sexual harassment

Etymology and history

The term "sexual harassment" was coined in the 1970s, and its meaning and popularity as a concept have grown over time. However, the behaviors it describes are common across cultures and eras, and have also been described by other terms. Although discussion of sexual harassment has frequently been silenced and trivialized over time, reports of workplace sexual harassment have been documented since at least the 1600s.

The framing of sexual harassment as a legal issue also originated in the 1970s. Since the 1990s, many countries have adopted laws targeting sexual harassment, and social movements like #MeToo have raised awareness of the concept and spurred social and legal change.

The term "sexual harassment"

The first documented use of the term "sexual harassment" was in a 1973 report about discrimination called "Saturn's Rings" by Mary Rowe, Ph.D. At the time, Rowe was the Special Assistant to the President and Chancellor for Women and Work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Due to her efforts at MIT, the university was one of the first large organizations in the U.S. to develop specific policies and procedures aimed at stopping sexual harassment.

Rowe says that harassment of women in the workplace was being discussed in women's groups in Massachusetts in the early 1970s. At Cornell University, instructor Lin Farley discovered that women in a discussion group repeatedly described being fired or quitting a job because they were harassed and intimidated by men. She and colleagues used the term "sexual harassment" to describe the problem and generate interest in a "Speak Out" event in May 1975. She later described sexual harassment at length in 1975 testimony before the New York City Human Rights Commission. In the book In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (1999), journalist Susan Brownmiller says the women at Cornell became public activists after being asked for help by Carmita Dickerson Wood, a 44-year-old single mother who was being harassed by a faculty member at Cornell's Department of Nuclear Physics.

These activists, Lin Farley, Susan Meyer, and Karen Sauvigne, went on to form Working Women United, which, along with the Alliance Against Sexual Coercion (founded in 1976 by Freada Klein, Lynn Wehrli, and Elizabeth Cohn-Stuntz), was among the pioneer organizations to bring sexual harassment to public attention in the late 1970s. Farley also wrote a book to raise awareness, Sexual Shakedown: The Sexual Harassment of Women on the Job, first published by McGraw-Hill in 1978. Sexual Shakedown inspired the first workplace training video on sexual harassment.

Legal view

The legal understanding of sexual harassment developed through lawsuits women brought forward in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s. The development of U.S. laws on sexual harassment in workplaces shaped similar developments in other countries. Many of the women pursuing the earliest U.S. cases were African American, often former civil rights activists, who applied principles of civil rights to sex discrimination. Early precedent was set with Williams v. Saxbe (1976) and Paulette L. Barnes, Appellant, v. Douglas M. Costle, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (1977) which determined it was sex discrimination to fire someone for refusing a supervisor's advances.

In 1979, American legal scholar and activist Catharine MacKinnon published a seminal book called Sexual Harassment of Working Women. She popularized the argument that some workplace sexual harassment was consistent with sex discrimination and therefore prohibited behavior under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. MacKinnon also developed the legal classification of sexual harassment types, as quid pro quo or hostile environment harassment. MacKinnon's arguments were key to developing international legal understandings of sexual harassment.

In the U.S., sexual harassment case law continued soon after with Bundy v. Jackson (1981), the first federal appeals court case to hold that workplace sexual harassment was employment discrimination. Five years later the Supreme Court agreed with this holding in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson. Another pioneering legal case was Alexander v. Yale (1980), which established that the sexual harassment of female students could be considered sex discrimination under Title IX, and was thus illegal. The first class-action lawsuit, Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co., was filed in 1988 (concluding nine years later).

Similar precedents were set throughout the 1980s in the UK based on the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act. Throughout the late 1980s, other countries began to establish laws against sexual harassment, and by 1994, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and Sweden had established laws targeting sexual harassment. By 2021, 142 countries had laws against sexual harassment in the workplace, with 103 countries prohibiting both quid pro quo and hostile environment harassment. 39 countries had laws explicitly prohibiting sexual harassment based on sexual orientation, and 24 countries explicitly addressed harassment based on gender identity.

Beyond sexual advances

Definitions of sexual harassment have changed over time, and common legal definitions now differ in some ways from those used by psychologists and other researchers. All tend to incorporate an element of unwelcome behavior, but researchers often define sexual harassment by the behavior that occurred, while legal definitions focus on whether certain requirements are met.

Over the 1980s and 1990s, psychologists defined gender harassment as a key subtype of sexual harassment. Gender harassment is a class of verbal or nonverbal behaviors that insult or provoke based on gender: examples include sexual comments or jokes, sexualized imagery, and comments based on gendered stereotypes. Notably, all of these examples were provided in Rowe's original 1973 Saturn's Rings report on sexual harassment and discrimination. There are many motivations for gender harassment, but two important ones are sexist beliefs and gender policing. Both factors cause gender harassment to reinforce existing gender roles, causing legal scholar Katherine Franke to label gender harassment as "a technology of sexism".

Gender harassment has nothing to do with sexual attraction and is not a type of sexual advance. This can make it confusing that it is a type of sexual harassment, because the word "sexual" seems to imply underlying sexual desire. Initial legal and social theories of sexual harassment often viewed it as motivated by sexual desire. However, explanations of the underlying cause later changed to a male desire to dominate or a desire for anyone to maintain their sex-based social status. These theories reframe sexual harassment as harassment based on sex or gender, rather than something inherently sexual. Various legal and sociological definitions of sexual harassment include non-sexual, sexist behavior, but the emphasis on the word "sexual" means the definitions often cause confusion and debate. Some laws explicitly cover unwanted sexual and sex-based behavior under their definition of "sexual harassment," while others define sex-based harassment and sexual harassment as two different types of harassment. Some researchers have advocated for the term "sexual harassment" to be replaced with "sex-based harassment" to emphasize the fact that these types of harassment center on gender, not the presence of sexual desire in harassment.

In the late 1990s, some legal scholars began to advocate for more explicitly including gender harassment in sexual harassment law, but this was a minority view. Existing sexual harassment law frequently does cover some instances of gender harassment, but it is often viewed as less severe than other types of sexual harassment in a legal context. However, psychologists continue to emphasize the study of gender harassment because it is by far the most common type of harassment and has major negative consequences both for the individuals faced with it and the groups who are exposed to repeated gender harassment.

