Times Up: A Survivor-Centric Approach To Harassment Training
Tags: Workplace Culture, Inclusion, Gender Roles, Gender Equality, Sexual Harassment

Trigger warning: Sexual harassment/assault, gender-based violence

As you get ready for work, you check your calendar to prepare for the day.

9:00AM Internal strategy meeting

10:00AM All-staff team meeting

1:30PM Mandatory sexual harassment training

3:00PM Client meeting

The day is booked, and you wonder how you’ll squeeze it all in and give each meeting the required attention. You want to prep for your client presentation and question whether the sexual harassment training is truly necessary.

Sexual harassment training in the workplace has been commonplace and mandatory for decades now. By 1997, 75% of American companies had developed programs to inform employees about lawful workplace behavior and how to file complaints about harassment at work. The conceptual underpinnings of these training programs are traditionally rooted in legal boundaries and requirements, ultimately with a goal of protecting the organizations themselves from legal recourse. It seems that protecting employees from sexual harassment and violence was a secondary concern — and even less so, creating an inclusive work culture.

The #MeToo movement has made it extremely evident that the problem of workplace harassment is still widely prevalent. In 2018, 40% of women and 16% of men claimed that they had experienced sexual harassment at work — a statistic that has barely budged since the 1980s. Alexandra Kalev, Associate Professor of Sociology at Tel Aviv University, and Frank Dobbin, Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, recently conducted a study to understand why harassment is still so present despite mandatory prevention trainings. They found that most trainings focus on forbidding certain behaviors, rather than promoting positive ones. This focus does not seem to reduce harassment as it discourages people, especially men, from seeing themselves as part of a solution as they feel attacked and therefore withdraw from the conversation.

Personally, I have felt uncomfortable during the sexual harassment modules I have attended in the workplace and at educational institutions. The sessions have felt devoid of humanity, with an over-emphasis on legal definitions and ramifications of sexual harassment. They have also often not acknowledged the impact of societal power hierarchies within the workplace and thereby, make practical implementation of potential solutions challenging. In addition, there is often a lack of nuance to the discussion and insufficient attention to survivors.

Companies should invest in the most effective sexual harassment modules, first and foremost, to ensure individuals don’t experience violence and the consequent negative impact on their health, wellbeing, and career potential. While no other reason is needed, sexual harassment also reduces employee productivity and increases worker turnover, causing financial costs for a company.

So, what can we do to improve sexual harassment training to reduce workplace harassment?

Drawing on both research and my personal experience as a facilitator of a course (titled Yes Means Yes) on consent and healthy relationships, I have outlined a few ideas for improving this training structure. Importantly, I argue that sexual harassment trainings should be a tool to collectively create safer and more inclusive work environments. There should be an emphasis on creating a positive culture of respect and consent, rather that a focus on legal boundaries with a list of “do-nots.”

Ensure training sessions are survivor-centric.

A survivor and/or victim-centered approach actively prioritizes the needs and wants of the person who has experienced harm, aiming to give power and control back to the victim/survivor. Centering survivors creates space for them to make decisions around processes related to their experience and to heal from their trauma.

In terms of sexual harassment trainings, a survivor-centric approach would teach participants how to intervene and respond if someone shares their experience of harassment in ways that center the agency of the victim/survivor.

Some examples of this approach in a sexual harassment training include:

Provide trigger warnings and explicitly allow participants the space to leave if they need to take care of themselves.

and explicitly allow participants the space to leave if they need to take care of themselves. Reiterate that harassment is never the fault of the survivor/victim when discussing prevention tactics and consent.

of the survivor/victim when discussing prevention tactics and consent. Avoid stating that a bystander should always report incidents of harassment , especially if that is against the survivor/victim’s wishes. Doing so could strip survivors/victims of agency and inadvertently enact retaliation from the perpetrator.

