Costanza-san
Banned
Sexual harassment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Sexual harassment (disambiguation).
Sex and the law
Scale of justice 2.svg
Social issues
Age of consent Antisexualism Censorship Circumcision Deviant sexual intercourse Ethics Homophobia Intersex Miscegenation (interracial relations) Norms Objectification Pornography Public morality Red-light district Reproductive rights Same-sex marriage Survival sex
Specific offences
(May vary according to jurisdiction)
Adultery Bestiality Buggery Child grooming Child pornography Child prostitution Criminal transmission of HIV Female genital mutilation Fornication Incest Pimping Prostitution forced Public indecency Rape statutory marital Seduction Sexting Sexual abuse child Sexual assault Sexual harassment Slavery Sodomy UK Section 63 (2008) Violence Voyeurism
Sex offender registration
Sex offender registry Sex offender registries in the United States
Portals
Sexuality Criminal justice Law
v t e
Sexual harassment is bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors.[1] In most modern legal contexts, sexual harassment is illegal. As defined by the United States' Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), "It is unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person's sex." Harassment can include "sexual harassment" or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. The legal definition of sexual harassment varies by jurisdiction. Sexual harassment is subject to a directive in the European Union.[2]
Although laws surrounding sexual harassment exist, they generally do not prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or minor isolated incidents that is, they do not impose a "general civility code".[3] In the workplace, harassment may be considered illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted, or the victim quitting the job). The legal and social understanding of sexual harassment, however, varies by culture.
In the context of US employment, the harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer, and harassers or victims can be of any gender.[4]
It includes a range of actions from mild transgressions to sexual abuse or sexual assault.[5] Sexual harassment is a form of illegal employment discrimination in many countries, and is a form of abuse (sexual and psychological) and bullying. For many businesses or organizations, preventing sexual harassment, and defending employees from sexual harassment charges, have become key goals of legal decision-making.
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology and history
2 Situations
3 In the workplace
4 Varied behaviors
5 Prevention
6 Impact
6.1 Coping
6.2 Common effects on the victims
6.3 Post-complaint retaliation and backlash
6.4 Backlash stress
7 Organizational policies and procedures
8 Evolution of law in different jurisdictions
8.1 Varied legal guidelines and definitions
8.2 Africa
8.3 Australia
8.4 Europe
8.5 Asia
8.6 United States
9 Historical antecedents
9.1 Ancient Rome
10 Criticism
11 In media and literature
12 See also
13 Notes
14 References
15 Further reading
16 External links
Etymology and history[edit]
The concept of sexual harassment, in its modern understanding, is a relatively new one, dating from the 1970s onwards; although other related concepts have existed prior to this in many cultures. The term sexual harassment was used in 1973 in "Saturn's Rings", a report authored by Mary Rowe to the then-President and Chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about various forms of gender issues.[6] Rowe has stated that she believes she was not the first to use the term, since sexual harassment was being discussed in women's groups in Massachusetts in the early 1970s, but that MIT may have been the first or one of the first large organizations to discuss the topic (in the MIT Academic Council), and to develop relevant policies and procedures. MIT at the time also recognized the injuries caused by racial harassment and the harassment of women of color, which may be both racial and sexual. The President of MIT also stated that harassment (and favoritism) are antithetical to the mission of a university as well as intolerable for individuals.
In the book In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (1999), journalist Susan Brownmiller quotes the Cornell activists who in 1975 thought they had coined the term sexual harassment: "Eight of us were sitting in an office ... brainstorming about what we were going to write on posters for our speak-out. We were referring to it as 'sexual intimidation,' 'sexual coercion,' 'sexual exploitation on the job.' None of those names seemed quite right. We wanted something that embraced a whole range of subtle and un-subtle persistent behaviors. Somebody came up with 'harassment.' 'Sexual harassment!' Instantly we agreed. That's what it was."[7]
These activists, Lin Farley, Susan Meyer, and Karen Sauvigne went on to form Working Women's Institute which, along with the Alliance Against Sexual Coercion, founded in 1976 by Freada Klein, Lynn Wehrli, and Elizabeth Cohn-Stuntz, were among the pioneer organizations to bring sexual harassment to public attention in the late 1970s.
Still the term was largely unknown until the early 1990s when Anita Hill witnessed and testified against Supreme Court of the United States nominee Clarence Thomas.[8] Since Hill testified in 1991, the number of sexual harassment cases reported in US and Canada increased 58 percent and have climbed steadily.[8]
Situations[edit]
Dramatization of an incident done as part of a university photo project
At the Tavern, by Johann Michael Neder, 1833, Germanisches Nationalmuseum
Sexual harassment may occur in a variety of circumstancesin workplaces as varied as factories, school, academia, Hollywood and the music business.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Often, but not always, the perpetrator is in a position of power or authority over the victim (due to differences in age, or social, political, educational or employment relationships) or expecting to receive such power or authority in form of promotion. Forms of harassment relationships include:
The perpetrator can be anyone, such as a client, a co-worker, a parent or legal guardian, relative, a teacher or professor, a student, a friend, or a stranger.
The place of harassment occurrence may vary from school, university[16], workplace and other.
There may or may not be other witnesses or attendances.
The perpetrator may be completely unaware that his or her behavior is offensive or constitutes sexual harassment or may be completely unaware that his or her actions could be unlawful.[4]
The incident can take place in situations in which the harassed person may not be aware of or understand what is happening.
The incident may be one time occurrence but more often it has a type of repetitiveness.
Adverse effects on the target are common in the form of stress and social withdrawal, sleep and eating difficulties, overall health impairment, etc.
The victim and perpetrator can be any gender.
The perpetrator does not have to be of the opposite sex.
The incident can result from a situation in which the perpetrator thinks they are making themselves clear, but is not understood the way they intended. The misunderstanding can either be reasonable or unreasonable. An example of unreasonable is when a woman holds a certain stereotypical view of a man such that she did not understand the mans explicit message to stop.[17]
With the advent of the Internet, social interactions, including sexual harassment, increasingly occur online, for example in video games.
According to the 2014 PEW research statistics on online harassment, 25% of women and 13% of men between the ages of 18 and 24 have experienced sexual harassment while online.[18]
In the workplace[edit]
The United States' Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) defines workplace sexual harassment as "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment (EEOC).[19]
79% of victims are women, 21% are men.
51% are harassed by a supervisor
Business, trade, banking, and finance are the biggest industries where sexual harassment occurs
12% received threats of termination if they did not comply with their requests
26,000 people in the armed forces were assaulted in 2012[20]
302 of the 2,558 cases pursued by victims were prosecuted
38% of the cases were committed by someone of a higher rank
Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion. It generally applies to employers with fifteen or more employees, including federal, state, and local governments. Title VII also applies to private and public colleges and universities, employment agencies, and labor organizations.[21]
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individuals race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Varied behaviors[edit]
A man makes an unwanted sexual advance on a woman.
One of the difficulties in understanding sexual harassment, is that it involves a range of behaviors. In most cases (although not in all cases) it is difficult for the victim to describe what they experienced. This can be related to difficulty classifying the situation or could be related to stress and humiliation experienced by the recipient. Moreover, behavior and motives vary between individual cases.[22]
Dzeich et al. has divided harassers into two broad classes:
Public harassers are flagrant in their seductive or sexist attitudes towards colleagues, subordinates, students, etc.
Private harassers carefully cultivate a restrained and respectable image on the surface, but when alone with their target, their demeanor changes.
Langelan describes four different classes of harassers.[23]
Predatory harasser who gets sexual thrills from humiliating others. This harasser may become involved in sexual extortion, and may frequently harass just to see how targets respond. Those who don't resist may even become targets for rape.
Dominance harasser: the most common type, who engages in harassing behavior as an ego boost.
Strategic or territorial harassers who seek to maintain privilege in jobs or physical locations, for example a man's harassment of a female employee in a predominantly male occupation.
Street harasser: Another type of sexual harassment performed in public places by strangers. Street harassment includes verbal and nonverbal behavior, remarks that are frequently sexual in nature and comment on physical appearance or a person's presence in public.[24]
Prevention[edit]
Sexual harassment and assault may be prevented by secondary school,[25] college,[26][27] and workplace education programs.[28] At least one program for fraternity men produced "sustained behavioral change".[26][29]
Many sororities and fraternities in the United States take preventative measures against hazing and hazing activities during the participants' pledging processes (which may often include sexual harassment). Many Greek organizations and universities nationwide have anti-hazing policies that explicitly recognize various acts and examples of hazing, and offer preventative measures for such situations.[30]
Impact[edit]
The impact of sexual harassment can vary. In research carried out by the EU Agency for Fundamental Human Rights research, 17,335 female victims of sexual assault were asked to name the feelings that resulted from the most serious incident of sexual assault that they had encountered since the age of 15. 'Anger, annoyance and embarrassment were the most common emotional responses, with 45% of women feeling anger, 41% annoyance and 36% embarrassment. Furthermore, close to one in three women (29 %) who has experienced sexual harassment says that she felt fearful as a result of the most serious incident, while one in five (20%) victims say that the most serious incident made her feel ashamed of what had taken place.[31] In other situations, harassment may lead to temporary or prolonged stress or depression depending on the recipient's psychological abilities to cope and the type of harassment and the social support or lack thereof for the recipient. Psychologists and social workers report that severe or chronic sexual harassment can have the same psychological effects as rape or sexual assault.[32][33] Victims who do not submit to harassment may also experience various forms of retaliation, including isolation and bullying.
As an overall social and economic effect every year, sexual harassment deprives women from active social and economic participation and costs hundreds of millions of dollars in lost educational and professional opportunities for mostly girls and women.[34] However, the quantity of men implied in these conflicts is significant.
Coping[edit]
Sexual harassment, by definition, is unwanted and not to be tolerated. However, there often are a number of effective ways for offended and injured people to overcome the resulting psychological effects, remain in or return to society, regain healthy feelings within personal relationships when they were affected by the outside relationship trauma, regain social approval, and recover the ability to concentrate and be productive in educational, work, etc. environments. This may include stress management and therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy,[35] friends and family support, etc.
Immediate psychological and legal counseling are recommended since self-treatment may not release stress or remove trauma, and simply reporting to authorities may not have the desired effect, may be ignored, or may further injure the victim at its response.
Study on the behaviours women use to manage sexual harassment[edit]
A 1991 study done by K.R. Yount found three dominant strategies developed by a sample of women coal miners to manage sexual harassment on the job: the "lady", the "flirt", and the "tomboy". The "ladies" were typically the older women workers who tended to disengage from the men, kept their distance, avoided using profanity, avoided engaging in any behavior that might be interpreted as suggestive. They also tended to emphasize by their appearance and manners that they were ladies. The consequences for the "ladies" were that they were the targets of the least amount of come-ons, teasing and sexual harassment, but they also accepted the least prestigious and lowest-paid jobs.[36]
The "flirts" were most often the younger single women. As a defense mechanism, they pretended to be flattered when they were the targets of sexual comments. Consequently, they became perceived as the "embodiment of the female stereotype,...as particularly lacking in potential and were given the fewest opportunities to develop job skills and to establish social and self-identities as miners."[36]
The "tomboys" were generally single women, but were older than the "flirts". They attempted to separate themselves from the female stereotype and focused on their status as coal miners and tried to develop a "thick skin". They responded to harassment with humor, comebacks, sexual talk of their own, or reciprocation. As a result, they were often viewed as sluts or sexually promiscuous and as women who violated the sexual double standard. Consequently, they were subjected to intensified and increased harassment by some men. It was not clear whether the tomboy strategy resulted in better or worse job assignments.[36]
The findings of this study may be applicable to other work settings, including factories, restaurants, offices, and universities. The study concludes that individual strategies for coping with sexual harassment are not likely to be effective and may have unexpected negative consequences for the workplace and may even lead to increased sexual harassment. Women who try to deal with sexual harassment on their own, regardless of what they do, seem to be in a no-win situation.[36]
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Sexual harassment (disambiguation).
