Case Study on Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment happens everyday all around us. It can happen anywhere such as work or
employment, school, or even at a party. Most people believe that sexual harassment only happens to
women, but it does happen to men as well. Most sexual harassment cases are from men sexual
harassing women. Sexual harassment is labeled as verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, requests
for sexual favors or unwelcomed sexual advances. There are many emotional and mental effects of
sexual harassment that happen: Fear, humiliation, anxiety, depression, guilt and feeling powerless.
Although you may not see these signs from people, they usually happen to people that have been
sexually harassed. They only thing you can try to do to stop sexual harassment is to teach against it in the
workplace and teach young men and women about the effects and consequences sexual harassment
has. Granted this does not mean sexual harassment will stop but it will be a step in the right direction.
In todays times, sexual harassment has been labeled as the woman’s fault because she must
have done something that caused this to happen. This has caused debates and movements to start with
more sexual harassment lawsuits to happen. A major movement that has started from this has been the
#metoo movement. This has allowed women to come out and talk about the sexual harassment they
have gone through with men. This movement has brought upon lawsuits and trails of many famous
celebrities for their misconduct that have done to one person or many. We have seen in recent years
that women have not been reporting sexual harassment because they fear the consequences that could
happen against them or because a person can be holding some sort of power. It has been shown in
recent years that women can be believed for what has happened to them, but they need to bring forth
the proof or evidence that shows this happened to them. This point of view prevents people from
coming forward against someone because they think that nobody will believe them. This prevents our
criminal justice system for doing its job even if it took the victim time to come out and explain what
happened to them. Renata Bongiorno wrote an article about sexual harassment and she stated, “The
#MeToo movement has highlighted the widespread problem of men’s sexual harassment of women.
Women are typically reluctant to make a sexual-harassment complaint and often encounter victim-
blaming attitudes when they do, especially from men.” Social media has blown the #metoo movement
up allowing more and more victims to emerge to tell their story. Social media platforms like Twitter and
Facebook have allowed people to share their stories to millions of people.
Sexual harassment is not just limited to being in the workplace or at schools. It is happening as
well within the United States Military. This means that this is happening to women when they are in
training or wherever they travel for the military. This does not mean that since these women can be in
some sort of power that they are still reporting these incidents to their superiors. Women may still not
be believed or make it seem like they did something to deserve this. Even though you do not hear stories
about this happening it does happen to women in the military all the time. It is sad to say but sexual
harassment does happen to women in the military all the time. Jana Pershing did a study on this
happening within the United States Military and she stated, “Findings reveal that 96.8 percent of
Academy women experienced some form of sexual harassment within a six-month period, while 48.4
percent reported experiencing harassment on a recurring basis. Despite the pervasiveness of harassment
as well as the Academy's provision of avenues for filing grievances, only 26 cases were formally reported
within a five-year period.” Women most likely do not report these incidents to their superiors because
they are afraid of the repercussions that will happen against them. This could mean demotion or being
sent away to other place to continue out their remaining time of service. It is crazy to think that sexual
harassment happens in the military but once you look at the statistics from the study you learn that is
happens to women almost every day.
You may ask yourself why does this happen to women at all? Nobody knows but they are trying
to understand how something so terrible like this could happen. Sexual harassment is something that
should never happen to any person. Even though it mostly happens to women daily by a male it should
not even be something to worry about. In workplaces, employees are do a sexual harassment training
once a year to show the consequences and what is considered sexual harassment. This also needs to be
taught in the military and at schools across the country because it is not only limited to happening in one
place. The Bible has very inspirational teachings and one that comes to mind about this topic is Matthew
5:27-28 in the NLT version, “You have heard the commandment that says, ‘You must not commit
adultery.’ But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with
her in his heart.” Even though this quote talks about adultery it can still be considered sexual harassment
because you are lusting after someone enough to violate some privacy they have. I do not believe that
sexual harassment will ever stop but there are steps that need to be taken as more training and teaching
people when they are young that this is something like this is terribly wrong and needs to be stopped.
References
Sexual Harassment. (n.d.). Retrieved November 09, 2020, from https://www.rainn.org/articles/sexual-
harassment
Pershing, J. L. (2003). Why Women Don’t Report Sexual Harassment: A Case Study of an Elite Military
Institution. Gender Issues, 21(4), 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12147-003-0008-x
Bongiorno, R., Langbroek, C., Bain, P. G., Ting, M., & Ryan, M. K. (2020). Why Women Are Blamed for
Being Sexually Harassed: The Effects of Empathy for Female Victims and Male Perpetrators. Psychology
of Women Quarterly, 44(1), 11–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684319868730
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