Aspects

There is no universal definition of sexual harassment: understandings of it vary across legal, scientific, and cultural settings. Social scientists define sexual harassment by the type of behavior involved and its effect on victims. By these definitions, sexual harassment includes hostile sexist acts (gender harassment), unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion. Legal definitions of workplace sexual harassment tend to classify it into quid pro quo demands for sexual favors in exchange for job impacts, or offensive conduct that creates a hostile environment. Laws differ on whether both are considered illegal sexual harassment and whether sexual harassment includes only sexually-related harassment or also harassment based on gender.

Sexual harassment also includes other types, examples can be making sexual comments or jokes, touching someone without their consent, indecent exposure and sending unwanted messages. Actions like this can make people feel uncomfortable or even disrespected. Because of things like this, a lot of workplaces have created policies to prevent sexual harassment and also to help people report it.

Labeling as sexual harassment

One of the difficulties in understanding sexual harassment is that it involves a range of behaviors. In most cases (although not in all cases), it is difficult for the victim to describe what they experienced. This can be related to difficulty classifying the situation, or to stress and humiliation experienced by the recipient. Moreover, behavior and motives vary between individual cases.

Many instances of sexual harassment are not actually labeled that way by the involved parties. For female victims of experiences that match social science definitions of sexual harassment, victims only self-label the experience as sexual harassment 25% of the time. The rate is even lower for male victims. However, whether victims label an incident as sexual harassment or not, they report the same levels of distress and negative impact. This labeling issue was first discovered after other researchers found that victims of rape are similarly unlikely to label their experience as rape.

Many contextual factors affect how likely people are to label an incident as sexual harassment, and the power dynamics between the perpetrator and victim are a key influence on people's perceptions. People's labeling decisions are also correlated with their gender and relationship to gender roles. During the 1990s and 2000s, women who self-labeled their experiences as sexual harassment were often derided as too sensitive or aiming to make trouble, in addition to being questioned about misinterpreting the harassment, especially if it could be claimed to be unintentional behavior. One 2001 analysis found that women often self-labeled their experiences of unwanted gendered and sexual behavior as "sexism" or the product of a "sexualized environment" rather than sexual harassment.

In some cases visible cleavage have been labeled as sexual harassment.

Types of sexual harassment

Scientists commonly classify types of sexual harassment via Fitzgerald's Tripartite Model of Sexual Harassment, which has been validated across gender, ethnicity, nation, and industry. The model divides sexual harassment into gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion.

Gender harassment includes insults based on gender stereotypes, sexual slurs or imagery, and other degrading or hostile communications that aim to "put people down and push them out" due to their sex. There are two types of gender harassment: sexist hostility, like insulting gendered jokes, insults based on gender stereotypes, or even sabotage; and crude harassment, which includes gendered slurs and sexualized insults. In contrast, unwanted sexual attention refers to unwelcome sexual advances, like inappropriately talking about sex, pestering someone for sexual or romantic purposes, non-consensual physical touch, and, in extreme cases, sexual assault. Sexual coercion includes explicit and implicit attempts to bribe or threaten someone into sexual cooperation.

Gender harassment is by far the most common type of sexual harassment, and coercion is the rarest. Still, popular awareness of harassment is the opposite, making it harder to identify and understand sexual harassment. Psychology researcher Lilia Cortina developed an iceberg model to describe the many behaviors of sexual harassment, showing how sexual coercion and unwanted sexual attention are the small set of harassment behaviors easily viewable on the surface, but the vast majority of sexual harassment types lie underneath the surface in the category of gender harassment.

Intersectional forms of sexual harassment

When women of color are sexually harassed, it often includes racial harassment, and when non-straight women are harassed, it often is a combination of sexual and heterosexist harassment. Both populations experience much greater harassment than people with only one of their intersecting identities. Racialized sexual harassment may involve sexual remarks that also bring up race, pet names with racial histories, or even explicitly racialized nicknames. All of these may be built off of existing stereotypes that combine race and gender.

When men sexually harass men, it tends to take the form of gender harassment for the purpose of punishing their targets for deviating from traditional male gender roles. The harasser may see their victim as not fulfilling traditional masculinity values, whether they are gay, young, or inexperienced. Women harassing men is reported less frequently than men harassing women.

The sexual harassment women of color face is often ignored when discussions about the sexual harassment women face occur. Harassment of women of color tends to stem from racial discrimination. Poor African American women are more likely to experience sexual harassment but less likely to be seen as a victim. Conditions like these make it difficult for women of color to report sexual harassment, allowing the cycle to continue. Earlier studies revealed that there was no difference between the sexual harassment rates of white women and women of color. However, evidence suggests that women of color experience sexual harassment on more severe terms.

Race and gender influence most of the sexual harassment that women of color face. Women of color are less likely to report sexual harassment if the perpetrator is of the same race. This is known as the code of silence. The race of the harasser influences this and predominantly affects women of color. Black women do not usually see things that a white woman would claim to be sexual harassment because they are accustomed to it, it is normal to them and so there is not much of a problem.

Something unique to the sexual harassment of women of color is the common bond factor. The common bond factor is when a man of color sees someone of their own race or culture, and they feel as if it is okay to harass them sexually. They think they can act and speak without regard for the law because they feel it is not being broken.

Motivations for sexual harassment

Author Martha Langelan describes four different classes of harassers.

A predatory harasser: a person who gets sexual thrills from humiliating others. This harasser may become involved in sexual extortion and may frequently harass just to see how targets respond. Those who do not resist may even become targets for rape.

A dominance harasser: the most common type, who engages in harassing behavior as an ego boost.

Strategic or territorial harassers who seek to maintain privilege in jobs or physical locations, for example, a man's harassment of a female employee in a predominantly male occupation.

A street harasser: Another type of sexual harassment performed in public places by strangers. Street harassment includes verbal and nonverbal behavior, remarks that are frequently sexual in nature, and comments on physical appearance or a person's presence in public.

The perpetrators of sexual harassment are more likely to be male than female. In one 2018 survey of U.S. federal workers who were asked to recall the most distressing times they had been sexually harassed, 82% of the harassers were men. Researchers theorize that men are more likely to sexually harass because it is an expression of power that strengthens the harasser's gender-based social status. Because today's societies empower men over people of other genders, sexual harassment is most effective at reinforcing the social privileges of men.

