Defining Sexual Harassment, Discrimination, and Gender-based Violence
Courage Campaign: Women's Stories of Survival and Speaking Out Against Oppression
CW: mention of sexual discrimination, harassment, and violence. Source - National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2018. Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/24994.
Gender-based discrimination, harassment, and violence continue to plague the science, engineering, and medicine academic workplaces. These events are all too common due to a variety of conditions in academia, including the perceived tolerance for sexual harassment, an environment where men outnumber women, the hierarchical power structure of the organization, procedures that are more interested in protecting the prestige of the institution rather than the safety of survivors, and uninformed leadership. Additionally, certain aspects of the academic workplace tend to silence targets of harassment and limit career opportunities for both targets and bystanders, including:
The dependence on advisors and mentors for career advancement;
The system of meritocracy that does not account for the declines in productivity and morale as a result of sexual harassment;
The hypermasculine culture in some fields; and
The informal communications network, through which rumors and accusations are spread within and across specialized programs and fields.
Harassment can be either direct (targeted at an individual) or ambient (a general level of sexual harassment in an environment).
What gender-based oppression looks like varies widely, but is alike in that it negatively impacts individuals who identify as women or non-binary. It is important for us to define these complex terms to have a better and more comprehensive understanding of what constitutes gender-based discrimination, harassment, and violence. Targeted individuals may not feel validated that the treatment they’ve received constitutes gender-based discrimination/harassment because it doesn’t meet the norm of what’s unacceptable by society (the visible part of the iceberg). However, many situations still constitute as gender-based discrimination, harassment, and violence and it is important for us to publicly define these terms.
Discriminatory behavior: An umbrella term that includes biased treatment based upon characteristics such as race, color, ethnicity, age, sex, and so on. This term includes the different forms of sexual harassment, as well as other forms of sex/gender discrimination.
Sex/gender discrimination: A broad term that includes discrimination and harassment based upon gender or sex. In addition to sexually harassing behavior, examples of this include pay or hiring discrimination based on one’s sex or gender.
Sexual harassment:A type of sex/gender discrimination that encompasses gender harassment, unwanted sexual attention, and sexual coercion.
Gender harassment: Verbal and nonverbal behaviors that convey hostility, objectification, exclusion, or second-class status about members of one gender. Gender harassment is further defined as two types: sexist hostility and crude harassment. Examples of the sexist hostility form of gender harassment for women include demeaning jokes or comments about women, comments that women do not belong in leadership positions or are not smart enough to succeed in a scientific career, and sabotaging women. The crude harassment form of gender harassment is defined as the use of sexually crude terms that denigrate people based on their gender (e.g., using insults such as “slut” to refer to a female coworker or “pussy” to refer to a male coworker).
Unwanted sexual attention: Unwelcome sexual advances (verbal or physical), which can include assault. Unwanted sexual attention does not add professional rewards or threats to force compliance. Examples include repeated requests for dates, persistent attempts to establish sexual relationships despite discouragement and rejection as well as unwanted touching, hugging, and stroking.
Sexual coercion:A type of sexual harassment in which favorable professional or educational treatment is conditioned on sexual activity (such as through the use of bribes or threats). Examples include promises of a better grade or a letter of reference in exchange for sexual favors.
Ambient harassment: General level of sexual harassment in a particular setting as defined by the frequency of harassing behaviors of all types and levels of severity. In this type of harassment the people negatively affected are not directly targeted. Examples include bystanders who witness other students or coworkers repeatedly targeted by unwanted sexual attention.
Hostile environment harassment: A legal term referring to sexual harassment that is “severe or pervasive” enough to alter the conditions of employment, interfere with one’s work performance, or impede one’s ability to get an education. Both gender harassment and unwanted sexual attention can contribute to a hostile environment.
Quid pro quo sexual harassment:A legal term that parallels sexual coercion. It is a type of sexual harassment in which favorable professional or educational treatment is conditioned on sexual activity (such as through the use of bribes or threats). Examples include promises of a better grade or a letter of reference in exchange for sexual favors.
Incivility: Rude and insensitive behavior that shows a lack of regard for others (not necessarily related to sex or gender).
Rape culture: a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse.
Rape: a form of sexual assault, although not sexual assault is rape. Rape is often used as a legal definition to specifically include sexual penetration without consent. For its Uniform Crime Reports, the FBI defines rape as “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.
Sexual assault: sexual contact or behavior that occurs without explicit consent of the victim. Some forms of sexual assault include attempted rape, fondling or unwanted sexual touching, forcing a victim into performing sexual acts such as oral sex or penetrating the perpetrator's body, or penetration of the victim's body.
WIS PDX is committed to supporting the community in all ways that we can. the #WISCourageCampaign is an awareness and empowerment campaign for the survivors of gender-based discrimination, harassment, and violence to share their experiences and find support within the community (Read more about the campaign here).
If you would like to submit your experience to WIS PDX either anonymously or if you would like WIS PDX to keep a record of your submission, please click the button below. With each submitter’s consent, WIS PDX will be compiling these stories to share with our community and any other party to make sure they are heard.
We want to offer support to any individual who needs it through this process*. You are not alone and you do not have to traverse this alone. WIS PDX offers a monthly virtual space to find community and support: Join us for WIS Supporting WIS at 6pm PT on the 2nd Sunday of every month. The next meeting will be held on Sunday, October 10th. Registration is required, but these events are free. Please also feel free to contact us at info@womeninsciencepdx.org.
*If you have experienced harassment and/or discrimination and need legal advice or physical/mental healthcare, please see our previous blog post for additional resources.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carly Starke received her bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from James Madison University and her PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Georgetown University and the National Institutes of Health. Carly joined Oregon Health & Science University as a postdoc in 2019, studying HIV disease progression. She will be continuing her postdoc training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA.