Sexual Harassment
Kim Schulte

Sexual harassment happens all over the world.  Sexual harassment is an unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other conduct of a sexual nature(verbal or physical).  This issue became a major problem in the workplace in the 1980's.  Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that sexual harassment is the fastest growing area of employee complaint. The complaints filed annually with the EEOC grew from 6,000 in 1990 to over 15,000 in 1996. There are two types of sexual harassment in the workplace, quid pro quo and hostile work environment.   Quid Pro Quo is referring to having power.  For example, if a C.E.O. requests for a sexual favor from an employee so that she can get a raise.  Hostile Work Environment refers to bad jokes, behavior that would offend a male or female.  Sexual harassment can be avoided if society and the government get together and get all companies to offer management training, sexual harassment workshops for all employees, and revise the human resource department.

Sexual harassment can occur in a variety of circumstances. The victim as well as the harasser may be a woman or a man.  The victim does not have to be of the opposite sex.  The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, an agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or a non-employee.  It does not have to be the person being harassed, but could be anyone affected by the offensive conduct.  Unlawful sexual harassment can happen without economic injury to or discharge of the person being harassed.  The harasser's conduct must be unwelcome.  The harassee must tell the harasser  that he or she does not like harasser's conduct and that it is unwelcome and it must stop.

One way to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace is to have Zero Tolerance.   The Supreme Court held that in order for an employer to escape liability on a claim alleging hostile work environment of sexual harassment, it must allege and prove the following defense.  The affirmative defense consists of two separate elements.   First it requires that an employer prove it "exercised reasonable care" to promptly correct any sexually harassing behavior.  Second, that the plaintiff employee unreasonably failed "to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employee".   The Zero Tolerance system places a burden on the employee complaining of the offending behavior. Each employee is required to sign a test form acknowledging that they are required to make a report to this system if they experience or witness sexual harassment.  Once a complaint is received, interviewers take the report using a question format.  It ensures that a record of the complaint's allegations, and for the employer, any changes to or revisions are preserved.  The benefits of this system are the following:  cost effective, management's uncertainty with regard to incurring liability for a hostile work environment claim by placing a burden firmly on the complainant, erases the risk of allegations of reinterpretation of a complaint, accurate proof of the complaint, and the veracity of the customer's managers will not ask questions as it relates to their conduct or any motivations in the record.

If women did not wear certain clothes that distract the men a little part of the sexual harassment would be prevented.  Companies should have dress codes for women and men, but mostly for the women.  Uniforms are not necessary for women to wear in a business such as  Anheuser-Busch, but they are necessary for employees who work in the hospitals, grocery stores, and car dealerships.  The dress code for women should be the business type suits, professional looking not something that someone would wear to a club.  Keeping things to the imagination not showing so much.  Women sometimes wear revealing clothes to attract men that they work with, but there are many other ways to get a man's attention.  In the workplace you are not trying to pick somebody up, your requirements are to do job that you have been paid to do.

The best way to eliminate sexual harassment is to confront it.  Let the harasser know that the harassment is offensive, embarrassing, makes you sick, and scares you and ask them to stop.  That is important because sometimes people, usually men, will engage in behaviors that are offensive to women and they do not even realize that it is offensive.  By letting the harasser know, you are eliminating their ignorance.  If people can not confront the harasser then they can get help from a department, unit head, or the Affirmative Action Office.  If the complaint is brought to a department or unit head then they will notify the Affirmative Action Office.   Then the affirmative action officer decides on whether the allegation actually constitutes sexual harassment and then requests further investigation, or if it is decided to be an innocent misunderstanding.  The seriousness of the response depends upon the results of the investigation and if the harasser has a history of this untolerated behavior.

Dierberg's policy on sexual harassment is probably a global policy.  Keep in mind that all situations of sexual harassment are different, but the basic policy to go about it  is the same.  The policy at Dierberg's is that is someone feels harassed then they  should immediately go to some sort of management and voice the complaint.   If the person does not feel comfortable with going to management they have a choice of going to the Director of Human Resources.  Whoever takes the complaint has to hear both sides of the story.  After they talk with the harasser they will suspend the harasser bending on further investigations.  The manager or Human Resource will formulate information that could be useful to the case such as witnesses.  The investigation should only one or two days depending on the type of case.  After all the facts are on the table then the manager and the Human Resource person will base their decision on their merits, the information, and witnesses if there was any.  If the so called harasser was falsely accused of sexual harassment then Dierberg's would compensate the person with payback.

Diede Dynamics, a Human Relations Specialist, has seminars and workshops to prevent sexual harassment.  The four old ways that they handled this was first, to hire an expensive law firm.  Second, force employees to attend a boring lecture.  Third, teach dull laws and legal jargon.  Fourth, scare employees to following obscure guidelines.  Now they have six new ways of handling things.  First, consulting with a business expert.  Second, survey employees, staff, and the managers.  Third, uncover the conflict areas in the workplace.   Fourth, customize workshops to cover "people's issues."  Fifth, include sexual harassment information in a non-threatening way.  Sixth, show employees more effective ways to relate to others.  Majority of sexual harassment complaints is due to the lack of miscommunication and misunderstanding.  Having better work relationships would help prevent the miscommunications and misunderstandings between co-workers.

