Sexual Harassment

Sexual Harassment. In the early 1990s, sexual harassment in the military made headlines as decades of mistreatment of military women became known. The initial spotlight followed the public revelation of the events of the U.S. Navy's annual Tailhook Convention at the Las Vegas Hilton in September 1991. Hundreds of navy and Marine aviators attended the convention, where male aviators assaulted their female colleagues and both men and women took part in inappropriate activities. Naval leadership did not respond to a formal complaint about the event, which only worsened its reputation when the abuses were exposed in the national media. The ripple effects of Tailhook were felt for years within the navy, until another event overtook the public's attention.

In November 1996, allegations of rape, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and fraternization on the part of drill sergeants at the army's Aberdeen Proving Ground training facility in Maryland rekindled public outrage. Tailhook, Aberdeen, and numerous other incidents brought considerable media attention to gender relations in the military. This, in turn, led to commissioned studies, panels, and congressional hearings on the topics of sexual harassment and, more generally, the role of women in the military.

As revised in 1995, the Department of Defense defines sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination that involves unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when (a) submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of a person's job, pay, or career; (b) submission to or rejection of such conduct by a person is used as a basis for career or employment decisions affecting that person; or (c) such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working environment.

People commonly use the term sexual harassment to refer to an even wider range of behaviors, including sexual discrimination, sexual assault, and gender harassment. The concept of sexual harassment is particularly problematic because what offends one individual may not faze another. Research has shown that people are more likely to define a behavior as sexual harassment if it comes from someone in a position of power over them, or if it comes from someone of a different race or class background.

In an article entitled “How Women Handle Sexual Harassment: A Literature Review,” published in Sociology and Social Research (1989), James E. Gruber classified victims' individual responses to harassment into four categories: avoidance of the harasser or the place of harassment; defusion of the incident, such as making a joke of the issue or discussing it only with friends; negotiation, which includes telling the harasser that his behavior is offensive and asking him to stop; and confrontation, in which women use more forceful language and may issue an ultimatum or threat.

At the organizational level, military personnel have been reluctant to file formal complaints of sexual harassment for a number of reasons: they do not believe the organization will respond; they believe there will be a “backlash” against them for filing a complaint; they believe the incident was minor and dealt with satisfactorily on the individual level; they are afraid that a minor complaint will be blown up into a major public issue; or there were no witnesses and they do not believe they will win a “he‐said, she‐said” case. In the 1990s, as harassment received more publicity and women's complaints were taken more seriously, many military men became afraid that they might be falsely accused. The degree to which this actually occurs, however, has not yet been measured.

The targets of sexual harassment can suffer a number of negative effects: poor physical and mental health, drug or alcohol abuse, work dissatisfaction, alienation from coworkers, tardiness and absenteeism, decreased work performance and poor evaluations, job loss or career disruption, and the costs of legal fees, health care, and counseling.

In some ways, the military environment fosters sexual harassment. Military culture has traditionally emphasized aggression and the masculine role, and many of the men who join hold traditional beliefs about gender. Moreover, women have always been and are still a small and very visible minority, historically excluded from some of the most powerful and prestigious military roles. At the same time, the military is a large‐scale formal organization with explicit methods for communicating and enforcing its rules and regulations. Its members are trained to be highly disciplined and to uphold a high moral code. Therefore, the military might also be the workplace most able to stamp out sexual harassment, much as it was more successful than the civilian world in integrating racial minorities.

Studies of sexual harassment rates in the civilian workforce typically find that about 50 percent of women have been harassed at work, although some organizations' rates are considerably higher. Rates in the military have been measured at similar levels—noteworthy because soldiers live and work together twenty‐four hours a day, seven days a week, and see each other not only “on the job” but in dining facilities, in the gym, in the barracks, and in the base shops and clubs. Harassment rates tend to be higher in the ground combat services—the Marines and the army—and lowest in the air force, which is more technically oriented, has the highest percentage of women overall, the highest percentage of women officers, and the greatest percentage of positions open to military women.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (1996), a synthesis of the literature, reports the estimated cost of sexual harassment to the U.S. Army in 1988 to be $533 million (in 1993 dollars). These lost funds derive from reduced productivity; absenteeism; separation, transfer, and replacement of harassers and/or victims; and other miscellaneous costs. The estimate does not account for the expenses of litigation or medical and counseling services.

Because women are not likely to be banned from serving in the armed forces ever again, and because their numbers are increasing under the public's watchful eye, sexual harassment will have to be dealt with effectively by the military. Eliminating the abusive treatment of any soldier will reduce military costs and assist soldiers in maximizing their ability to fight and win wars.
[See also Gender: Female Identity and the Military; Gender and War.]

Bibliography

Barbara A. Gutek , Sex and the Workplace: The Impact of Sexual Behavior and Harassment on Women, Men, and Organizations, 1985.
Lisa D. Bastian,, Anita R. Lancaster,, and and Heidi E. Reyst , Department of Defense 1995 Sexual Harassment Survey, 1995.
Defense Equal Opportunity Council , Report of the Task Force on Discrimination and Sexual Harassment, Vols. I and II, 1995.
Margaret S. Stockdale, ed., Sexual Harassment in the Workplace, 1996.
Laura L. Miller , Not Just Weapons of the Weak: Gender Harassment as a Form of Protest for Army Men, Social Psychology Quarterly, vol. 60, no. 1 (March 1997), pp. 32–51.
Richard J. Harris and and Juanita M. Firestone , Subtle Sexism in the U.S. Military, in Subtle Sexism, ed. Nijole V. Benokraitis, 1997.
United States Department of the Army , The Secretary of the Army's Senior Review Panel Report on Sexual Harassment, Vols. I and II, 1997.

Laura L. Miller