Examining Legal and Theoretical Perspectives on Workplace Harassment

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of sexual harassment in the workplace, focusing on the Australian legal context. It begins by defining sexual harassment and highlighting its detrimental effects on victims' mental, emotional, and physical health. The essay then delves into two key theoretical frameworks: feminist theory and inequality theory. Feminist theory emphasizes gender equality and condemns oppression, while inequality theory, based on MacKinnon's approach, views sexual harassment as a form of discrimination that subordinates women. The essay concludes by advocating for the implementation of policies and laws to eradicate sexual harassment, promoting fairness and equality in the workplace. Desklib offers this and other solved assignments and past papers to aid students in their studies.

Sexual harassment in the workplace
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Introduction
Generally, the issue of sexual harassment is against the law in Australia. Hayashi (2012)
described sexual harassment as an aspect that results in the unwelcome behavior which is
expected to make someone feel offended and intimidated within the workplace location. The
aspect of sexual harassment in the workplace can either be verbal, either physical or even
written. Therefore, Australian statistics on the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace shows
that sexual harassment is an immoral behavior. Therefore, for any behavior to be described fully
as sexual harassment behavior, it must comply with certain conditions that is the behavior must
occur at work (Martin & Peña, 2012 p.89).The Australian Human Rights has reported that almost
1 woman in a group of 6 is sexually harassed in the workplace. The net effects of sexual
harassment behavior in the workplace are that sexual harassment can jeopardize the victim's
mental health, emotional health, and physical health.
Theories explaining sexual harassment in the workplace
Feminist theory in sociology
Basically feminist theory advocates for rights and freedom of women and girls in society. The
theory has been in frontline promoting the rights of women over the men. In fact, the theory has
been fighting for inequality, the issue of oppression and also injustice within the society. By
supporting all these sociological aspects, the theory thus helps in achieving the goals of justice
and equality in the society (Pohlman 2018 ,p.90).The theory always condemns the sexual
harassment in the workplace by considering the following;
First the theory checks on the gender difference whereby it checks on how women differ with
the men in the workplace. For instance, the cultural feminism will check on those womanhood

capabilities women are able to perform in workplace locations as compared to the men. The
theory also checks on the roles assigned by the workplace senior to the women to ensure there is
work balance in the working place (Suhaila & Rampal 2012, p.45).
The second process in which the theory controls sexual harassment in the workplace is through
condemning the gender oppression within the workplace. The theory looks on how women are
being oppressed by theme in society. In the workplace, you find that the big number of gender
being sexually harassed is the women working in a specific location. This shows that in men's
dominated society women are seen as the inferior group and that's why men sexually abuse
women in the working area. The theory also describes two concepts which catalyze the
oppression of women in society. According to Tangem (2017) there is an issue of power in the
workplace whereby the senior takes the opportunity of oppressing women for sex in the
workplace. This means that there are radical feminism and psychoanalytic feminism which tend
to undermine the capabilities of women in the workplace. The theory summarizes by showing
that women can defeat men's strength and become recognized as long as clear guidelines and
laws will be made to eradicate sexual harassment behavior in the workplace.
The other concept about the theory is that it describes structural oppression which focuses on
enlightening the society on women's oppression in the workplace. The feminism theory describes
capitalist values and explains how a working class tends to oppress women. Different authors
have indicated that most of the job positions are being controlled by men and that's why most of
them find the opportunity to oppress women in the workplace. The issue is that laws have
ensured all the process associated with sexual harassment should be formulated.
The inequality theory

The theory was initiated by the MacKinnon. In the inequality approach, MacKinnon asserts that
sexual harassment in the workplace is a form of discrimination since the behavior is sexually
subordinating. This shows that focusing the situation faced by women in the job is a form of the
structural problem of enforcing inferiority to be radically changed within society. The theory also
indicates that sexes are not socially differentiated but they are social and physically different and
unequal (Vettriselvan & Anto 2018, p.344). The essence is that sexual harassment in the
workplace included a group of individuals who consider the context of women to be inferior.
The inequality, therefore, condemns the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace by
analyzing the discrimination is disadvantageous to women and advantageous to women in
working location. This shows that women are always vulnerable and a big number of women in
the workplace occupies the lower positions in the workplace as compared to the men. Equality
provides chances for sexually abusing women since men will tend to discriminate women's
capabilities. Under the inequality approach, you find men always in frontline practicing sexual
behaviors in working locations. The harassment can be in different ways whereby men can be
sending sex information and through physical means such touching women without one's
consent.
Also, Mackinnon describes the issue of sexual harassment by considering disparate treatment as
part of the inequality theory (VIERIU 2016, p.67). The desperate approach requires that similar
situations and experiences should be treated with a similar measure. This means that sexual
harassment in the workplace is pure discrimination and you find that women will not be treated
the same as men. In fact the sexual harassment practice in workplace singles out the women as
the specific group which is under burdens of their employers and their bosses. In simple words,
sexual harassment in the workplace limits women as compared to the men in the working

location. It's clear that currently for women to be employed in a working area then there is the
issue of sexual harassment meaning that seniors which are men prefer sexual conditions
(Weinberg & Nielsen 2017, p.89). This is inhuman and that's why men have been described as
the root cause of sexual harassment in the workplace.
To sum up, the two theories that are feminism theory and inequality theory concludes that the
courts and other bodies within the country should work in formulating policies that will help in
controlling the harms associated with sexual harassment in the workplace. Sexual harassment in
the workplace is a nuisance and those are doing and practicing it should stop with immediate
effects. Halting the sexual harassment in the workplace would enhance fairness and equality thus
helping the society learn moral values which will be beneficial now and in the future.

References
Hayashi, H., 2012. Sexual Harassment in the Workplace and Equal Employment Legislation. St.
John's Law Review, 69(1), p.4.
Martin, B. and Peña, F., 2012. Mobbing and suppression: Footprints of their relationships. Social
Medicine, 6(4), pp.217-226.
Pohlman, A., 2018. Women and nationalism in Indonesia. Historia: Jurnal Pendidik dan
Peneliti Sejarah, 12(1), pp.13-21.
Suhaila, O. and Rampal, K.G., 2012. Prevalence of sexual harassment and its associated factors
among registered nurses working in government hospitals in Melaka State, Malaysia. Med J
Malaysia, 67(5), pp.506-17.
Tangem, S., 2017. The Effect of Workplace Bullying and Sexual Harassment on
Counterproductıve Workplace Behavior A Study on Bangladeshi Private Banks. International
Journal of Business, Economics and Law, 14(5), pp.57-64.
Vettriselvan, R. and Anto, M.R., 2018. Pathetic health status and working condition of Zambian
women. Indian Journal of Public Health Research & Development, 9(9), pp.259-264.
VIERIU, L.E., 2016. Romanian and European legislative notions regarding sexual discrimination
and the sexual harassment of women. JOURNAL OF LAW AND ADMINISTRATIVE
SCIENCES,7(8), p.91.
Weinberg, J.D. and Nielsen, L.B., 2017. What Is Sexual Harassment: An Empirical Study of
Perceptions of Ordinary People and Judges. . Louis U. Pub. L. Rev., 36, p.39.