This power-based theory of harassment also explains why sexual harassment often targets and punishes people for deviating from traditional gender roles. People are more likely to sexually harass when they hold hostile, sexist beliefs and believe in the gender binary, thinking that men and women should stay in certain proper roles. However, whether they actually harass others strongly depends on the situation: organizations that tolerate or do not care about harassment, and places that prioritize men by numbers or leadership are very likely to have sexual harassment occur.

Situations

Sexual harassment may occur in a variety of circumstances and in places as varied as factories, schools, colleges, the theater, and the music business. Often, the perpetrator has or is about to have power or authority over the victim (owing to differences in social, political, educational or employment relationships as well as in age). Harassment relationships are specified in many ways:

The perpetrator can be anyone, such as a client, a partner, a co-worker, a parent or legal guardian, a relative, a teacher or professor, a student, a friend, or a stranger.

Harassment can occur in varying locations, in schools, colleges, workplaces, in public, and in other places.

Harassment can occur whether or not there are witnesses to it.

The perpetrator may be completely unaware that their behavior is offensive or constitutes sexual harassment. The perpetrator may be completely unaware that their actions could be unlawful.

Incidents of harassment can take place in situations in which the targeted person may not be aware of or understand what is happening.

An incident may be a one-time occurrence.

Adverse effects on harassed persons include stress, social withdrawal, sleep disorders, eating difficulties, and other impairments of health.

The victim and perpetrator can be any gender.

The incident may arise from a misunderstanding by the perpetrator and/or the victim. These misunderstandings can be reasonable or unreasonable.

The perpetrator may be motivated by many things, including wanting to belittle, embarrass, or intimidate the victim because of their sex, or in wanting to express sexual desire

In the workplace

The United States' Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) defines workplace sexual harassment as harassment based on a victim's sex, including "offensive remarks about a person's sex" or "unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature." Harassment is illegal "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". "The challenged conduct must be unwelcome in the sense that the employee did not solicit or incite it, and in the sense that the employee regarded the conduct as undesirable or offensive." "Particularly when the alleged harasser may have some reason (e.g., prior consensual relationship) to believe that the advances will be welcomed, it is important for the victim to communicate that the conduct is unwelcome."

Surveys vary widely in determining how frequently sexual harassment occurs in workplaces. A well-regarded 2003 meta-survey concluded that about 58% of women have been sexually harassed at work. Another survey concluded that 13% of male employees have been harassed at work. In a 2024 study, 42% of transgender employees reported having been sexually harassed at work. Women made 78.2% of the workplace sexual harassment complaints filed with the EEOC from 2018 to 2021. Only about 30% of workplace sexual harassment victims tell their supervisor or union representative about the harassment. Only 6–13% ever file a formal complaint. Managers often relabel sexual harassment claims as mere interpersonal disagreements, and retaliation is common. Thus, 43.5% of EEOC sexual harassment complaints included retaliation complaints in 2018–2021. A survey of harassment case plaintiffs found that 24% had been fired for complaining of harassment, and another 42% had resigned due to the harassment.

Most workplace sexual harassment is perpetrated by coworkers or peers rather than managers. Workplace culture is one of the strongest determining factors for sexual harassment: sexual harassment is more likely in fields that are seen as traditionally masculine, or companies where men outnumber women, or leadership is dominated by men. Organizational tolerance of harassment, sexism, or alcohol use, and institutions with strong power hierarchies, also increase the likelihood of harassment. Based on data from the EEOC, the industries with the most sexual harassment reports between 2005 and 2015 were restaurant and hospitality, health care, academia, and the military. Sources of harassment vary widely by industry. For nurses, 58% have been harassed by a patient, 26% by a colleague, and 19% by a patient's acquaintances. In the U.S. military, 60% of sexual harassment is caused by a supervisor. For restaurant industry employees, around 66% of women and 50% of men have been sexually harassed by management, and around 80% of women and 55% of men have been sexually harassed by customers.

In the military

Studies of sexual harassment have found that it is markedly more common in the military than in civilian settings. In 2018, an estimated 20,500 people in the US armed forces (about 13,000 women and 7,500 men) were assaulted, up from 14,900 in 2016. A Canadian study found that key risk factors associated with military settings are the typically young age of personnel, the 'isolated and integrated' nature of accommodation, the minority status of women, and the disproportionate number of men in senior positions. The traditionally masculine values and behaviors that are rewarded and reinforced in military settings, as well as their emphasis on conformity and obedience, are also thought to play a role. Canadian research has also found that the risk increases during deployment on military operations.While some male military personnel are sexually harassed, women are substantially more likely to be affected. Women who are younger and joined the military at a younger age face a greater risk, according to American, British and French research.

Child recruits (under 18) and children in cadet forces also face an elevated risk. In the UK, for example, hundreds of complaints of the sexual abuse of cadets have been recorded since 2012. In Canada, 10% of complaints of sexual assault in military settings are from child cadets or their parents.

Individuals detained by the military are also vulnerable to sexual harassment. During the Iraq War, for example, personnel of the US army and US Central Intelligence Agency committed many human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison, including rape, sodomy, and other forms of sexual abuse.

Although the risk of sexual misconduct in the armed forces is widely acknowledged, personnel are frequently reluctant to report incidents, typically out of fear of reprisals, according to research in Australia, Canada, France, the UK, and the US.

Women affected by sexual harassment are more likely than other women to suffer stress-related mental illness afterward. Research in the US found that when sexual abuse of female military personnel is psychiatrically traumatic, the odds of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after deployment on operations increase by a factor of nine.

In education

On 16 April 2026, 16 Faculty of Law students of the University of Indonesia were suspended pending investigation after messages containing explicit remarks about female peers circulated online and prompted public criticism.

Measurement

Research design

Sampling techniques are important to all types of research. Sampling matters because it affects the generalizability of the results and how they can be used to better understand sexual harassment. Two sampling methods are probability sampling and non-probability sampling, each with distinct strengths and weaknesses for the study.

Probability sampling involves taking a sample from a subset of the population using random selection. The random selection used in probability sampling is key to making the results generalizable to the population that is being studied, which makes it more widely used than other nonrandom methods. Although the use of probability sampling has its perks, the data may not be representative or generalizable because the research is limited to certain contexts/environments. Sampling only people in a particular environment makes the results applicable only to that environment. For example, the results from a study of sexual harassment done in an office space in China cannot apply to the occurrence of sexual harassment at an American university. Similarly, if the sample being used is too small, it cannot be generalized to the larger population.

