COLUMBIA, Mo. - Numerous researchers have studied sexual harassment as dysfunctional behaviors with negative outcomes in the workplace. In addition, most people are aware that sexual harassment is problematic for workers. So why are these behaviors still a problem in today's work force? According to a researcher at the University of Missouri-Columbia, the answer lies in employees' interpretation of sexual harassment and the reasons behind those behaviors.

Debbie Dougherty, assistant professor of communication, conducted focus groups with employees at a large health care organization and found significant differences in viewpoints toward sexual harassment. For the male participants, sexual behaviors, such as hugging, served as "functional" behaviors, which helped them cope with stress, create and demonstrate camaraderie in the office, and show care and affection. For the women participants, however, those same sexual behaviors tended to be either nonfunctional or dysfunctional. For example, women did not associate those behaviors with stress reduction, camaraderie or therapeutic touch, and viewed group camaraderie as a means of preventing sexualized behavior - the same behavior the men used to create camaraderie.

Even though 97 percent of organizations now report having sexual harassment policies, sexual harassment charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have increased by 127 percent since 1991. Dougherty says these statistics prove that there is a clear gap between the intent of sexual harassment policies and the enactment of those policies. Her study uses feminist standpoint theories in an attempt to examine and understand the problem's continuing prevalence in organizations. She says that since sexual harassment tends to be defined differently by men and women, these policies also will most likely be interpreted differently.

"The men would frequently describe a behavior and then claim that the behavior was not sexual harassment," Dougherty said. "Women, on the other hand, were much more likely to label behaviors as sexual harassment."

Dougherty says that merely focusing on sexual behaviors is unlikely to manage or control sexual harassment problems in the workplace. She says that many employees might be confused about the term since most sexual harassment training and education occurs only on the managerial level. She recommends that all employees be trained in this area - especially since most harassment defendants are peers rather than managers - and that managers must understand how sexual harassment is related to other issues in the organization.

Dougherty's study titled, "Sexual Harassment as [Dys]Functional Process: A Feminist Standpoint Analysis" was published in the Journal of Applied Communication Research.

---University of Missouri-Columbia

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