Full name: Lê Tường Vĩ – 1957012302

Class: DH19AV04
 Abstract

Sexual harassment is a condemnable and unacceptable behavior, it appears anywhere from

the workplace, school to cyberspace, in many forms and to everyone. Many people are not

aware that they are in danger or they know that they are being sexually harassed but they are

afraid to speak it out. It causes a lot of bad effects not only physically but also mentally, this

paper will help us define the meaning of sexual harassment and some ways to reduce this

complication, make our society better and better. Do not underestimate sexual harassment.

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 Sexual harassment is defined as an undesirable sexual advance, request for sexual favors,

and sexual comments or gestures that occur in any environment (Mitchell, Ybarra &

Korchmaros, 2013, p. 2). Although this issue is happening in our society every day, people do

not really perceive it. And the result is that sexual harassment becomes a ubiquitous and severe

problem.

People often have a wrong comprehension that sexual harassment is rape and vice versa. In

fact, rape is just only one kind of sexual harassment - physical sexual assault. Sexual harassment

comes in other forms such as verbal and visual harassment. Verbal harassment includes offensive

or suggestive remarks, comments, jokes, jets, sounds, and inappropriate questions; visual

harassment consists of showcasing pornographic material, drawing sex-based sketches, and

sexual exposure (Awam, 2021). For instance, we often hear a joke like “Oh, you are so

delicious”, and just thought it was normal? Please, no, this is offense, this is sexual harassment.

Be aware of this problem!

As confirmed by WHO (2012), reasons why people, specifically, women do not report

sexual harassment are shame, fear of the risk of retaliation, being blamed, not being believed,

being mistreated, and being socially ostracized. So, sexual harassment is happening in our

society day by day and causes many consequences for victims like anxiety, depression,

headaches, sleep disorders, weight loss or gain, nausea, lowered self-esteem, and sexual

dysfunction (Ramapo College Of New Jersey, 2021).

Everyone can become a victim of sexual harassment, and the first one we have to mention

is women. There is much news about women who had been sexually harassed every day.

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According to Jain-Link, Bourgeois & Kennedy (2019), 34% of female employees have been

sexually harassed by a colleague; moreover, black women have a high scale of being sexual

harassment, about one in four black women who have been sexually harassed say that the

perpetrator was a more junior colleague or another woman. Children are the next potential victim

of sexual harassment, the global popularity of children being sexually harassed to be about 27%

among girls and around 14% among boys (WHO, 2012). There were many pitiful cases about

pedophiles such as Nhat Linh - a little girl who was killed after having been raped or Minh Beo

was caught red-handed in the USA. Women and children are the primary victims but men can

also be subjected to sexual harassment. Because of their gender expectations, men always feel

shame and find it more difficult to talk about incidents of harassment or assault. (Jain-Link,

Bourgeois & Kennedy, 2019). The last one we can not pretermit is LGBTQ+ people, they are

being sexually harassed all the time, there are many rude words that they have to hear. For

example, people said that gay guys use cooking oil when having sexual intercourse, bisexual

guys like to join with a heterosexual couple, …. They seem to be particularly at risk for sexual

harassment; up to 81% of transgender youth reported being sexually harassed (Mitchell, Ybarra

& Korchmaros, 2013, p. 1,2).

Sexual harassment appears everywhere from the workplace, public spaces, cyberplaces to

somewhere we think it’s safe like school (Franks, 2012). There is a study by WHO (2012), girls

from a school in the Machinga district of Malawi reported that they were sexually commented,

sexually touch, and rape. We should do something to prevent this problem. In agreement with

Strauss (2013), we have 3 things to do to scale down sexual harassment. Firstly, we need to

know what sexual harassment is and why it is atrocious. Secondly, talk to our children about

what healthy friendships and dating relationships look like; explain what sexual harassment and

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sexual assault are, and take an interest in our children’s day, their classmates, and the activities

they’re involved in at school. Finally, when being sexually harassed, do not be afraid, actively

report it to the authorities at your job or school.

Sexual harassment is a condemnable and unacceptable behavior, it appears anywhere to

anyone. It brings us many bad effects, we need to defeat this phenomenon by perceiving and

propagating it, and the harms it causes as well. Be brief and actively report it to everyone; thus,

we can denounce this crime.

References

Awam. (2021). Sexual harassment. Retrieved from https://www.awam.org.my/sexual-

harassment/

Franks, M. A. (2012). Sexual harassment 2.0. Maryland law review, 71(3), 655-704. Retrieved

from https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?

referer=https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=3502&context=mlr

Jain-Link P., Bourgeois T., & Kennedy J. T. (2019, April 23). Ending harassment at work

requires an intersectional approach. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from

https://hbr.org/2019/04/ending-harassment-at-work-requires-an-intersectional-approach

Mitchell, K. J., Ybarra, M. L., Korchmaros J. D. (2014, February). Sexual harassment among

adolescents of different sexual orientations and gender identities. Child Abuse & Neglect,

38(2), 280-295. Retrieved from https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?

doi=10.1.1.595.77&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Ramapo College Of New Jersey. (2021). Consequences of Sexual Harassment. Retrieved from

https://www.ramapo.edu/sexual-harassment-resources/consequences/

Strauss, S. L. (2013). Sexual harassment and bulling. Washington, DC: Rowman & Littlefield.

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World Health Organization. (2012). Sexual violence. In Understanding and addressing violence

against women (12.37). Retrieved from

https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/violence/vaw_series/en/