Federal employees “need to have a shared understanding of sexual harassment to cease behaviors that can be problematic” in the workplace and that sort of consensus is emerging, the MSPB has said in a recent publication.
The article follows MSPB’s recent release of survey data on sexual harassment in the federal workplace, which showed an overall downward trend compared with prior surveys. However, it also showed that women still experience harassment at more than twice the rate of men: 21 percent vs. 9 percent reported having experienced at least one of 12 harassment behaviors in the prior two years.
The study broke those behaviors into three categories–gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention and sexual coercion–and found that with one exception, more than nine-tenths agreed that the behaviors listed under each constituted sexual harassment. The exception was whether exposure to sexually oriented conversation constituted harassment–although even in that case, more than eight-tenths said it does.
“Interestingly, our survey data suggest there is no longer a gap between men and women in terms of whether behaviors are viewed as sexual harassment. For the eight behaviors that were included on the 1994 and 2016 surveys, there is virtually no difference in responses between men and women, with the gap being closed by increasing agreement among men that each behavior does reflect sexual harassment,” the article said.
“As federal employees move toward greater consensus regarding which behaviors should be identified as sexual harassment, these behaviors are more likely to be avoided and therefore eliminated from the workplace. Although some organizations will have further to go to implement the changes needed to accomplish this goal, the end result will be to create a more appropriate and productive work environment for all employees,” it said.
