From time to time, people can feel uncomfortable because of another individual’s behavior towards them. You could feel this way when you are at work, at school, around your friend circle, or under our century’s technological developments when you are just a part of social media. But how can one acknowledge that what is happening to them is in fact harassment?. Let us know ‘What Does It Mean When Someone Is Harassing You?’.
What is Harassment?
Harassment is an unwanted action that is regarding a discriminatory characteristic and has the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of the opposite person and thereby creating a hostile environment. It is irrelevant whether the harassment is in writing, verbally, physically, by gestures, or in any other way.
According to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Bulletin, “Harassment is any unwelcome conduct that might reasonably be expected or be perceived to cause offense or humiliation to another person.” (Secretary-General’s Bulletin, 2003). In addition to the United Nations, the legal definition of harassment in the USA is “a course of conduct which annoys, threatens, intimidates, alarms, or puts a person in fear of their safety.” (airSlate Legal Forms).
Even though the harassment law in the United States of America varies by the state, in most of them the perpetrator’s intentions to the victim, the extremity of these intentions, and if the action were repeated are the common considerations that are used to confirm the allegations.
Here are some examples of the conduct, that is a sign of harassment:
- Hostilities concerning gender, race, religion, physical appearance, etc.
- Insults or name-calling may seem like harmless and off-color humor at first.
- Derogatory statements about one’s skin color, origin, disabilities, and speech impediments.
- Derogatory gestures and facial expressions are related to characteristics of discrimination.
- Physical violence in connection with discriminative features.
- Demeaning and uneasy conduct that might be verbal, physical, or sexual.
Types of Harassment
As it has been established what kind of actions can be considered harassment, it should be borne in mind that harassment covers a wide range of unpleasant deportment, since only one or two mostly come to be known and are taken action against. With this in mind, let’s explain some of the most common harassment types that occur:
Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment is probably the most widespread abuse that is encountered and includes every doing that violates an individual’s sexual freedom. For instance, these actions are contemplated as harassment:
- requests for sexual favors and unwanted sexual advances,
- impolite comments and jokes as well as insulting, humiliating, impure remarks about the victim’s looks, sexual orientation, and gender,
- Taking private photographs of someone without their knowledge,
- Sharing or posting sexual pictures,
- Inappropriate and unwarranted sexual touching and gestures such as rubbing, touching, hugging,
- Sexually invading one’s space,
- Sending unsuitable texts or images that have sexual nature.
Cyber/ Online Harassment
With the forming of the network society, is one of the most important social and technical transformations in the history of communication, everything about us, everything we say, everywhere we go, and anyone we know is connected to the internet, thus molesting people is also transferred into the online world.
Unfortunately that the increase in internet use shows parallelism with the augmentation of harassment crimes. Sending sexually explicit messages or making proposals that contain sexual implications through social media, to which everyone has access, is enough to be accounted as harassment.
Psychological Harassment
The concept of psychological harassment originally was added to the dictionary by Dr. Peter-Paul Heinemann in the 1970s in order to describe a situation where a single child was bullied by a group of kids, is a criminal act in the present time that is defined as humiliating, incommoding or excluding a targeted person or a crowd whether it be verbally or attitudinally.
For the reason that it does not cover physical cases, it tends to be let slide more often in comparison to the other types of abuse. However, psychological harassing causes severe and devastating damage to the victim’s mental and emotional well-being that affects their everyday life when working, socializing, learning, etc. which eventually might lead to suicide ideation and attempt. Another key thing to remember is everyone from a toddler to the elderly could be suffering from psychological violence, and it comes in numerous ways, including manipulation, insults hidden as jokes, gaslighting to achieve controlling, brainwashing, or belittling a person.
Workplace Harassment
It is most convenient to put the term workplace harassment last on the list, due to its involvement with not only sexual harassment but contrary to popular belief with all the rest harassment descriptions. Everything regarding the general identification of harassment could be counted as workplace harassing when it transpires in the work environment.
Harassing someone at work can take shape in two main ways
- Quid Pro Quo Harassment
Quid pro quo harassment is typically committed during formal employment decisions. In other words, it is deciding to fire, promote an employee or hire an applicant based on their religion, race, disability, appearance, acceptance or rejection of sexual offers, etc.
- Hostile Work Environment Harassment
A hostile work environment on the other hand can be a consequence of unwelcome and poor treatment that comes from supervisors, customers, co-workers, bosses, etc. Excuses for someone to harass someone else are too numerous to be counted and the form the harassment can take, places it can occur, by whom it may be executed, or on whom it has impacts, can vary. Therefore, it is crucial to be aware of the significance and meaning of the action, so in this way, you can protect yourself and the surrounding ones from the practice of harassing.
Conclusion
airSlate Legal Forms. (tarih yok). Harassment: USLegal. USLegal: https://definitions.uslegal.com/h/harassment/#:~:text=Harassment%20is%20governed%20by%20state,in%20fear%20of%20their%20safety. adresinden alındı. Secretary-General’s Bulletin. (2003, October 9). Special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. Secretary-General’s Bulletin. United Nations Secretariat.