Despite its potential for bias, non-probability sampling may be used when research lacks funding or the number of available participants is small. The selection of participants in non-probability sampling is nonrandom and is often the most convenient. Many of the early studies of sexual harassment, such as the survey by the Working Women's Institute (1975) and the Redbook Survey, have relied on convenience or non-probability sampling. The sampling was often done at conventions, meetings, or sent out in letters or magazines.

In every study measuring sexual harassment, the wording of questions, introductions, definitions, and other parts of the survey or interview can affect responses. Language can be used in many ways to get certain responses from the participants.

Work done by Psychologist Mary Koss describes a problem in wording used to ask participants about sexual violence and how this can impact the results and assumptions of prevalence. Koss explained the problem with other estimation methods was that the prevalence of sexual violence was skewed because the beliefs of the people being asked were that nonconsensual heterosexual sex was normative. Many sociologists believe that heterosexual relationships often involve nonconsensual sex that has been normalized because of the roles men and women fill in society. Men are dominant and aggressive, and women submit to their advances. This normality around nonconsensual heterosexual sex causes the spread of rape myths and the misrepresentation of rape prevalence in society. To combat this bias, Koss created a new instrument that used neutral wording in her questions to dig deeper into their experiences with nonconsensual sex. She focused on women college students and found the prevalence of rape was much higher than was being reported. Koss' work highlighted the importance of wording in surveys and received considerable attention, both positive and negative.

History

Past measurement methods relied on simple checklists of what was considered sexual harassment, but these lacked reliability and validity, which made results invalid and non-generalizable. These past methods left many unanswered questions on how to measure sexual harassment in the best way.

The first attempt at creating a way to classify and measure sexual harassment was made in 1980. Before there was a legal framework to follow, Till (1980) created a system based on a sample of college women that classified different sexual harassment behaviors into five categories: Gender harassment, seductive behavior, sexual bribery, sexual coercion, sexual imposition, or assault.

Later in 1992, Gruber created another classification system that included 11 specific types of harassment organized into three categories in decreasing order of severity. The three categories were verbal requests, verbal remarks, and nonverbal displays.

These early surveys lacked scientific methods of sampling, but they clearly demonstrated the prevalence of sexual harassment and were cited to prove the importance of sexual harassment as a social issue.

Working Women's United (WWU) created one of the first studies to measure sexual harassment. The survey was given out during a speak-out event designed to ask women about their experiences with sexual harassment. 155 women responded to the survey, and 7 out of 10 experienced sexual harassment. The respondents' occupations ranged from teacher to factory worker. This helped them conclude that sexual harassment was happening in all workplaces. Although this survey was not scientific, it was the first of its kind and inspired many other organizations and researchers to conduct their own studies.

Women Office Workers (WOW) created a 1975 survey that asked 15,000 women about their experiences and feelings in the workplace, including the prevalence of sexual harassment. 1/3 of the respondents reported that they had experienced "direct sexual harassment".

In 1975, the Redbook Survey was created and was used to survey women on a naval base on their experiences with sexual harassment. A survey included in an issue of Redbook magazine gathered data from 9,000 respondents. 81% of respondents reported they had experienced sexual harassment. This survey was then used again in other environments to test the prevalence of sexual harassment, proving its high external validity.

College sexual harassment surveys

Two widely used surveys, the NCVS and the NVAW, can be compared to examine the strengths and weaknesses of each and how these impact their results. The sample for the National College Women Sexual Victimization Survey comprised 233 higher education institutions (194 four-year institutions and 39 two-year institutions) in the United States with 1,000 or more students. The sampling method used was a stratified sampling method to pick institutions, and then a random sample was taken of students. The sample size of students who took the survey was 4,446. The National Violence Against Women Survey used the same sampling method but had slightly different sample numbers. The survey title and the survey description were different. The NCVS named their survey "The Extent and Nature of Sexual Victimization of College Women", and the NVAW named it "Victimization Among College Women".

The methods used were also similar, including the use of professionally trained women interviewers to administer both surveys. The interviews were conducted using a computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) system. The average interview time was longer for the NCVS than the NVAW (25.9 minutes vs 12.7 minutes). They both had similar response rates, but the NVAW had a higher response rate of 91.6% compared to the NCVS rate of 85.6%.

The surveys gave the same introduction to the interview with the same wording:

"As you may recall, the purpose of the study is to better understand the extent and nature of criminal victimization among college women. Regardless of whether or not you have ever personally been victimized, your answers will help us to understand and deal with the problem of victimization at your campus and nationally."

The two surveys used different definitions of completed rape, attempted rape, and threat of rape. The NCVS used a broader definition of completed rape that included other instances other than just penile vaginal penetration, whereas the NVAW used a more objective and narrow definition. Attempted rape and threat of rape were defined by the NVAW more broadly and included the element of psychological coercion as an element of force.

The two surveys first had the women answer questions to determine whether they had experienced victimization; if they had, they would then complete an incident report to describe the nature of the victimization.

Prevention

Sexual harassment is a longstanding and ubiquitous social issue, but it is often normalized, left unacknowledged, and even trivialized. Certain settings make harassment more likely, making it an institutional and societal problem that can be solved by changes at the organizational and cultural level. However, many attempted institutional interventions are not motivated by an understanding of how harassment works, and are instead chosen because they are simple or they fit a legal minimum standard. This has resulted in a wide range of intervention styles and research on their effectiveness, with changing and sometimes conflicting conclusions.

Organizational changes

Harassment in large organizations, such as workplaces or schools, can be predicted by certain organizational factors; if these change, the level of harassment may change. The first step to decreasing organizational harassment is talking about it, acknowledging how large a problem it is, and signaling a willingness to find real solutions.

Organizational tolerance for sexual harassment is a large factor in enabling harassment. If leadership is vocal about not tolerating harassment and actively intervenes when it arises, this helps limit harassment in the organization. Leaders who commit themselves to decreasing harassment by joining dedicated task forces and putting personal effort into working on the problem are likely to drive the organization to change. Leaders are also effective at limiting harassment because they can design creative solutions, operating outside of basic processes or policies that are ineffective at curbing harassment. Finally, leaders serve as role models to the rest of the organization, and their stance on harassment can shape organizational culture. This is especially important for decreasing intersectional sexual harassment. For one example, having school leaders be educated on allyship and signaling institutional support for smaller student populations can result in lower harassment of LGBTQ students at those schools.

