The most common problem was unwelcome invasion of personal space. Image: Zenza Flarini/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe MSPB has said that a survey it conducted in 2021 on sexual harassment in the federal workplace found a “slight decline” from a similar survey in 2016, although adding that “progress was uneven and somewhat limited in many cases across gender and agencies.”
An MSPB research brief says that 17.5 percent of women and 7.8 percent of men said they experienced one or more of 12 types of sexual harassment listed on the survey over the prior two years, down from 20.9 and 8.7 on the 2016 survey. Women further were more likely than men to experience each of the 12 behaviors, except for unwanted exposure to sexually oriented material.
The most common were unwelcome invasion of personal space, followed by unwelcome sexual teasing, jokes, comments or questions; derogatory or unprofessional terms related to sex or gender; unwelcome sexually suggestive looks or gestures; and unwelcome communications of a sexual nature. The least common were, from least to greatest, actual or attempted sexual assault; offers of preferential treatment for sexual favors; pressure for sexual favors; pressure for dates; stalking; and unwelcome exposure to sexually oriented material.
“Apparent decreases in sexual harassment could be attributed to success preventing sexual harassment as a result of agency efforts,” in making employees more aware of the types of behaviors that are impermissible in the workplace, it said.
“However, a variety of other influences may also impact various measures of sexual harassment,” it said. For example, it noted that since the survey was taken in early 2021, about half of the period in question was after the pandemic started and agencies instituted high rates telework, and that some of the listed behaviors can occur only in a shared working space.
Even so, “remote work does not stop other types of harassment behaviors (e.g., verbal harassment or sending sexually oriented material electronically)” and some research suggests that “the informality of working from home may have blurred the lines between work life and social life for some employees, producing an increase in certain types of harassment.”
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