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Sexual Harassment

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Over the years sexual harassment claims have definitely changed the way that employees conduct themselves in a work environment. Twenty five years ago sexual harassment was viewed as the norm in some industries and no one thought twice about filing a suit. However, in today’s working environment employees must be extremely careful in making sure that none of their actions are misconstrued as sexual harassment.
In order for sexual harassment to be founded certain conditions must be exist. The conditions are the victim must be a member of a protected class, have not consented to the sexual advance, complaints must be gender related and based on sex and it must have an effect on the employee’s job in the scope of employment (Walker, 2008). These conditions help those investigating sexual harassment determine if the claims are founded.
To help employees with this difficult task many organizations have created sexual harassment policies to keep employees informed on what constitutes sexual harassment. Sexual harassment includes requesting sexual favors as well as touching, joking, commenting or distributing sexual materials that an employee has not consented to and find offensive (Walker, 2008). Sexual harassment is not to be mistaken for gender discrimination which a person of a specific gender being treated differently because they are that particular gender.
There are two types of sexual harassment. The first type is vicarious liability which is former known as “quid pro quo” of a favor for a favor (Walker, 2008). Vicarious liability results when an authority figure uses their position to suggest that their subordinate needs to do something of a sexual nature in order to advance or keep their job. Circumstances like this often put the victims in a situation where they feel the need to choose between their job and doing something sexual for their superior

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