Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

Sexual Harassment Definition

Sexual harassment in the workplace is a result of offensive, unwelcome sexual behavior at work. It's often more about power than sex per se.

Regardless, the key factor that turns a sexual behavior at work into the legal definition of sexual harassment in the workplace, is that it is unwelcome by the victim.

Sexual harassment includes unwelcome sexual advances, sexual-favor requests and other offensive behavior of a sexual nature, under any of the following conditions.

• Sexual harassment unreasonably interferes with the victim's job performance, or creates an intimidating, offensive, abusive or hostile work environment for either the victim or witnesses.
• Submission to sexual harassment is explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of the victim's employment.
• Submission to or rejection of sexual harassment by the victim is the basis for employment decisions made by the employer that affect the victim.

The information above is paraphrased from guidelines provided by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). To put it more simply, sexual harassment in the workplace is any offensive, sex-based behavior that no reasonable employee should have to endure. Examples include unwelcome:

• Innuendoes, jokes or gestures of a sexual nature
• Displaying of sexually-suggestive objects, photos or drawings
• Flirting
• Touching or other bodily contact
• Blocking or impeding physical movement

However, the legal definition is still evolving as more court decisions come to light; for example:

• Only one or two incidents, such as flirtations or innuendoes, might not constitute sexual harassment in the workplace; incidents typically must be detrimentally severe or pervasive.
• Employees who have a history of voluntarily engaging in sexual behavior at work, might not have a strong case if they later sue for sexual harassment in the workplace.
• Employers are not likely to be liable when they have rock-solid, written, anti-harassment reporting and remedy procedures in place and made employees aware of them, but employees who've alleged sexual harassment didn't follow the procedures before attempting legal action.

If you think that you are a victim of sexual harassment, you'll likely have a stronger legal case if you first follow your employer's anti-harassment procedures to the letter, and then take legal action if following the procedures doesn't stop the harassment.

However, you have the right to contact the the EEOC or consult a lawyer for guidance at anytime. Lawyers often take sexual harassment cases on contingency. More information is on the next page.

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