Organizational structure also affects harassment within an organization. If employees feel more secure in their jobs due to their contract structure, they are less likely to be harassed. If an organization promotes a more respectful culture, it can also reduce sexual harassment. This has additional benefits, in that incivility tends to alienate women and people of color disproportionately. Changes that increase engagement with an organization or employee job satisfaction often reduce harassment at the same time.

Gender imbalances in an organization are a large factor in the likelihood of sexual harassment. Changing an organization's practices and structure so that power is more equally distributed across people, regardless of their gender, can decrease harassment. Hiring, retaining, and promoting people into positions of power in ways that even out gender imbalances also reduces harassment. Studies have mostly examined this in the context of increasing women's power in workspaces dominated by men.

Training and awareness

Prevention strategies often start with raising awareness and advocating for cultures and organizations to stop tolerating harassment. Sexual harassment and assault may be prevented by secondary school, college, and workplace education programs. At least one program for fraternity men produced "sustained behavioral change".

Many sororities and fraternities in the United States take preventive measures against hazing and hazing activities during the participants' pledging processes (which may often include sexual harassment). Many Greek organizations and universities nationwide have anti-hazing policies that explicitly recognize various forms of hazing and provide preventive measures to address such situations.

Current workplace anti-sexual harassment training programs, policies, and reporting mechanisms have little evidence of effectiveness. Many trainings succeed at teaching people about harassment-related laws and policies, but not on acting better, and "some studies suggest that training may in fact backfire, reinforcing gendered stereotypes that place women at a disadvantage". There is evidence that ineffective trainings can make men scared to interact with women due to heightened fears that they will be falsely accused of harassment, thus leading to gender-based discrimination.

In-person training that is customized to a single workplace and involves active tasks, lasting longer than a few hours, has stronger evidence of effectiveness and a lower risk of backfiring. How leaders have signaled their intentions behind the training is also important: employees react differently to training depending on why they think their manager is providing the training. Anti-harassment training that solely targets managers is also effective, because it is often presented in a way that reduces managers' defensiveness at receiving the training. These often present harassment as a common issue that managers must root out and treat managers as potential allies, teaching them new techniques rather than treating them as potential harassers.

Evidence shows that bystander intervention training is more effective at changing harassment culture than standard anti-harassment training. Bystander intervention focuses on teaching positive skills people can use to intervene when they see harassment or other problems. These trainings do not make students as defensive as sexual harassment trainings: students are taught positive skills rather than told what to avoid, and are treated as potential allies rather than harassers. Systematic, well-made bystander intervention training has been shown to decrease the amount of harassment where it is implemented in higher education institutions.

Non-institutional methods

In settings where people do not receive institutional support against sexual harassment, people find their own safety, advocacy, and response mechanisms. People have organized public protests and performance art to raise awareness of street harassment in their communities and decrease tolerance for it. There is evidence that people grow less likely to sexually harass or believe harassment myths when they learn about how harassment affects victims through personal stories. Projects like HARASSmap and Hollaback! collect harassment stories to raise awareness and lower tolerance for harassment in certain communities, using the stories to safely intervene and educate people about stopping harassment where it is prevalent.

The use of audio and video recording can help document sexual harassment for reporting. Audio recording apps are available for use on smartphones, and can for instance be used during job interviews.

Impact

The impact of sexual harassment can vary. In research carried out by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, 17,335 female victims of sexual assault were asked to name the feelings that resulted from the most serious incident of sexual assault that they had encountered since the age of 15. 'Anger, annoyance, and embarrassment were the most common emotional responses, with 45% of women feeling anger, 41% annoyance, and 36% embarrassment. Furthermore, close to one in three women (29%) who have experienced sexual harassment have said that they felt fearful as a result of the most serious incident, while one in five (20%) victims say that the most serious incident made them feel ashamed of what had taken place. In other situations, harassment may lead to temporary or prolonged stress or depression, depending on the recipient's psychological abilities to cope and the type of harassment and the social support or lack thereof for the recipient. Harnois and Bastos (2018) show an association between women's perceptions of workplace sexual harassment and self-reported physical health. In addition, a study conducted in 2010 indicated that workplace sexual harassment is linked to greater mental health issues and lower job satisfaction, regardless of assessment technique or gender. Psychologists and social workers report that severe or chronic sexual harassment can have the same psychological effects as rape or sexual assault. For example, in 1995, Judith Coflin committed suicide after chronic sexual harassment by her bosses and coworkers. Her family was later awarded six million dollars in punitive and compensatory damages. Victims who do not submit to harassment may also experience various forms of retaliation, including isolation and bullying.

As an overall social and economic effect every year, sexual harassment deprives women from active social and economic participation; it costs hundreds of millions of dollars in lost educational and professional opportunities for mostly girls and women. However, the quantity of men implied in these conflicts is significant.

Coping

Sexual harassment, by definition, is unwanted and not to be tolerated. There are ways, however, for offended and injured people to overcome the resultant psychological effects, remain in or return to society, regain healthy feelings within personal relationships when they were affected by the outside relationship trauma, regain social approval, and recover the ability to concentrate and be productive in educational and work environments. These include stress management and therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, friends and family support, and advocacy.

A 1991 study done by K.R. Yount found three dominant strategies developed by a sample of women coal miners to manage sexual harassment on the job: the "lady", the "flirt", and the "tomboy".

The "ladies" were typically older women workers who tended to disengage from the men, kept their distance, avoided profanity, and refrained from any behavior that might be interpreted as suggestive. They also tended to emphasize, through their appearance and manners, that they were ladies. The consequences for the "ladies" were that they were the targets of the least amount of come-ons, teasing, and sexual harassment, but they also accepted the least prestigious and lowest-paid jobs.

The "flirts" were most often the younger single women. As a defense mechanism, they pretended to be flattered when they were the targets of sexual comments. Consequently, they became perceived as the "embodiment of the female stereotype,... as particularly lacking in potential and were given the fewest opportunities to develop job skills and to establish social and self-identities as miners."

