There are long-term feelings of depression, anxiety, and sadness that may get in the way. This is what makes it difficult for the victim to overcome or rejoin the workplace again.
Psychological Factors Playing A Role in Two Types of Sexual Harassment
The three main psychological factors that play a role in the actions leading up to sexual harassment are –
- Current psychological factors
- Predisposing personality vulnerabilities
- Socio-environmental influences
Someone who shows signs of limited or lack of empathy for others, entitlement, omnipotence, and a buried sense of inadequacy can often show signs of perpetrating sexual harassment.
Their inability to accept that not everyone lives to serve them or fulfill their exaggerated need for admiration all become potential causes for them to act on their impulse. This is problematic on many levels.
Thankfully, those with more than two brain cells often rise above these factors. They do not engage in sexual harassment despite having all the personality traits – nevertheless, they are challenging to deal with.
Current Psychological Factors Playing A Role
The current psychological factors have a significant role to play in sexual harassment – from the defense mechanism they build to ignoring information they don’t want to think about. This is a psychological maneuver that creeps up unconsciously.
Another defense mechanism that perps often use to justify or get away with is rationalization – the use of surrounding factors and twisting them to fit their narrative. The one where they are innocent.
Predisposing Personality Vulnerabilities
In addition, excessive drinking is another factor that decreases self-control. This, mixed with loneliness and overstimulation, is a recipe for disaster. All contribute to acts where thinking is hardly involved.
This triggers rationalization and disavowing in the perp to help them erase the incident. Often, such behavior is also due to socio-environmental factors such as being away from family. This can also stem from an environment that values connections and power over substance.
This environment further dismantles their judgment and ability to differentiate between right and wrong. There is no inhibitory force that stops the perp from further acting on a wish and feeling.
You may have noticed in yourself that we do not usually act on all our wishes and feelings – this is due to the action of inhibitory forces. These stop us automatically from doing something impulsive.
Socio-environmental factors
In a corporate setting – it is customary to desire someone or even find them attractive. It is written into the fabric of human nature. The next part also applies in non-corporate settings where you do not know the person enough to approach them about your feelings.
What is abnormal is to express your thoughts out loud – without the expected proper response, the harasser may do inappropriate and damaging things. This comes from a place of entitlement that does not allow them to take rejection well.
I feel it, I want it, I’m going to get it because I’m entitled to it.
If you notice, it is borderline close to bullying, which is what sexual harassment cases are often linked with. This is where one of the other types of sexual harassment comes in – this is the perp’s ability to psychologically, emotionally, or physically bully their target into accepting their advances.
All these psychological factors have a significant role to play in sexual harassment in general and are what lead to harassment against protected characteristics such as sex, race, age, disability, genetic information, and color.
Take action! | 5 Ds of Addressing Sexual Harassment as a Bystander
When you want to act against sexual harassment, but you are not sure about what to do – this is what you should keep in mind. When you want to intervene in a situation involving sexual harassment, here are the 5 Ds of intervention:
Direct
Be direct in your approach to stop a situation of sexual harassment. When you are a bystander of this horrendous act, you must name what is happening. This will help gather the attention of those around and flag the incident for what it is.
Distract
Distracting is a subtle way of derailing the incident so that you interrupt it smartly. No, you are not distracting people’s attention away from it – instead, it is directing the energy to the victim. This gets in the way of harassment – you diffuse the situation without risking escalation of the harasser’s behavior.
You take this step to distract the victim from the incident without giving attention to the harasser.
Delegate
This is asking a third party to intervene – you must tell the person directly and clearly about the situation you are witnessing. Then, ask them if they would like to help in the situation.
Delay
If you bore witness to sexual harassment, it isn’t always possible that you will get the window to intervene. This is when you can take this step – ask them if they’re okay and if they need support.
It can be helping them get in touch with the right resources or if they need help reporting the incident.
Document
Document the incident as it will help report the incident. You can either record or take notes of the situation safely and responsibly. This involves assessing the problem, for instance, if anyone is helping the victim.
The incident can already be very traumatic for the victim – posting the proof anywhere else without their consent would be counterproductive. Always ask the victim what they want to do with the documentation.
This way, you can be helpful to the victim and ensure that they are not in any legal trouble.
Wrapping It Up!
Sexual harassment is a challenging experience to undergo, and this article helps you understand the psychology of the two types of sexual harassment. This is a deep dive into the way perceptions and judgments have a role to play in incidents of sexual harassment.
It is not the victim’s fault, which is something that is always portrayed. The article also illustrates all the other ways sexual harassment manifests – from non-verbal cues to unwelcome touch and jokes.
Anything that makes the listener uncomfortable to the point it is offensive qualifies as sexual harassment.
Lastly, the article concludes with a quick guide for bystanders to sexual harassment in the workplace and how they can help the victim.
Read More:
