Sexual Harassment in the Workplace :: Workplace Harassment Essays

According to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) the definition of sexual harassment is â€Å"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.† Regardless of position in company or type of candidate it is against the law to make passes or harass one because of their sex or gender. In order to harass a person it does not have to necessarily be physical contact but this regulation also includes any offensive verbal context that anyone may say towards a person’s sex and/or gender. Also, a lot of times sexual harassment is based on personal opinion, meaning what may come off as offensive to one person another may be fine with working. A good example is if a woman is wearing a blue dress and makes a random comment of saying â€Å"I really do love the color blue on women.† All depending how the woman wearing a blue dress perceives the comment will depend on whether or not she feel the person was looking at her and how the comment was said in her eyes. Sex and/ or Gender play absolutely no role in whether or not you can be sexually harassed any side of sexual harassment can be played by any sex and/or gender. A third party of someone that heard or saw the sexual harassment also has the right to file sexual harassment charges, so technically that person does not have to be involved in the situation directly. With sexual harassment there is a very gray area because unfortunately it does not allow teasing, general comments and minuet one on one problem. Harassment is so serious it is a criminal offense, but it also creates a terrible environment for productivity and plays a vital role many times in position movement in the company or organization. Sexual harassment is a form of sexual bigotry and is written into law with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. To be specific this title only extends to that employer of 15 or more workers and is included for everyone from federal governments to employment agencies. Sexual harassment cases are inspected by the EEOC on a case-by-case basis usually after the victim has told or made it obvious that the harasser should stop.