, especially if that is against the survivor/victim’s wishes. Doing so could strip survivors/victims of agency and inadvertently enact retaliation from the perpetrator. Expand from an over-emphasis on legal definitions of sexual harassment and consent, which can perpetuate narrow conceptions of what “counts” as harassment/assault. Instead, encourage teaching consent in all interactions, not just physical/sexual ones, and affirmative consent — the notion that consent is not simply about getting permission, but instead, about enthusiastic and mutual desire.

2. Interrogate macro power structures that may impact the company’s environment.

Macro-level social and political structures are deeply embedded in our professional and personal lives. And thus, it is crucial that individuals understand how harassment in the workplace can be facilitated by societal inequities and power hierarchies.

For example, cultural gendered power dynamics can impact what behavior is acceptable and how safe employees may feel in an office. A hyper-masculine work environment can lead to an over-valuing of competitiveness and a de-valuing of emotional expression. Employees may fear calling out behaviors that do not fit these norms, such as a sexist joke, in a desire to “fit it.” As a whole, the normalization of these behaviors sends the message that certain attitudes and actions are acceptable. This reinforces sexism, which further allows degrading and violent acts such as sexual harassment. (See below an illustration of how systems and beliefs contribute to a culture of sexual and gendered violence).

During a sexual harassment training, I’d encourage deconstructing how identities such as race, gender, sexuality, and class are created by systematic oppression and influence a company’s work culture. As a facilitator of Yes Means Yes, we taught a 3-hour session entirely dedicated to the role of identity in understanding power dynamics within sexual/romantic encounters. This allowed us to develop specific solutions to combat harmful environments. Some of the topics and questions we unpacked are highlighted below:

How do your identities such as race, gender, class, ability, and sexuality play into general and sexual interactions with people? (e.g. a male manager may observe that ideas he shares in a meeting are always respected and listened to)

How do you notice/ relate to your identities differently in this workplace/ room, versus other spaces? (e.g. A person of color may feel hyper-aware of race in a predominately-white workplace, but less so around their family).

How do your identities intersect and influence interactions with others and how safe you feel at home, walking down the street, at work? How do your identities influence the privileges you hold?

Who is masculinity performed for and why? How could this create a culture that normalizes sexual harassment?

How might someone’s identity deter them from reporting sexual harassment? (e.g. age, position in company, previous experience with law enforcement, etc.)

How do you support your colleagues and how would you like people to support you?

3. Provide Bystander-Intervention training sessions.

Compared to traditional sexual harassment modules, bystander-intervention trainings are rooted in the assumption that it is everyone’s responsibility to address violence and harrassment in whatever form it is manifested in. These trainings can empower everyone at an organization to “do something” if they see signs of inappropriate behavior.

Bystander-intervention modules equip participants with the tools to not only recognize signs of harassment, but also to practice intervention tactics. Trained bystanders learn how to interrupt a sexual joke, catcallers, or separate an incapacitated pair through the following tools:

Distract — take an indirect approach to de-escalate the situation

Direct — assess your safety and explicitly call out the harassment

Delegate — ask others around you for help

Delay — after the incident, check-in with the person who was harassed

Importantly, studies show that trainees are more likely to report having actually taken action against inappropriate behavior in real-life than those who did not take the training.

Overall, shifting the focus of sexual harassment prevention trainings to support survivors and empower bystanders can contribute to a more inclusive culture for everyone, improve business outcomes, and most importantly, effectively reduce sexual violence and harassment. By framing workplace safety as a collective effort, not as a problem for one group of people to fix, employees are empowered to take action, rather than assume they are not part of the problem. This begins with building modules from a desire to create an inclusive environment through building a culture of care, respect, and consent.

Written by: Mariam Nael

Mariam Nael is a Pakistani-Singaporean-American woman who works at a non-profit in the impact investing field, collaborating with parties across the public, private, and social sectors. She is passionate about social justice, with a particular focus on women’s reproductive and sexual health and the impact of global wealth disparities. Mariam is an expert baker, beginner squash player, and is prone to laugh attacks.

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