Sexual harassment and sexual intimacy in learning environments

Canadian Psychology, Feb 1996 by Pyke, Sandra W

Even when complaints are filed, universities sometimes seem unable to respond appropriately. For example, four students at Carleton College are suing the College administration for a failure to protect them from two men who College officials knew were dangerous. Seven women had previously filed complaints against these two men (Collison, 1991).

Rey Carr (1991) contends "that codes of ethics and guidelines for sexual harassment do not address the foundation of sexual harassment, namely, the imbalance of power in the university" (p. 447). Thus, he regards current efforts to curtail harassment as dealing only with the symptom, and not the root cause of the phenomenon. Osborne's (1992) critique of the typical institutional response to sexual harassment similarly emphasizes systemic factors (see also Kilcoyne, 1990). She argues that the individualistic case - by - case approach obscures the systemic etiology of the behaviour and relegates harassment to a simple problem of an individual's deviant behaviour. "By framing each incident of sexual harassment as a separate and individual case, university sexual harassment procedures decontextualize the experience from its grounding in the continuum of sexism and misogyny that women encounter on campus" (p.74). She is also critical of the place of mediation in sexual harassment complaint procedures, noting that mediation assumes that the participants have equal bargaining/negotiating power; furthermore, mediation gives implicit legitimation to the interests of the harasser while forcing the victim to bargain for her rights. Finally, Osborne regards the use of gender neutral language in sexual harassment policies and procedures as a misrepresentation of reality, in that the vast majority of the complainants are women, and the bulk of the respondents are men. However, given that large numbers of males do in fact report experiences that may be defined as harassing, jettisoning gender neutral language would seem to be inappropriate.

If current legal, institutional and individual attempts to deal with sexual harassment are relatively ineffective, then what strategies should be tried? Construing sexual harassment as but one manifestation of widespread systemic discrimination characteristic of a sexist society suggests that the more efficacious change efforts will be those that address the pervasive underlying problem. Carr (1991), who interprets sexual harassment in terms of an addiction to power, suggests a variety of training/treatment approaches such as constructive confrontation and progressive discipline techniques. Additionally, he notes the need for restructuring academic institutions to reflect more cooperative, egalitarian and peer - based learning paradigms. Osborne (1992) urges universities to pursue three strategies. In the context of a university environment, structural change might be engendered or facilitated by increasing the number of women faculty through affirmative action hiring policies. It is also important to have women in senior administrative positions so that they can act on opportunities for even small scale organizational restructuring. Finally, she presses for continued efforts to develop nonsexist curriculum which will help to modify attitudes currently supporting gender inequities.