Sex and the law
Scale of justice 2.svg
Social issues
Age of consent Antisexualism Censorship Circumcision Deviant sexual intercourse Ethics Homophobia Intersex Miscegenation (interracial relations) Norms Objectification Pornography Public morality Red-light district Reproductive rights Same-sex marriage Survival sex
Specific offences
(May vary according to jurisdiction)
Adultery Bestiality Buggery Child grooming Child pornography Child prostitution Criminal transmission of HIV Female genital mutilation Fornication Incest Pimping Prostitution forced Public indecency Rape statutory marital Seduction Sexting Sexual abuse child Sexual assault Sexual harassment Slavery Sodomy UK Section 63 (2008) Violence Voyeurism
Sex offender registration
Sex offender registry Sex offender registries in the United States
Portals
Sexuality Criminal justice Law
v t e
Sexual harassment is bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors.[1] In most modern legal contexts, sexual harassment is illegal. As defined by the United States' Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), "It is unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person's sex." Harassment can include "sexual harassment" or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. The legal definition of sexual harassment varies by jurisdiction. Sexual harassment is subject to a directive in the European Union.[2]
Although laws surrounding sexual harassment exist, they generally do not prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or minor isolated incidents that is, they do not impose a "general civility code".[3] In the workplace, harassment may be considered illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted, or the victim quitting the job). The legal and social understanding of sexual harassment, however, varies by culture.
In the context of US employment, the harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer, and harassers or victims can be of any gender.[4]
It includes a range of actions from mild transgressions to sexual abuse or sexual assault.[5] Sexual harassment is a form of illegal employment discrimination in many countries, and is a form of abuse (sexual and psychological) and bullying. For many businesses or organizations, preventing sexual harassment, and defending employees from sexual harassment charges, have become key goals of legal decision-making.
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology and history
2 Situations
3 In the workplace
4 Varied behaviors
5 Prevention
6 Impact
6.1 Coping
6.2 Common effects on the victims
6.3 Post-complaint retaliation and backlash
6.4 Backlash stress
7 Organizational policies and procedures
8 Evolution of law in different jurisdictions
8.1 Varied legal guidelines and definitions
8.2 Africa
8.3 Australia
8.4 Europe
8.5 Asia
8.6 United States
9 Historical antecedents
9.1 Ancient Rome
10 Criticism
11 In media and literature
12 See also
13 Notes
14 References
15 Further reading
16 External links
Etymology and history[edit]
The concept of sexual harassment, in its modern understanding, is a relatively new one, dating from the 1970s onwards; although other related concepts have existed prior to this in many cultures. The term sexual harassment was used in 1973 in "Saturn's Rings", a report authored by Mary Rowe to the then-President and Chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about various forms of gender issues.[6] Rowe has stated that she believes she was not the first to use the term, since sexual harassment was being discussed in women's groups in Massachusetts in the early 1970s, but that MIT may have been the first or one of the first large organizations to discuss the topic (in the MIT Academic Council), and to develop relevant policies and procedures. MIT at the time also recognized the injuries caused by racial harassment and the harassment of women of color, which may be both racial and sexual. The President of MIT also stated that harassment (and favoritism) are antithetical to the mission of a university as well as intolerable for individuals.
In the book In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (1999), journalist Susan Brownmiller quotes the Cornell activists who in 1975 thought they had coined the term sexual harassment: "Eight of us were sitting in an office ... brainstorming about what we were going to write on posters for our speak-out. We were referring to it as 'sexual intimidation,' 'sexual coercion,' 'sexual exploitation on the job.' None of those names seemed quite right. We wanted something that embraced a whole range of subtle and un-subtle persistent behaviors. Somebody came up with 'harassment.' 'Sexual harassment!' Instantly we agreed. That's what it was."[7]
These activists, Lin Farley, Susan Meyer, and Karen Sauvigne went on to form Working Women's Institute which, along with the Alliance Against Sexual Coercion, founded in 1976 by Freada Klein, Lynn Wehrli, and Elizabeth Cohn-Stuntz, were among the pioneer organizations to bring sexual harassment to public attention in the late 1970s.
