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In the early 1980s, before Anita Hill’s testimony at Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings, most men didn’t think that their advances toward women were unwanted or inappropriate. The sad part is that women had to endure being touched, pinched, pushed in the corner and manhandled while they were seething inside. They smiled and gave a friendly wag of their finger and felt they couldn’t do anything about it.

Men’s inclination to make sexist remarks and inappropriately touch women has persisted at an unconscious level since recorded history. Men have been totally oblivious to the discomfort they create with an inappropriate sexual comment or crossing a personal boundary. The level of demeaning behavior from men to women in the workplace has grown to a level of acceptance. However, women have finally spoke, it's not acceptable. 

Harassment is a way for men to exploit and manipulate women, a way to maintain and gain power. Dominance, not desire, is on the mind of men who sexually harass women. These men use their power explicitly or implicitly to intimidate and harass women. They try to minimize their inappropriate behavior and act like it’s completely normal and acceptable. The victim is placed in an intimidating lose-lose situation without any power over the advances. It starts at first as actions of intimidating. They will limit a womens behavior to speak up about things that are wrong. They are instantly silenced. 

Even though research into the mentality of accused harassers is at best incomplete, there are some common characteristics.

When a name man touches a woman without asking, he does so because he feels entitled. To him, the gesture may be meaningless. He feels it is simply a friendly gesture. He says to himself, “After all, what could be wrong with putting my arm around her waist? I’m not molesting her.”

For her, however, the “gesture” has a totally different meaning. Nico Lang of the Rolling Stones writes, “You might not think a pinched cheek or a shoulder caress is something to lose sleep over. But the next time you see a man put his hand on the small of a woman’s back, look at her eyes. Look at her smile. If you’re looking closely enough, I bet you can see her faking it. I bet you can see how painful it really is.” The point is, the man is invading another person’s personal space. He is ignoring her personal boundary

There are intense issues of entitlement, power and control that have gone unchecked leading to situations where men feel it’s perfectly fine to engage in these kinds of behaviors.

A perpetrator will justify his behavior with an acceptable label. For example, Bill Cosby referred to his sexual assaults as a “rendezvous.” In a displacement of responsibilty the harasser simply blames what they’re doing on things beyond their control. They might blame it on the victim: “After all, she was wearing a miniskirt and a halter top. She was asking for it.” 

I think this is difficult for most men to understand, because men have sexually objectified women for a long time. Sexual objectification happens when a women’s body or sexual functions are isolated from her as a person and treated as objects to covet or touch. When this happens, the value or worth of a woman’s body is connected to how sexually gratifying it is.

The impact of all of this on women is huge.  Imagine, if you will, a woman early in her career being inappropriately touched or spoken to. She begins to wonder if she did something to make it happen or encourage it. She feels embarrassed and fearful other people will find out. She begins to doubt her abilities and wonders if she was hired only because of her sexual value. She begins to question her achievement and ask herself, “Is this simply what it’s like in the field?”

She has nothing to compare her experience to, and has no idea what normal is or even what her recourse might be. All she knows is that she is having trouble sleeping and is feeling depressed and anxious. At this point, she doesn’t know if there are others being harassed, nor how to find out.

All of the research tells us that sexual harassment can wreak havoc on its victims. It can cause mental health issues, as well as physical effects. When people in the workplace are dismissive of harassment, they frequently say, “I understand how the sexual assault can lead to serious consequences, but how can simple harassment be so harmful?” The problem with this kind of thinking is that it discounts medical science and discounts the stories of victims of harassment. It exaggerates the crippling doubt that so many victims face. There are doubts that foster denial and other complications.

More specifically, the emotional responses to harassment include anxiety and depression.  Physical symptoms run the gamut of muscle aches, headaches, or even chronic physical health problems, such as high blood pressure and problems with blood sugar.

Employees talk of having a pit in their stomach commuting to work, having anxiety, panic attacks, inexplicable fits of crying and physical manifestations of stress such as hair falling out, hives, weight gain or loss,  sleeplessness and lethargy.

What to Do

After looking at the effects of sexual harassment or any kind of harassment in the workplace, the urgency to do something in our society becomes apparent. Currently, the media coverage of the perpetrators is overshadowing the impact on the victims. The impact on the victims should have equal coverage. There is an urgency for managers to create a harassment-free workplace with clear guidelines, adequate training, and rule enforcement. When men are allowed to continue their demeaning behavior to women, everyone loses. There need to be clear protocols for responding to harassment. If a man is harassing a woman companies should not remove them from their roles and promote them into a new one of larger importance. When this happens, this only demonstrates the companies support of a very sick culture. The goal should be to create a culture where sexual harassment is not welcome nor tolerated, not one that is used for promotion.