What is Harassment?
Harassment is behavior which has the effect of humiliating, intimidating, or coercing someone through personal attack. It is behavior that will make someone uncomfortable or embarrassed, and cause emotional distress. It frequently occurs when one person wants to exert power or control over another person.
Harassment may be intentional with a person targeted personally, or it may be unintentional. What matters is how the person receiving the behavior perceives it to be.
While harassment because of sex gets the most attention, harassment because of other protected characteristics such as race, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, or physical and mental disability is also prohibited under state and federal laws. Harassment because of marital status or appearance may also be illegal, depending on jurisdiction; it is always disrespectful and inappropriate workplace behavior.
The Laws that Prohibit Harassment
Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in the workplace because of race, color, sex, religion, and national origin. Other federal laws prohibit discrimination because of age or disability. Harassment is a form of discrimination covered under these laws.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued guidelines on sexual harassment in behavior and which set forth the standards followed by enforcement agencies and the courts in handling charges of sexual harassment. The definition's framework can also be applied to harassment for other reasons.
The Iowa Civil Rights Act of 1965, Iowa Code Chapter 216, also prohibits employment discrimination because of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, creed, national origin, age, color, or disability. Harassment is considered to be a form of prohibited discrimination. The state goes beyond Title VII by also prohibiting discrimination in the areas of housing, public accommodations, credit, and education.
In addition, many cities have human rights / civil rights ordinances that prohibit discrimination in the workplace.
Friday, November 12, 2010
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2 comments:
Nowadays man and woman take same part to complete any project in the workplace. But still women are the victims of bullying in the workplace. Thank you for your information_______
Unfortunately, the workplace is still a place where bullying and harassment exist. Even if someone does not have a significant amount of substantial evidence to prove the existence of the bullying, we encourage you to file a discrimination complaint with us or go to our website to report the possible discrimination. If we discover that multiple people have complaints against an employer, we can use that information to prove that there is a history of bullying and harassment. Thank you for your comment.
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