Still the term was largely unknown until the early 1990s when Anita Hill witnessed and testified against Supreme Court of the United States nominee Clarence Thomas.[8] Since Hill testified in 1991, the number of sexual harassment cases reported in US and Canada increased 58 percent and have climbed steadily.[8]
Situations[edit]
Dramatization of an incident done as part of a university photo project
At the Tavern, by Johann Michael Neder, 1833, Germanisches Nationalmuseum
Sexual harassment may occur in a variety of circumstancesin workplaces as varied as factories, school, academia, Hollywood and the music business.[9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Often, but not always, the perpetrator is in a position of power or authority over the victim (due to differences in age, or social, political, educational or employment relationships) or expecting to receive such power or authority in form of promotion. Forms of harassment relationships include:
The perpetrator can be anyone, such as a client, a co-worker, a parent or legal guardian, relative, a teacher or professor, a student, a friend, or a stranger.
The place of harassment occurrence may vary from school, university[16], workplace and other.
There may or may not be other witnesses or attendances.
The perpetrator may be completely unaware that his or her behavior is offensive or constitutes sexual harassment or may be completely unaware that his or her actions could be unlawful.[4]
The incident can take place in situations in which the harassed person may not be aware of or understand what is happening.
The incident may be one time occurrence but more often it has a type of repetitiveness.
Adverse effects on the target are common in the form of stress and social withdrawal, sleep and eating difficulties, overall health impairment, etc.
The victim and perpetrator can be any gender.
The perpetrator does not have to be of the opposite sex.
The incident can result from a situation in which the perpetrator thinks they are making themselves clear, but is not understood the way they intended. The misunderstanding can either be reasonable or unreasonable. An example of unreasonable is when a woman holds a certain stereotypical view of a man such that she did not understand the mans explicit message to stop.[17]
With the advent of the Internet, social interactions, including sexual harassment, increasingly occur online, for example in video games.
According to the 2014 PEW research statistics on online harassment, 25% of women and 13% of men between the ages of 18 and 24 have experienced sexual harassment while online.[18]
In the workplace[edit]
The United States' Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) defines workplace sexual harassment as "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment (EEOC).[19]
79% of victims are women, 21% are men.
51% are harassed by a supervisor
Business, trade, banking, and finance are the biggest industries where sexual harassment occurs
12% received threats of termination if they did not comply with their requests
26,000 people in the armed forces were assaulted in 2012[20]
302 of the 2,558 cases pursued by victims were prosecuted
38% of the cases were committed by someone of a higher rank
Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination that violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a federal law that prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion. It generally applies to employers with fifteen or more employees, including federal, state, and local governments. Title VII also applies to private and public colleges and universities, employment agencies, and labor organizations.[21]
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individuals race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Varied behaviors[edit]
A man makes an unwanted sexual advance on a woman.
One of the difficulties in understanding sexual harassment, is that it involves a range of behaviors. In most cases (although not in all cases) it is difficult for the victim to describe what they experienced. This can be related to difficulty classifying the situation or could be related to stress and humiliation experienced by the recipient. Moreover, behavior and motives vary between individual cases.[22]
Dzeich et al. has divided harassers into two broad classes:
Public harassers are flagrant in their seductive or sexist attitudes towards colleagues, subordinates, students, etc.
Private harassers carefully cultivate a restrained and respectable image on the surface, but when alone with their target, their demeanor changes.
Langelan describes four different classes of harassers.[23]
Predatory harasser who gets sexual thrills from humiliating others. This harasser may become involved in sexual extortion, and may frequently harass just to see how targets respond. Those who don't resist may even become targets for rape.
Dominance harasser: the most common type, who engages in harassing behavior as an ego boost.
Strategic or territorial harassers who seek to maintain privilege in jobs or physical locations, for example a man's harassment of a female employee in a predominantly male occupation.
