Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is defined as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, sexual comments, sexist hostility (misogynistic jokes), and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature (EEOC, n.d.). It can include the promise of rewards for sexual favors. Sexual harassment was made illegal by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the scope of sexual harassment was expanded in future laws around sexual violence, although the law does not cover things like teasing, flirting, or offhand comments. Laws also cover rules around sexual harassment in the workplace, which will be discussed in the module “Victimization at Work or School”. Nearly half of women in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France have reported experiencing sexual harassment, speaking to how pervasive sexual harassment is globally (J.M.F., 2017). According to a survey reported by Statistica (2017), 42 percent of surveyed women and 11 percent of surveyed men stated they have been sexually harassed. This means that 27 percent of adults in 2017 reported being a victim of sexual harassment.
Many behaviors that we would think of today as sexual harassment were considered perfectly acceptable behaviors in past years. These included grabbing, touching, and inappropriate comments or jokes that might make someone uncomfortable. This is more commonly carried out by a man to a woman in a face-to-face setting. The women’s and victims’ rights movements made people more aware, and less accepting, of sexual harassment. Most people are aware that grabbing someone is not appropriate, but even today some may not consider sexual comments and innuendos as a form of sexual harassment. Because the victim may not understand that a crime has taken place, the incident can go unreported. Victims reporting of incidents might also be affected by power dynamics between victims and perpetrators, the reputation of the perpetrator, the culture where the harassment took place, and how obvious the harassment was (Webber Nuñez, 2017). When victims do not report victimization, it creates opportunities for future victimization and might even empower a perpetrator. The fear of retaliation, increased harassment, secondary victimization, and victim blaming also keep victims from reporting harassment.
Cyberstalkers use social media as well as search engines to target and harass victims. Cyberstalking was included under the Violence Against Women Act in 2000, but it continues to grow as social media technologies become easier to use and more common in society. Image: Cyberstalking. Authored by: Anonymous. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/image-catalog/17783465600/. License: CC-0
In addition to face-to-face harassment, online harassment has become more common. Cyberharassment is when the behaviors just described are moved into the digital sphere, such as through e-mail or social networks like Facebook or Twitter. Van Royen, Poels, and Vandebosch (2016) found that the public visibility of the incident, and the impossibility to remove the content, created a situation where the victim felt like they had little control over the situation. This resulted in increased anger, frustration, and shame. While these feelings were shown to increase reporting, victims also felt as if the providers ignored reported sexual harassment. Cyberharassment victims use several strategies to cope with victimization, including changing online behavior patterns, blocking perpetrators, reporting the harassment, and using both informal and formal help-seeking.
Because sexual harassment takes so many forms, the response to it can range from mid-level stress, significant mental health problems (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD]), withdrawal from social events, employment issues, and physical health problems. Victims of both face-to-face and cyberharassment use some emotionally focused coping techniques (trying to decrease the negative emotional responses associated with the harassment), including denial and downplaying of the situation, which may not be good long-term strategies. Emotionally focused strategies fail to deal with the root cause of the harassment, which means the situation itself has not been eliminated and future harassment is possible. Research has shown that a problem-focused approach (directly tackling the root of the problem) can be one of the strongest ways to manage emotional responses to harassment (Scarduzio, Sheff, & Smith, 2018). A problems-focused approach can be used with both face-to-face or cyberharassment.
Harassment, unfortunately, continues to be a common experience in Western culture (Gentry, 2015). Those who break cultural barriers and boundaries and demand change are often threatened with violence, both against them personally and against family, friends, and colleagues (Krook, 2017). When this happens, harassment becomes the more serious category of stalking, which is discussed next.
