In our Sexual Harassment Awareness training seminars your employees will learn and apply the important skills of handling sexual harassment issues and complaints. This hands on seminar thoroughly addresses the elements of how to prevent unacceptable behavior. The seminar includes a detailed overview of what sexual harassment is, explains legal definitions, discusses sexual harassment prevention, and shows how to handle sexual harassment complaints and maintain a positive work environment.

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Sexual Harassment Training Seminars:
Sexual Harassment and Gender Differences

For many years some people have chosen to be reticent after being sexually harassed. That silence, however, has affected some people negatively especially young women. Because men and women do not understand each other’s standpoint on sexual harassment, a huge disparity exists between men’s and women’s understanding of what sexual harassment means. A recent survey shows that men view fewer behaviors as harassing than women do. The survey also reported that four out of every ten women in the country have been sexually harassed once or twice in their lifetime. Since sexual harassment had come to a point that required immediate action, the prime minister concluded that a code of conduct should be implemented in the country. According to the code of conduct, sexual harassment  encompasses many factors now.

First, communication is the primary medium through which sexual harassment is expressed; it is the means by which those who are harassed respond to harassment, and it is also the primary means by which policies for eliminating sexual harassment in the workplace can be implemented. Not only is communication a medium for sexual harassment, as Kreps contends, but research also suggests that sexual harassment is communication. According to Bingham, sexual harassment can be conceptualized as a discursive practice. A discursive focus places communication at the core of sexual harassment so that it is "not understood merely as what occurs during the enactment of harassing behavior or in the reception/interpretation of harassing messages. A discursive framework understands communication as creating and shaping social reality rather than just being influenced by it.”

Power is another issue of Sexual harassment. First, although many men tend to hold a power-over definition of power, women's conception of power is far more complex because of their standpoints of subordination. Women must not only understand their own perspectives, but also the language, practices, and thinking of those who marginalize and oppress them. Although women are certainly aware of the masculine form of power as domination, they "inevitably come to experience power differently." For women, power is a complex construct. Women tend to adhere to several different forms of power. Women tend to focus on personal power, or the ability to control themselves, communal power, or the control over others to strengthen the group or power with others where social change occurs by sharing power with others. One example of power with others is through shared narratives. By sharing stories of sexual harassment with others, women are able to increase their collective power. Women's power-with construction of power is the focus of this article for two reasons. It provides a parallel to men's power-over construction through which we can better understand men's and women's differing standpoints of sexual harassment, and, as the research on narratives suggests, that through power sharing, women have been most effective at raising consciousness of sexual harassment in organizations.

Fear plays a significant role in sexual harassment. For instance, men orient toward the fear of marginalization from sexual harassment policies, women orient toward the fear of sexual harassment itself. Feminist standpoint theories contend that women are already marginalized. Women fear both the consequences of their marginalization and the possibility of becoming further marginalized. Men also fear becoming marginalized, but for different reasons. In other words, it is the varying gendered standpoints that influence the experience of fear. Women fear sexual harassment because of its threat to their sense of connectedness, and women fear sexual harassment because of the sense of danger created when sexual harassment is threatened. The fear of male violence is not only important in organizations, but also is central to women's experiences of sexual harassment.

Not surprisingly, women tend to fear men across situations more than they fear women. Interestingly, women count on the object of fear, men, to protect them from harm. The constant nature of fear women experience provides a compelling argument for why they are more likely to perceive sexual behavior as harassing and threatening. Because men usually have the ability to harm women, women are more likely to perceive men’s behavior as threatening. Lyman described a case in which fraternity men came into a women's sorority while the women were eating, surrounded the women, and began to talk about penis envy while one man used a fake penis to demonstrate masturbation techniques. When the two groups got together to talk about the event, the women described the fear they felt from being surrounded by so many large men. The women found the event threatening, in part because of the physical posturing of the men. The men considered it to be a joke. The women considered the situation to be frightening.

Men and women react differently to sexual harassment. Oftentimes men do certain things to entertain themselves such as telling dirty jokes. Women, on the other hand, are more likely to get offended by the things most men would consider fun.

Source: Rodrigue Monestime link