The "tomboys" were generally single women, but were older than the "flirts". They attempted to separate themselves from the female stereotype and focused on their status as coal miners, and tried to develop a "thick skin". They responded to harassment with humor, comebacks, sexual talk of their own, or reciprocation. As a result, they were often viewed as sluts or sexually promiscuous and as women who violated the sexual double standard. Consequently, they were subjected to intensified and increased harassment by some men. It was unclear whether the tomboy strategy led to better or worse job assignments.

The findings of this study may apply to other work settings, including factories, restaurants, offices, and universities. The study concludes that individual strategies for coping with sexual harassment are not likely to be effective and may have unexpected negative consequences for the workplace, and may even lead to increased sexual harassment. Women who try to deal with sexual harassment on their own, regardless of what they do, seem to be in a no-win situation. For example, after an anti-groping device allowing victims to mark their assailants with an invisible ink stamp has been released in Japan, some experts claimed it is wrong to put the onus on the victim.

Common effects on the victims

Common psychological, academic, professional, financial, and social effects of sexual harassment and retaliation:

Becoming publicly sexualized (i.e., groups of people "evaluate" the victim to establish if they are "worth" the sexual attention or the risk to the harasser's career)

Being objectified and humiliated by scrutiny and gossip

Decreased work or school performance as a result of stress conditions; increased absenteeism due to fear of harassment repetition

Defamation of character and reputation

Effects on sexual life and relationships: can put extreme stress upon relationships with significant others, sometimes resulting in divorce

Firing and refusal for a job opportunity can lead to loss of job or career, loss of income

Having one's personal life offered up for public scrutiny—the victim becomes the "accused", and their dress, lifestyle, and private life will often come under attack.

Having to drop courses, change academic plans, or leave school (loss of tuition) in fear of harassment repetition or as a result of stress

Having to relocate to another city, another job, or another school

Loss of references/recommendations

Loss of trust in environments similar to where the harassment occurred

Loss of trust in the types of people that occupy similar positions as the harasser or their colleagues, especially in cases where they are not supportive, difficulties or stress in peer relationships, or relationships with colleagues

Post-complaint retaliation and backlash

Retaliation and backlash against a victim are very common, particularly against a complainant. Victims who speak out against sexual harassment are often labeled troublemakers who are on their own "power trips" or who are looking for attention. Similar to cases of rape or sexual assault, the victim often becomes the accused, with their appearance, private life, and character likely to fall under intrusive scrutiny and attack. Excuses for victim blaming include clothing and behavior. They risk hostility and isolation from colleagues, supervisors, teachers, fellow students, and even friends. They may become the targets of mobbing or relational aggression.

Women are not necessarily sympathetic to other women who have been sexually harassed. If the harasser was male, internalized sexism (or jealousy over the sexual attention towards the victim) may encourage some women to react with as much hostility towards the complainant as some male colleagues. Fear of being targeted for harassment or retaliation themselves may also cause some women to respond with hostility. For example, when Lois Jenson filed her lawsuit against Eveleth Taconite Co., the women shunned her both at work and in the community—many of these women later joined her suit. Women may even project hostility onto the victim to bond with their male coworkers and build trust.

Retaliation has occurred when a sexual harassment victim suffers a negative action as a result of the harassment. For example, a complainant may be given poor evaluations or low grades, have their projects sabotaged, be denied work or academic opportunities, or have their work hours cut back. Other actions against them that undermine their productivity or their ability to advance at work or school include being fired after reporting sexual harassment, or leading to unemployment, as they may be suspended, asked to resign, or be fired from their jobs altogether. Retaliation can even involve further sexual harassment, and also stalking and cyberstalking of the victim. Moreover, a school professor or employer accused of sexual harassment, or who is the colleague of a perpetrator, can use their power to see that a victim is never hired again (blacklisting), or never accepted to another school.

Of the women who have approached her to share their own experiences of being sexually harassed by their teachers, feminist writer Naomi Wolf wrote in 2004:

Backlash stress

Backlash stress is stress resulting from uncertainty regarding changing norms for interacting with women in the workplace. Backlash stress now deters many male workers from befriending female colleagues, or providing them with any assistance, such as holding doors open. As a result, women are being handicapped by a lack of the necessary networking and mentorship.

Organizational policies and procedures

Most companies have policies against sexual harassment; however, these policies are not designed to and should not attempt to "regulate romance," which goes against human urges.

Act upon a report of harassment inside the organization:

The investigation should be designed to obtain a prompt and thorough collection of the facts, an appropriate responsive action, and an expeditious report to the complainant that the investigation has been concluded, and, to the full extent appropriate, the action taken.

When organizations do not take the necessary satisfactory measures for properly investigating, stress and psychological counseling and guidance, and just deciding on the problem, this could lead to:

Decreased productivity and increased team conflict

Decreased study or job satisfaction

Loss of students and staff. Loss of students who leave school and staff resignations to avoid harassment. Resignations and firings of alleged harassers.

Decreased productivity and increased absenteeism by staff or students experiencing harassment

Decrease in success at meeting academic and financial goals

Increased health-care and sick-pay costs because of the health consequences of harassment or retaliation

The knowledge that harassment is permitted can undermine ethical standards and discipline in the organization in general, as staff or students lose respect for, and trust in, their seniors who indulge in, or turn a blind eye to, or treat improperly, sexual harassment

Evolution of law in different jurisdictions

It may include a range of actions from mild transgressions to sexual abuse or sexual assault. Sexual harassment is a form of illegal employment discrimination in many countries, and is a form of abuse (sexual and psychological abuses) and bullying.

The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women classifies violence against women into three categories: that occurring in the family, that occurring within the general community, and that perpetrated or condoned by the State. The term sexual harassment is used in defining violence occurring in the general community, which is defined as: "Physical, sexual and psychological violence occurring within the general community, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and intimidation at work, in educational institutions and elsewhere, trafficking in women and forced prostitution."

Sexual harassment is subject to a directive in the European Union. The United States' Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) states, "It is unlawful to harass a person (an applicant or employee) because of that person's sex."

In India, the case of Vishakha and others v State of Rajasthan in 1997 has been credited with establishing sexual harassment as illegal. In Israel, the 1988 Equal Employment Opportunity Law made it a crime for an employer to retaliate against an employee who had rejected sexual advances, but it was not until 1998 that the Israeli Sexual Harassment Law made such behavior illegal.