Sexual harassment can be avoided if society and the government get together and get all companies to offer management training, workshops for all employees, and revise human resources department.  There are two types of sexual harassment in the workplace.  First, Quid Pro Quo which refers to having power, doing sexual favors to get promoted.  Second, Hostile Work Environment which refers to bad jokes and offensive to male or females.  The harasser could be a man or woman and must be unwelcome.  If women dressed more professional at work then the men would not feel tempted to make an offensive comment or pursue anything that would be unprofessional.   The best way to eliminate the harassment is to confront the harasser.  Let the harasser know that the harassment is offensive, embarrassing, makes you sick, and scares you and that it must stop.  By letting them know, you are eliminating their ignorance.

Introduction

Clarify what you mean by its having become a major problem in 80's. Was it not a problem before, or was it just finally being recognized as a problem with the upswing of the women's rights movement of the 60s and 70s? I.e. if it's the fastest growing area of employee complaint, are the complaints being filed today a direct result of the success of other plaintiffs? You might make the distinction between Quid pro Quo being an active form of harassment and HWE being a passive form. What guidelines have been established for proving either? Clarify your thesis--training workshops like you suggest have been implemented in greater frequency every year since the 80's. That being the case, one would expect litigation to decrease, not increase. Is it possible that the training sessions are doing more to convince women they have a case against the slightest comment than otherwise? How can we resolve this dilemma? To what extent should we go in reorganizing all the human resource departments of every major corporation? Can such a thing be legislated without infringing upon the basic freedoms guaranteed by the Dept. of Commerce? How globally recognized is this problem? Do other countries not have the same problems as us do to their unwillingness to sponsor litigation? When something can't be sued for, do occurrences happen more, or do complaints happen less out of fear of corporate retaliation. There's a lot of questions here. Develop this along those lines.

Body1

Okay, here's where you clarify your difference between active and passive sexual harassment. Move the reference to it out of the intro as you've got lots of other information you can fill the background with, and put it down here (Quid pro quo and HWE). What's the significance of there being such a distinction? Does this mean that anyone can sue for anything? If an employer smiles and winks at his employees, for instance, is the harassment measured by his intent or by how his actions are received? Can quid pro quo be implied by the employer in the same way it can be demanded? If no implication is intended, can the employee still sue for what he or she feels is an intention? Develop it along those lines.

Body2

In the first case, what if the employer fires a woman who is extremely attractive in order to avoid there being a sexually charged work atmosphere? Does the fired employee has a right to sue? The second case sounds ambiguous--how can the employer prove that the employee did not take advantage of the sexual harassment policy to redress the problem? Give me an example. Customer's managers? That last sentence is awkwardly put--simplify it along the lines of parallel structure for each element. What is the significance of a Zero Tolerance policy in decreasing the number of lawsuits. In your intro, you stated that lawsuits are increasing dramatically. How effective is this program?

Body3

Women in Anheuser-Busch do not get discriminated against? Clarify what you mean? Are you talking about the difference between labor that is not seen by the public and labor that is seen by the public? Those with a high public profile might actually be safer than those without. Assembly line labor is probably more susceptible to sexual harassment because it's in a controlled, stable, monotonous environment. Argue this. You seem to place the burden of being sexually harassed squarely on the shoulders of the woman--are the men not responsible for controlling their actions around a beautiful woman who wears tight clothing and displays cleavage? If that's distracting, isn't it rather the fault of the men who allow themselves to get distracted? If a company bans such clothing for its female employees in accordance with providing reasonable care, does it not infringe upon the rights of those employees to dress freely but professionally in whatever the new businesswoman's fashion is? Finally, is it the woman's responsibility to sterilize her gender in order to succeed in a workplace filled with men who are not asked to emasculate themselves? It seems that your solution slaps a band-aid on the problem and does not address the central issue of gender differences.

Body4

In confronting innocent flirtations with such extreme methods, isn't the woman setting herself up as an office pariah?--joyless, friendless, and unapproachable? Shouldn't office relationships be governed on the same grounds as social relationships, where if someone is bothering someone else in a sexually demanding way the person being bothered can just tell them to get lost? Or, does the nature of an office environment, being that there is no escape into the larger world outside that confinement, preclude a woman's being able to just walk away from an unwanted advance? Argue this. Central to the point of this paragraph is what makes an approach by a member of the opposite sex in an office different from his approach in a bar or at a park or some other social milieu.

Body5

Try not to use the word "probably"--be assertive in your arguments. So the accused is suspended pending further investigation based entirely on the merit of his being accused? Clarify that--does he have a right to sue for false accusations once he's found in the clear? If a woman who is incredibly attractive starts accusing a lot of her co-workers of coming on to her, can she be fired herself for creating what must obviously be a sexually charged work environment? How easy is it to prove sexual harassment in Dierberg's? Does there have to be a witness? How does this parallel to the larger corporate world?

Body6

The lack of miscommunication? Clarify. How long has this sexual harassment workshop firm been in business? Have their efforts decreased the number of suits in businesses they've entered? Why, again, is litigation still on the increase? What's the difference between the way companies were coping with it and the way that they're coping with it now? Is it reflective of a change in attitude on the part of the company, that they're now taking this issue seriously?

Conclusion

Don't repeat your intro paragraph--there's no reason to rehash these ideas that you've already discussed thoroughly throughout your paper. Definitely do not summarize the remainder of your ideas. They've already been voiced, so there's no need to repeat them. Focus here on the impact this issue has on the corporate world and how it is changing intraoffice relationships and leveling the disparity between the genders in terms of power relationships.

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