Sexual harassment

Sexual harassment is unwelcome harassment of a sexual nature, or based upon the receiving party's sex or gender. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment may be illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and annoyances to actual 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) and bullying. For many businesses, preventing sexual harassment, and defending employees from sexual harassment charges, have become key goals of legal decision-making.

In contrast, many scholars complain that sexual harassment in education remains a "forgotten secret," with educators and administrators refusing to admit the problem exists in their schools, or accept their legal and ethical responsibilities to deal with it (Dziech, 1990).

The term sexual harassment began coming to public attention in the 1970s, starting at a "Speak Out" in 1975 in Ithaca New York, USA. In her book In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution (1999), journalist Susan Brownmiller quotes the Cornell activists who in 1975 thought they had coined the term sexual harassment: "Eight of us were sitting in an office ... brainstorming about what we were going to write on posters for our speak-out. We were referring to it as 'sexual intimidation,' 'sexual coercion,' 'sexual exploitation on the job.' None of those names seemed quite right.

We wanted something that embraced a whole range of subtle and un-subtle persistent behaviors. Somebody came up with 'harassment.' 'Sexual harassment!' Instantly we agreed. That's what it was." (p. 281). These activists (Lin Farley, Susan Meyer and Karen Sauvigne) went on to form Working Women's Institute which, along with the Alliance Against Sexual Coercion, founded in 1976 by Elizabeth Cohn-Stuntz, Freada Klein and Lynn Wehrli, and were among the pioneer organizations to bring sexual harassment to public attention in the late 1970s.]