Street harasser: Another type of sexual harassment performed in public places by strangers. Street harassment includes verbal and nonverbal behavior, remarks that are frequently sexual in nature and comment on physical appearance or a person's presence in public.[24]
Prevention[edit]
Sexual harassment and assault may be prevented by secondary school,[25] college,[26][27] and workplace education programs.[28] At least one program for fraternity men produced "sustained behavioral change".[26][29]
Many sororities and fraternities in the United States take preventative measures against hazing and hazing activities during the participants' pledging processes (which may often include sexual harassment). Many Greek organizations and universities nationwide have anti-hazing policies that explicitly recognize various acts and examples of hazing, and offer preventative measures for such situations.[30]
Impact[edit]
The impact of sexual harassment can vary. In research carried out by the EU Agency for Fundamental Human Rights research, 17,335 female victims of sexual assault were asked to name the feelings that resulted from the most serious incident of sexual assault that they had encountered since the age of 15. 'Anger, annoyance and embarrassment were the most common emotional responses, with 45% of women feeling anger, 41% annoyance and 36% embarrassment. Furthermore, close to one in three women (29 %) who has experienced sexual harassment says that she felt fearful as a result of the most serious incident, while one in five (20%) victims say that the most serious incident made her feel ashamed of what had taken place.[31] In other situations, harassment may lead to temporary or prolonged stress or depression depending on the recipient's psychological abilities to cope and the type of harassment and the social support or lack thereof for the recipient. Psychologists and social workers report that severe or chronic sexual harassment can have the same psychological effects as rape or sexual assault.[32][33] Victims who do not submit to harassment may also experience various forms of retaliation, including isolation and bullying.
As an overall social and economic effect every year, sexual harassment deprives women from active social and economic participation and costs hundreds of millions of dollars in lost educational and professional opportunities for mostly girls and women.[34] However, the quantity of men implied in these conflicts is significant.
Coping[edit]
Sexual harassment, by definition, is unwanted and not to be tolerated. However, there often are a number of effective ways for offended and injured people to overcome the resulting psychological effects, remain in or return to society, regain healthy feelings within personal relationships when they were affected by the outside relationship trauma, regain social approval, and recover the ability to concentrate and be productive in educational, work, etc. environments. This may include stress management and therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy,[35] friends and family support, etc.
Immediate psychological and legal counseling are recommended since self-treatment may not release stress or remove trauma, and simply reporting to authorities may not have the desired effect, may be ignored, or may further injure the victim at its response.
Study on the behaviours women use to manage sexual harassment[edit]
A 1991 study done by K.R. Yount found three dominant strategies developed by a sample of women coal miners to manage sexual harassment on the job: the "lady", the "flirt", and the "tomboy". The "ladies" were typically the older women workers who tended to disengage from the men, kept their distance, avoided using profanity, avoided engaging in any behavior that might be interpreted as suggestive. They also tended to emphasize by their appearance and manners that they were ladies. The consequences for the "ladies" were that they were the targets of the least amount of come-ons, teasing and sexual harassment, but they also accepted the least prestigious and lowest-paid jobs.[36]
The "flirts" were most often the younger single women. As a defense mechanism, they pretended to be flattered when they were the targets of sexual comments. Consequently, they became perceived as the "embodiment of the female stereotype,...as particularly lacking in potential and were given the fewest opportunities to develop job skills and to establish social and self-identities as miners."[36]
The "tomboys" were generally single women, but were older than the "flirts". They attempted to separate themselves from the female stereotype and focused on their status as coal miners and tried to develop a "thick skin". They responded to harassment with humor, comebacks, sexual talk of their own, or reciprocation. As a result, they were often viewed as sluts or sexually promiscuous and as women who violated the sexual double standard. Consequently, they were subjected to intensified and increased harassment by some men. It was not clear whether the tomboy strategy resulted in better or worse job assignments.[36]
The findings of this study may be applicable to other work settings, including factories, restaurants, offices, and universities. The study concludes that individual strategies for coping with sexual harassment are not likely to be effective and may have unexpected negative consequences for the workplace and may even lead to increased sexual harassment. Women who try to deal with sexual harassment on their own, regardless of what they do, seem to be in a no-win situation.[36]