In May 2002, the European Union Council and Parliament amended a 1976 Council Directive on the equal treatment of men and women in employment to prohibit sexual harassment in the workplace, naming it a form of sex discrimination and violation of dignity. This Directive required all Member States of the European Union to adopt laws on sexual harassment, or amend existing laws to comply with the Directive by October 2005.

In 2005, China added new provisions to the Law on Women's Rights Protection to include sexual harassment. In 2006, "The Shanghai Supplement" was drafted to help further define sexual harassment in China.

Varied legal guidelines and definitions

The United Nations General Recommendation 19 to the convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women defines sexual harassment of women to include:

such unwelcome sexually determined behavior as physical contact and advances, sexually colored remarks, showing pornography and sexual demands, whether by words or actions. Such conduct can be humiliating and may constitute a health and safety problem; it is discriminatory when the woman has reasonable ground to believe that her objection would disadvantage her in connection with her employment, including recruitment or promotion, or when it creates a hostile working environment.

While such conduct can be harassment of women by men, many laws around the world that prohibit sexual harassment recognize that both men and women may be harassers or victims of sexual harassment. However, most claims of sexual harassment are made by women.

There are many similarities and also important differences in laws and definitions used around the world.

Africa

Sexual harassment is rife in Egypt. A 2013 study from the United Nations showed that 99.3 percent of Egyptian women have suffered some form of sexual harassment. Authorities punish women when they do speak out.

In 2016, a stricter law proscribing sexual harassment was proposed in Morocco, specifying fines and a possible jail sentence of up to 6 months. The existing law against harassment was reported not to be upheld, as harassment was not reported to police by victims and even when reported, was not investigated by police or prosecuted by the courts.

On 1 June 2023, a Moroccan court sentenced a 32-year-old man to two years in prison for sexually harassing and forcibly kissing a woman inside a church.

Australia

The Sex Discrimination Act 1984 defines sexual harassment as "... a person sexually harasses another person (the person harassed ) if: (a) the person makes an unwelcome sexual advance, or an unwelcome request for sexual favours, to the person harassed; or (b) engages in other unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature in relation to the person harassed; in circumstances in which a reasonable person, having regard to all the circumstances, would have anticipated the possibility that the person harassed would be offended, humiliated or intimidated."

Europe

In the European Union, there is a directive on sexual harassment. The Directive 2002/73/EC – equal treatment of 23 September 2002 amending Council Directive 76/207/EEC on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions states:

For the purposes of this Directive, the following definitions shall apply: (...)

sexual harassment: where any form of unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature occurs, with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, in particular when creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment

Harassment and sexual harassment within the meaning of this Directive shall be deemed to be discrimination on the grounds of sex and therefore prohibited.

The Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence also addresses the issue of sexual harassment (Article 40), using a similar definition.

Sexual harassment is defined as any verbal, non-verbal, or physical action used to change a victim's sexual status against the will of the victim. It results in the victim feeling inferior or having their dignity hurt. Men and women are looked upon as equal, and any action trying to change the balance in status with the differences in sex as a tool is also sexual harassment. In the workplace, jokes, remarks, etc., are considered discriminatory only if the employer has stated so in their written policy. Law number 1385 of 21 December 2005 regulates this area.

In France, both the Criminal Code and the Labor Code are relevant to sexual harassment. Until 4 May 2012, article 222-33 of the French Criminal Code described sexual harassment as "The fact of harassing anyone in order to obtain favors of a sexual nature". Since 2002, the law has recognized the possibility of sexual harassment between co-workers and not only by supervisors. On 4 May 2012, the Supreme Court of France quashed the definition of the criminal code as being too vague. The 2012 decision resulted from a law on priority preliminary rulings on the issue of constitutionality. As a consequence of this decision, all pending procedures before criminal courts were canceled. Several feminist NGOs, such as AFVT, criticized this decision. President François Hollande, the Minister of Justice (Christiane Taubira), and the Minister of Equality (Najat Belkacem) asked that a new law be voted on rapidly. As a result, LOI n°2012-954 du 6 août 2012 was voted in, providing a new definition. In addition to criminal provisions, the French Labor code also prohibits sexual harassment. The legislator voted a law in 2008 that copied the 2002/73/EC Directive definition without modifying the French Labour Code.

Asia

In China, the 2005 Law for the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests of the People's Republic of China states "sexual harassment against women is prohibited" although the law does not explicitly define what sexual harassment is.

Sexual harassment is still pervasive within Chinese culture. A 2018 survey of female journalists revealed that 80% had experienced unwanted behavior, and an online survey of college students from all 34 provinces the same year revealed that 75% of female students and 35% of male students had experienced sexual harassment.

As of 2020, it is estimated that one in four women in Lebanon have been subjected to some form of unsolicited sexual advance, ranging from verbal to physical. On 21 December 2020, the Lebanese Parliament passed a law criminalizing sexual harassment. There was no national legislation to directly criminalize sexual harassment before this, with draft laws being proposed several times without effect.

Sexual harassment in India is termed "Eve teasing" and is described as: unwelcome sexual gesture or behavior, whether directly or indirectly as sexually colored remarks; physical contact and advances; showing pornography; a demand or request for sexual favours; any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct being sexual in nature or passing sexually offensive and unacceptable remarks. The critical factor is the unwelcomeness of the behavior, which makes the impact on the recipient more relevant than the perpetrator's intent. According to the Indian constitution, sexual harassment infringes the fundamental right of a woman to gender equality under Article 14 and her right to life and live with dignity under Article 21.

In 1997, the Supreme Court of India, in a Public Interest Litigation, defined sexual harassment at the workplace, preventive measures, and a redress mechanism. The judgment is popularly known as Vishaka Judgment. In April 2013, India enacted its own law on sexual harassment in the workplace—The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013. Almost 16 years after the Supreme Court's landmark guidelines on preventing sexual harassment in the workplace (known as the "Vishaka Guidelines"), the Act has endorsed many of them. It is a step towards codifying gender equality. The Act is intended to cover all women employees, including those in the unorganized sector and domestic workers. The Indian law does not permit the victim or complainant to take assistance of a legal professional in the inquiry, however, in Arti Devi Vs Jawaharlal Nehru University, the High Court of Delhi permitted the complainant to avail the services of a counsel as her defence assistant.

