Sexual Harrassment: Perception versus Reality Nacht Law Attorneys Ann Arbor Michigan

Sexual Harrassment: Perception versus Reality

Posted by: Staff NachtLaw
December 12, 2011
Topic: Comments

An opinion piece on CNN.com hits on a sensitive nerve. The charge is that people understand and respond to accusations of marital infidelity in a way that is very different from allegations of sexual harassment. The author, Barbara J. Risman writes that men respond to infidelity and assign blame and responsibility because they see it as a problem of one's own choosing. When it comes to workplace harassment however, the author concludes that these allegations stir up other feelings among men: fear for how the employment laws can be used, resentment, or assumptions that sexual harassment is just a trap for male bosses who "say the wrong thing" in the elevator.

From my own experience litigating sex discrimination and harassment for years, I have to agree there is a ring of truth to these comments. SOME men have these attitudes, in SOME workplaces. It is a stretch to say all men in the workplace feel this way but there is certainly an element of it. The strange thing is that these attitudes persist in some corporate cultures even though the types of allegations generally prosecuted under the sex discrimination laws are very serious and not just a matter of the boss "saying the wrong thing."

Remember, victims of sexual harassment risk everything by coming forward: their job, their reputation. Victims usually only come forward when there are no other options left. Most harassment cases that we see turn into lawsuits deal with inappropriate touching, sexual propositions, or even sending pornographic pictures to the victim. This is what we mean when we say "sexual harassment" at the Firm. Public attitudes that treat workplace harassment as "accidental" rather than intentional victimization undermine our workplace discrimination laws and hide the real evil that is out there in too many workplaces.

Sexual Harrassment: Perception versus Reality