Stalking is a form of harassment. Victims can be stalked by a stranger or someone they know. Victims should always document stalking behaviors, such as e-mails, phone messages, unwanted gifts, or threats. This documentation can be used as evidence should the victim decide to file a report with the police. Image: Stalker. Authored by: Unknown. Source: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/637742. License: CC-0
Stalking
Stalking is considered an aggravated form of harassment. According to RAINN (2018), stalking behaviors can include the following:
• Making threats against someone, or that person’s family or friends • Nonconsensual communication (repeated phone calls, e-mails, text messages, and unwanted gifts) • Repeated physical or visual closeness (waiting for someone to arrive at certain locations, following someone, or watching someone from a distance)
• Any other behavior used to contact, harass, track, or threaten someone
According to the BJS (2017), stalking is when a victim experiences any of these behaviors at least two times and was afraid for his or her safety or for the safety of those around him or her. If the victim does not report a feeling of fear, then it is categorized as harassment. Around 5.3 million people reported being stalked in 2012, as reported from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) (Catalano, 2012). According to Breiding, (2015) 15.2 percent of women and 5.7 percent of men have experienced being stalked during their lifetimes. Women were much more likely to be the victims of stalking, with about 2.2 percent of all women in the United States experiencing stalking compared to 0.8 percent of men (Catalano, 2012). However, men and women experience about the same levels of harassment, demonstrating that while both genders experience the components of stalking, not all of these involve fear. Young people (ages 18–24), those who were divorced or separated, as well as both mixed-race and Whites were more likely to be stalked. Seventy percent of all victims knew their stalkers, with around 20 percent being a former intimate partner and 15 percent being a friend, roommate, or neighbor. According to the BJS (n.d.), around 46 percent of stalking victims have had one or more unwanted contacts per week, and 11 percent had been stalked for 5 years or more.
It is estimated that only around 40 percent of stalking incidents are reported to the police (males 37 percent and females 41 percent). The likelihood that a person is willing to report stalking to law enforcement is affected by the severity of the stalking, the loss of time at work, level of fear, and willingness to acknowledge the victimization. Victims who know the perpetrator might be hesitant to tell anyone because they do not want the person to get in trouble. Victims are less likely to report cyberstalking because they think there is little that can be done.
About 25 percent of stalking occurs online, known as cyberstalking. Cyberstalking uses digital means to stalk or harass and can include false accusations, defamation, monitoring, identity theft, threats, and doxing (Spitzberg & Hoobler, 2002). Doxing involves the online practice of gathering and publishing private details about an individual, usually with the intent to threaten, embarrass, or harass the victim. Cyberstalking victims have similar experiences and coping mechanisms as those who experience cyberharassment, although the likelihood of engaging in formal help-seeking is greater because the severity of the harassment with cyberstalking is greater.
When media critics, like Anita Sarkeesain, and game developers, like Brianna Wu, called attention to sexism and gender violence within the video game culture, they experienced severe forms of stalking. This included doxing, threats of rape, and death threats during #gamergate. #Gamergate supporters used 4chan, Reddit, and Twitter to attack the critics and to encourage others to harass them. Sarkeesain had to cancel a talk when someone threatened to blow up the facility during her talk. Although this is an example of one extreme case, harassment is not an uncommon experience. Image: Brianna Wu and co-Founder Amanda Warner, having a bit of fun at the office. Authored by: Shannon Grant. Source: http://www.briannawu.net/photos/. License: CC-BY 4.0
Victims are affected by stalking in several ways. The Network for Surviving Stalking reported the following:
• One third of victims lost their job, relationship, or were forced to move because of the stalking.
• Ninety-two percent reported physical effects and 98 percent reported emotional effects.
• Half of the victims changed their telephone number, gave up social activities, and their performance at work declined.
• Mental health issues included sleep disturbances, anger and distrust to depression, self-harm, and suicide attempts.
As noted by Reyns and Englebrecht (2014), the severity of the stalking impacted how much help a victim sought. Many of the coping strategies used by victims of stalking mirror those used by victims of harassment—they engage in multiple types of coping strategies as they try to recover. Strategies may include denial of the stalking, blaming others, and help-seeking from informal and formal systems, including the police. Blaming others to reduce shame and embarrassment, can however, simply reinforce the idea that harassment is normal. In addition, some victims may do nothing because they feel that even if they came forward, the harassment was likely to continue (powerlessness) (Scarduzio, Sheff, & Smith, 2018). Law enforcement is often called if the stalking is very severe, such as threats of rape, death, or other types of violence.