United States

In the United States, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, sex, color, national origin or religion. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2 was initially intended only to combat sexual harassment of women, but the prohibition on sex discrimination covers both men and women. This discrimination occurs when the sex of the worker is made a condition of employment (i.e., all female waitpersons or male carpenters) or where this is a job requirement that does not mention sex but ends up preventing many more persons of one sex than the other from the job (such as height and weight limits). This act only applies to employers with 15 or more employees.

Barnes v. Train (1974) is commonly viewed as the first sexual harassment case in America, even though the term "sexual harassment" was not used. In 1976, Williams v. Saxbe established sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination when sexual advances by a male supervisor towards a female employee, if proven, would be deemed an artificial barrier to employment placed before one gender and not another. In 1980, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued regulations defining sexual harassment and stating it was a form of sex discrimination prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the 1986 case of Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, the Supreme Court first recognized "sexual harassment" as a violation of Title VII, established the standards for analyzing whether the conduct was welcome; levels of employer liability, and that speech or conduct in itself can create a "hostile environment". This case filed by Mechelle Vinson ruled that the sexual conduct between the subordinate and supervisor could not be deemed voluntary due to the hierarchical relationship between the two positions in the workplace. Following the ruling in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, reported sexual harassment cases grew from 10 cases being registered by the EEOC per year before 1986 to 624 case being reported in the subsequent following year. This number of reported cases to the EEOC rose to 2,217 in 1990 and then 4,626 by 1995.

The Civil Rights Act of 1991 added provisions to Title VII protections including expanding the rights of women to sue and collect compensatory and punitive damages for sexual discrimination or harassment; the case of Ellison v. Brady (US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit – 924 F.2d 872 (9th Cir. 1991)) resulted in rejecting the reasonable person standard in favor of the "reasonable woman standard" which allowed for cases to be analyzed from the perspective of the complainant and not the defendant. However, some legal scholars have argued this does not go far enough and that the reasonable person standard also needs to take intersectionality into account. Also in 1991, Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co. became the first sexual harassment case to be given class action status paving the way for others. Seven years later, in 1998, through that same case, new precedents were established that increased the limits on the "discovery" process in sexual harassment cases, which then allowed psychological injuries from the litigation process to be included in assessing damages awards. In the same year, the courts concluded in Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, Florida, and Burlington v. Ellerth, that employers are liable for harassment by their employees. Moreover, Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services set the precedent for same-sex harassment, and sexual harassment without motivation of "sexual desire", stating that any discrimination based on sex is actionable so long as it places the victim in an objectively disadvantageous working condition, regardless of the gender of either the victim, or the harasser.

Criticism

Though the phrase sexual harassment is generally acknowledged to include clearly damaging and morally deplorable behavior, its boundaries can be broad and controversial. Accordingly, misunderstandings can occur. In the US, sexual harassment law has been criticized by persons such as the criminal defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz and the legal writer and libertarian Eugene Volokh, for imposing limits on the right to free speech.

Jana Rave, professor in organizational studies at the Queen's School of Business, criticized sexual harassment policy in the Ottawa Business Journal as helping maintain archaic stereotypes of women as "delicate, asexual creatures" who require special protection, while at the same time, complaints are lowering company profits. Camille Paglia says that young girls can end up acting in such ways as to make sexual harassment easier, such that for example, by acting "nice" they can become a target. Paglia commented in an interview with Playboy, "Realize the degree to which your niceness may invoke people to say lewd and pornographic things to you—sometimes to violate your niceness. The more you blush, the more people want to do it."

Other critics assert that sexual harassment is a very serious problem, but current views focus too heavily on sexuality rather than on the type of conduct that undermines the ability of women or men to work together effectively. Viki Shultz, a law professor at Yale University, comments, "Many of the most prevalent forms of harassment are designed to maintain work—particularly the more highly rewarded lines of work—as bastions of male competence and authority." Feminist Jane Gallop sees this evolution of the definition of sexual harassment as coming from a "split" between what she calls "power feminists" who are pro-sex (like herself) and what she calls "victim feminists", who are not. She argues that the split has helped lead to a perversion of the definition of sexual harassment, which used to be about sexism but has come to be about anything that is sexual.

There is also concern over abuses of sexual harassment policy by individuals as well as by employers and administrators using false or frivolous accusations as a way of expelling employees they want to eliminate for other reasons. These employees often have virtually no recourse under the at-will employment law in most US states.

O'Donohue and Bowers outlined 14 possible pathways to false allegations of sexual harassment: "lying, borderline personality disorder, histrionic personality disorder, psychosis, gender prejudice, substance abuse, dementia, false memories, false interpretations, biased interviews, sociopathy, personality disorders not otherwise specified."

Manifesto by Catherine Deneuve and other writers

In January 2018, Catherine Deneuve, along with 99 other French women writers, performers, and academics, signed an open letter that argued the #MeToo movement had gone too far, turning into a "witch hunt", and denounced it as a form of puritanism, resulting in a backlash. Though she later apologized to all the victims who felt offended by the letter, she defended her involvement by saying there was "nothing in the letter" to Le Monde that said "anything good about harassment, otherwise [she] wouldn't have signed it".

In media and literature

678, a film focusing on the sexual harassment of women in Egypt

9 to 5, a comedy film starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton, about three women who are subjected to constant bullying and sexual harassment by their boss.

In the pilot episode of the American comedy series Ally McBeal, Ally leaves her job at her first firm because of unwanted attention from and groping by a male co-worker.

The Ballad of Little Jo, a film based on the true story of a woman living in the frontier west who disguises herself as a man to protect herself from the sexual harassment and abuse of women all too common in that environment

Bombshell, a 2019 film based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment.

Disclosure, a film starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore in which a man is sexually harassed by his female superior, who tries to use the situation to destroy his career by claiming that he was the sexual harasser

Disgrace, a novel about a South African literature professor whose career is ruined after he has an affair with a student.

The Fox television musical-drama show Glee deals with issues around sexual harassment in the episodes "The Power of Madonna", "Never Been Kissed", and "The First Time".

Hostile Advances: The Kerry Ellison Story: television movie about Ellison v. Brady, the case that set the "reasonable woman" precedent in sexual harassment law

The 1961 musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying deals with themes of both consensual office romance and unwelcome sexual harassment; one man is fired for making a pass at the wrong woman, and another man is warned via a song called "A Secretary is Not a Toy".