| |
|
Sociobiology
This perspective holds that men are biologically programmed to be sexual aggressors and that sexual behavior in the workplace is one aspect of that biological inheritance. At the center of this analysis is the assumption that sexual harassment is about sex. Proponents of this position may admit that some of the sexual behavior in the workplace is inappropriate, but they argue that it is unavoidable. The following excerpt from an article in Marketing Week summarizes this position eloquently:
Of all the many strange and wonderful properties of drink, the most mysterious is its ability to
connect us with our deepest ancestry. It goes way beyond mere forebears, right back to the complex bundle of impulses, synapses, instincts, and reflexes that coalesced from the primordial soup and, over an intervening aeon or two, made us human - and more importantly, compelled us to carry on being human by reproducing ourselves. Since there were other things to do, too - such as hunting, gathering, inventing the wheel, controlling fire and so on - man gradually acquired a veneer of civilisation which restricted his reproductive activities to times and occasions now described as appropriate....
Somewhere deep in the psyche of many a male lies an instinctual, intuitive grasp of the beauty of the female rump. This is normally left unexpressed, other than perhaps by a sharp intake of breath when a particularly fine example hoves into view. But when [name excised] set eye upon what he deemed at the time to be an exceptionally robust specimen, he found that drink had liberated his tongue and freed his hand. Nice arse, he commented and gave it an appreciative pat. He is now out of a job, tried and convicted of sexual harassment by his fellow directors....He is outraged and says the penalty far exceeds the crime. [Ian Murray, Cast Out of the Clan for Acting on Ancient Impulse, Marketing Week, May 18, 2000, p. 142]
The implication, of course, is that boys will be boys and women have no business being offended by this kind of sexual behavior. The author of this article argues that acting in accordance with one's biological impulses should not be considered offensive or illegal.
Patriarchy
This perspective holds that the cultural structure of patriarchy ("Rule by the Fathers") is the root cause of sexual harassment. Within this social structure men have social, political, and economic power over women, who are defined by the system as sexual in nature. In some traditional patriarchal cultures women are confined to the home as wives and mothers and female children are not formally educated. In other cultures such as our own, women are not confined to the home but stereotypes about appropriate male and female behavior assign women a subordinate sexualized identity even in the workplace. As the ancient courtiers had sexual access to all peasant women, men in positions of power apparently assume that they have sexual access to the women working for them. Men do not see their overtures as harassment and many women either share the same assumptions or are too afraid to resist.
Much of sexual harassment may be driven by the unintended and nonconscious operation of the mental representation of sexuality: appraisal of women in terms of their sexual attractiveness, interpretation of their friendly and deferential behavior as flirtatious, submissive, or mutually attracted, and even the generation of sexual responses or advances by the man toward the woman might occur without the man's awareness of the causal role played by his relative power over the women. (John A. Barth and Paula Raymond. (1995). The Naïve Misuse of Power: Nonconscious Sources of Sexual Harassment, Journal of Social Issues, 51(1), pp. 85-96.)
The implication of this analysis of sexual harassment is that the social structure must change before harassment will cease. Changing the social structure would theoretically be possible if both women and men were systematically taught about the nature of stereotyping and the connections between power and sexuality were unlinked.
Culture
This perspective holds that women and men are socialized into different cultures-different beliefs, values, ways of communicating. Traditionally the workplace has been a male culture where men joke, compete with and tease one another, and talk about women in less than respectful ways. Women who want to enter this workplace cannot expect men to change their culture quickly; however, men must learn to get along with women in the workplace. Women have to learn to be tougher and men have to learn to behave more respectfully when women are around.
While it is certainly true that outside the workplace the responsibility for clear communication is and should be fifty-fifty, in the heavily male workplaces it is the woman who is coming into male territory, not vice versa. Therefore, she needs to know how that territory operates; and unless he is interested in pursuing a personal relationship outside of work with her, he has no corresponding need to know her territory. If a part of the way in which male territory operates is offensive to her, it is she who has the burden of communicating her concern. He may have nothing to complain about. (Joan Kennedy Taylor. (1999). What to Do When You Don't Want to Call the Cops. New York: New York University Books, p. 8).
Some students, men and women, just don't want to hear classroom references to sex. But to suggest that comments about sex necessarily are more offensive to women than to men is stereotyping, in itself gender discrimination. It suggests that women ought to be treated as children--sheltered from the troubling talk of the grownup world. We once thought women ought to be sheltered from university life altogether, certainly from professional schools, because they were, as a class, better suited to home and family than to the rough and tumble of careers. Are we now saying that women, once admitted to the university, may not hear all that will be said there? While we work to free our students from sexual harassment, we must also guard against a return to the crippling gender-based protectionism of a time gone by, when someone else made all women's choices for them. (Veraldi, Lorna. (1995). Academic Freedom and Sexual Harassment. Education Digest, 61(1), p. 39.)
The implication of this analysis is that ending sexual harassment depends on changing the dominant male culture. Laws do not change culture, although they may provide impetus to begin the change. Management must take positive steps to evaluate and monitor the culture and intervene when necessary to make sure a culture of respect toward all persons in the workplace becomes common.
Discourse
A discursive perspective holds that communication creates and shapes social reality. Language and our communicative practices embody assumptions about the nature of the world and the nature of truth that influence our opinions and behaviors. Everyday taken-for-granted communication activities reproduce and sustain oppressive conditions such as sexual harassment. Not only actions but also feelings and emotions are defined and taught, so that people who harass and people who are harassed come to feel those behaviors are "normal."
Until quite recently incidents of sexual harassment were unquestioned as part of "normal" life. They were not named as aberrations, but instead were treated as "how things work" in men's conduct toward women. Viewing sexual harassment as usual was possible, perhaps even inevitable, because historically men held a monopoly on social power, including the power to name. From most men's perspective, sexual harassment was neither salient nor a problem....This began to change when some victims did not accept prevailing definitions of "how things work" and refused to be silent. Not only did some women object in moments of assault, but a number pursued formal and public redress by taking their grievances to court. (Julia Wood. (1994). Saying It Makes It So: The Discursive Construction of Sexual Harassment, in Shereen Bingham (Ed.). Conceptualizing Sexual Harassment as Discursive Practice. Westport, CN: Praeger. p. 19).
The implication of this perspective is that the remedy for sexual harassment and other oppressive social patterns derives from an analysis of communicative practices. We can analyze ways in which discursive practices sustain oppression and then work to change those practices by changing the law and changing norms of behavior.
|
