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Sexual Harassment Within The Workplace

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Sexual harassment is a continuing, persistent occupational health problem in corporations and work environments. There can be extensive, negative consequences for individual victims and the corporations involved. Assailants and harassers can impact and hurt victims by affecting both their professional work lives and personal lives. The purpose of this paper is to heighten awareness and sensitivity to this important issue, recognizing that institutions, clinics, corporations, organizations and office-based practices have existing sexual harassment policies in place. This paper will explore both sexual harassment and non-sexual harassment within the workplace and the various components that are associated with harassment. I will integrate …show more content…

Stated in the text by Fisher, 2013 “sexual harassment can consist of a single intense or severe act or of multiple persistent or pervasive acts” (p.344). Non-sexual harassment includes other actions regarding age, gender, religion, sexual preference and race. Behavior associated with making racist or negative comments can be construed as non- sexual workplace harassment. Instances of workplace harassment include discrimination such as: using racist phrases or slang, engaging in offensive gestures, talking negatively about other’s skin color or ethnic traits, sharing improper images that are offensive in nature, parading racist posters or drawings around the office that are offensive to certain ethnic groups, and wearing derogatory clothing that can be viewed as being hurtful. Non-sexual harassment includes any actions, comments, or behaviors that are viewed as intimidating, threatening, discriminatory, and disturbs or disrupts one’s work place environment. Workplace bullying/ non- sexual harassment needs to be addressed in the same manner that sexual harassment would be dealt with. Sexual harassment needs to be reported to the human resources office, and if the issue is not properly handled or it’s dismissed, a harassment claim needs to be filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Work place

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