Sexual Harassment

Sexual Harassment

What is sexual harassment? Does gender make a difference when concerning sexual harassment? What makes the final decision on whether the behavior was acceptable or not? In the case of Oncale V. Sundowner Offshore Services the question of sexual harassment in the workplace by same sex was put up for debate. In October 1991, Joseph Oncale a “male oil-rig worker who spent periods of time on an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. According to the case, Joseph Oncale was sodomized, threatened and humiliated by members of his crew. He reported the incidents, but no action was taken against the offenders, and Oncale eventually quit — asking that his pink slip reflect that he voluntarily left due to sexual harassment and verbal abuse. Oncale filed a sexual-harassment suit against his crew, but the District Court of Eastern Louisiana held that as a male, Oncale was not protected against the 1964 legislation that prohibits sexual harassment”(HR World Editors, n.d. para. 10). He later filed an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals where he was granted a “writ of certiorari” (Wikipedia) where the Supreme Court overturned the decision.

What constitutes sexual harassment has been described by the EEOC as “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when submission to or rejection of 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” (Woo, 1992). Sexual harassment and gender discrimination in most cases go hand in hand. Another word for gender discrimination is sexism meaning discrimination against someone based on the person’s sex. Extreme sexism eventually turns into sexual harassment. In Joseph Oncale’s case he was a subject of gender discrimination because the District Court of Eastern Louisiana stated that he was not...