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How to Spot Sexual Harassment: 6 Facts

By Neetal Parekh on October 23, 2009 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Though sexual harassment in the workplace may be an uncomfortable subject to discuss, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides federal protection against the harassment on the basis of sex.

Here are six facts on identifying sexual harassment in the workplace, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC):

1. The victim or harasser may be a woman or man.  The victim does not have to be of the opposite sex.

2. The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, agent of the employer, a supervisor in another area, co-worker, or non-employee.

3. The victim does not have be the person harassed, but could be anyone affected by offensive conduct.

4. Sexual harassment may occur without economic injury or discharge of the victim from his/her job.

5. Sexual harassment, by definition, requires the harasser's conduct to be unwelcome.

6. Sexual harassment includes: unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitute sexual harassment when this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual's employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual's work performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work environment.

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