Sexual harassment:
A forum focusing on sexual harassment was held Saturday, May 5 at
the Harrisburg Area Community College. The program sponsored by the
Harrisburg Women’s Center’s Task Force Against Sexual Harassment,
HACC's Women in Management program and the Harrisburg Unitarian
Alliance, was attended by approximately 60 people.
Dr. James A. Odom, President of HACC, welcomed the audience
and panel. He noted the small number of men in attendence and
emphasized the importance of each person taking the knowledge gained
from the forum and passing it on to two or three other people. It is in this
way, according to Dr. Odom, that the impact of a program of this nature
can be multiplied.
The forum centered around the research and documentation of Ms.
Lin Farley, author of the book “Sexual Shadedown: The Sexual
Harassment of Women on the Job.” Ms. Farley, originally scheduled as
the keynote speaker was injured in an automobile accident in Oregon and
was unable to appear. The panel made up of Dr. Lee Barker, Minister of
the Unitarian Church of Harrisburg, Andrea Bromberg, head of the
Women in Management program at HACC, Mary Gaul, Business Agent
for the Pa. Social Services Union, Thelma Johnson, Regional Director of
the Pa. Human Relations Commission, Dan Sawyer, Director of the
Bureau of Affirmative Action and Ellen Yacknin, attorney, Pa. Legal
Services, with litigation experience in the area of sexual harassment did
a far more than adequate job of compensating for the gap created by Ms.
Farley.
Andrea Bromberg gave a definition of sexual harassment drawn from
the work of the New York City based group, Working Women United
Institute. Roz Powell, Secretary-Treasurer of Harrisburg’s Task force and
Lucy Jordan, Chairperson of the Task Force and the moderator of the
panel gave a synopsis of the book “Sexual Shakedown.” Ms. Jordan is a
graduate student at Capitol Campus.
Sexual harassment can be defined as “any unwanted sexual
advances, looks, jokes, innuendoes, etc. from someone in the
workplace which makes you uncomfortable and/or cause you problems
on your job. It is being judged by your looks or your body rather than your
ability, experience or job performance when you seek a job, promotion or
raise.” (Working Women United)
It appears to take two major forms. First, sexual approaches by a
superior backed up by economic threats (or grade threats in an
educational institution). Second, attacks on a woman’s reputation and
creation of an unsatisfactory psychological environment at work by
competitive and/or malicious coworkers. Usually they go hand in hand,
with the superior actually instigating harassment by coworkers or by
refusing to take action on poor working environments as further back-up
for sexual compliance.
by roz powell and lucy jordan
The goals of these groups are similar. Harrisburg's Task Force first
provides immediate support of a woman undergoing the crisis and
emotional trauma of sexual harassment. The Task Force holds meetings
every Monday, 7:30 p.m., room 305, YWCA, 4th and Market Streets,
Harrisburg Here an opportunity to dicuss the frustrations and agonies of
sexual harassment with other women undergoing or having undergone
the same ordeal is provided.
An essential support service is referral to sensitized lawyers,
counselors and doctors. Information on and referral to governmental
agencies such as the Pa. Human Relations Commission and the federal
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is given along with advice on
contacting union representatives.
A second goal of the Task Force Against Sexual Harassment is
educational outreach to enlarge the referral list of sensitized
professionals, to develop public awareness of the problem, to aid
management and union personnel in developing grievance procedures
and to open channels in governmental agencies.
This is accomplished through the Task Force’s Speaker’s Bureau and
a growing research library in the areas of model grievance procedures,
the scope and nature of sexual harassment and the impact of sexual
harassment on the individual and society.
New York’s Working Women United Institute goes further by
providing information to policymakers and to legislators and by keeping a
“brief bank” to track legal developments in the area of sexual
harassment. Harrisburg’s Task Force also provides assertiveness
training and alterntative coping mechanisms to women utilizing their
resources.
It is important to note that what constitutes sexual harassment does
not involve any component of passion. (Passion on the job had better be
resolved by both parties before their careers are damaged).
It was restated over and over by different panelists and by the
literature on sexual harassment, that sexual harassment is an abuse of
power. It is an abuse of power perpetrated for economic reasons,
political reasons, both internal and external, and (Sawyer, see below) by
attitudinal stances held by persons wielding authority that demand
deferential and submissive behavior on the part of subordinates.
For women, this attitudinal stance, upheld and ingrained in our
cultural values, means sexual submission. Sexual harassment is
therefore a massive assault on a woman’s self-image as a human being
with skills and knowledge that can be utilized on the job market, with an
attempt to restructure that self-image in terms of the male dominated
cultural value of woman as sex obiect.
What is being done to counter this blatant abuse of power? Groups
like New York’s Working Women United Institute and Harrisburg’s
Women’s Center’s Task Force Against Sexual Harassment are forming.
Lucy Jordan, a Capitol Campus
student and Chairperson of the
Task Force Against Sexual Har
assment, recently was moderator
of a forum focusing on sexual
harassment. The forum was held
last Saturday, May sth at Har
risburg Area Community College.