Jennifer Ranger is a 48-year-old employment lawyer who has practiced law for nearly two decades and usually defends management in sexual harassment cases.
Over the years, she had grown skeptical of women who endured mistreatment or didn’t report harassment incidents immediately. That is, until she found herself on the other side of the issue seven years ago.
Ranger had been employed for about a year at a small, privately held company where she developed personnel policies and a human resources structure. At the company’s annual awards dinner, she received a gold-plated, working vibrator mounted on a stand as a mock trophy for “my work as the ‘sex police,'” Ranger said in an interview.
“I felt like a deer caught in headlights,” she recalled. “I was struggling for a couple of seconds to respond. I wondered, ‘Should I stomp out of here? If I don’t handle this with some composure, I’ll lose all credibility.'”
She never mentioned the incident back at the office, in part because she thought she might get blacklisted in Chicago’s tight-knit legal community.
“Here’s a perfect example of someone who didn’t have to put up with it,” said Ranger, who finds she has greater empathy for the women whose stories she once doubted. “I was shocked into silence. Imagine how often that happens.”
In the four decades since the women’s liberation movement raised awareness about female equality and inspired women to seek out careers alongside men, sexual harassment has become a common phrase.
Thanks to the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings in 1991 and other high-profile cases, more people than ever know what it is and know it’s illegal, and many employers have instituted training programs and policies to address it.
Yet, in spite of this progress, victims like Ranger don’t speak out or take legal action any more often than a decade ago, and their sense of powerlessness echoes that of women who joined the work force in the ’60s and ’70s.
“Still today, the majority of victims don’t report sexual harassment,” said Ellen Bravo, director of 9to5, National Association of Working Women. “Of those who do, most of them go through company channels rather than a government agency. The majority of those who do go to a government agency, don’t win. And of the small minority who do go to court, most don’t get a dime.”
Back in 1991, 9to5 received 2,000 calls during the Thomas hearings from women who said they had no idea the behavior they had endured on the job was illegal, Bravo said. In 1999, when the Dear Abby advice column printed a letter from a teenager about sexual harassment in an after-school job, 9to5 received another 1,000 calls, she said.
“Unlike in ’91, in ’99 people knew it was illegal, but they didn’t know what it meant or how it applied to them,” Bravo said. “The vast majority had spoken up and gone to their managers, but they couldn’t get it to stop. .. It was clear to us that this remains a pervasive and serious problem.”
Trading horror stories
Geraldine Conrad, a 57-year-old public affairs/communications consultant in Chicago, joined the work force in the early ’70s armed with a master’s degree in American civilization and one in public affairs. However, as a legislative assistant in the U.S. Congress her advanced education didn’t matter when it came to the way many men related to her. “I don’t hear anyone telling stories about sexual harassment in the locker room of the health club today, but when women my age were starting out, we were always trading horror stories,” Conrad said. “I remember a co-worker called me once long-distance asking me what to do because our mutual boss was pounding on her hotel room door.”
Conrad’s own tales included incidents that took place when she was associate director of a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C. During a convention in Milwaukee in the summer of 1976, she said her boss tried to get her to stay with him in a hotel room. In another incident he ripped the seam of her blouse when he pulled her down on his lap. She never made an issue of his constant harassment but eventually quit the job because of it.
“Any woman my age can talk about these stories,” said Conrad, who believed Hill’s version of events during the Thomas hearings. “There was no one to complain to. It wasn’t against the law. .. It was a very isolating time.”
Less than 10 percent tell
Although women today may have more support and legal recourse for filing sexual harassment complaints than 30 years ago, they don’t speak up as often as one might expect because of a fear of losing their job and other negative consequences, according to Kimberly Schneider, an assistant professor of psychology at Illinois State University. “One thing we’ve learned is that retaliation happens a lot, and women are not reporting or confronting harassers partly due to their concerns or fears of retaliation,” she said. Research indicates that less than 10 percent of women in an organization who say they’ve experienced harassment say they reported it or talked to a supervisor, according to Schneider. And a study into the link between organizational climate and reporting of sexual harassment she conducted in 1997 confirmed what Conrad and Ranger already knew.
“How seriously a person feels they would be taken is a good predictor of whether or not an incident will be reported,” Schneider said.
– – –
UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR
Not too long on history
Although most histories of sexual harassment begin in 1964 with the passage by the U.S. Congress of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, historical researchers have found earlier instances. In the 1830s, when women began working in the textile mills of New England, there were some reported incidents of sexual harassment. Also, in 1835, printers in Boston began a campaign of intimidation to force women out of their jobs. Of course, there was no term to describe this type of action; the term “sexual harassment” was first used by feminists in the 1960s.
1964 Congress passes Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination at work on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin and sex. Congress also creates the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, (EEOC) which enforces Title VII and other laws.
1976 A lower court in Washington, D.C., recognizes quid pro quo sexual harassment as discrimination in Williams vs. Saxbe. Diane Williams claims she was sexually harassed in the first case in the United States alleging sexual harassment as a violation of Title VII. The court finds that her male boss fired her after she refused to grant him sexual favors.
1980 Illinois becomes the first state to ban sexual harassment of state employees. The law is signed as an executive order by then Gov. James R. Thompson.
1990 The Council of Ministers of the European Community issues a definition of sexual harassment to member states.
1991 Anita Hill submits a confidential affidavit to the Senate Judiciary Committee, charging that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her from 1981 to 1983. Senate hearings are held and the charge and hearings have long-lasting effects on the nation’s understanding of sexual harassment.
1992 The EEOC reports a 62 percent increase in the number of harassment complaints received between 1991 and 1992.
1992 Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) is accused of sexual harassment by former staffers. He resigns from office three years later.
1993 The Defense Department releases its final report on sexual harassment at the 1991 convention of the Navy’s Tailhook Association implicating 117 officers in the sexual abuse of 83 women and seven men.
1998 Mitsubishi Motors settles the claim brought against it by the EEOC and agrees to pay $34 million to 30 women at its Normal plant. Women employees had alleged sexual harassment at the plant since 1990.
Sources: Constance Jones, “Sexual Harassment,” (Facts on File,1996). Sharon Szymansky and Cydney Pullman, “Sexual Harassment at Work: A Training Workbook for Working People,” (The Labor Institute, 1994).
