Victims Of Sexual Harassment Might Not Want To File A Report

Being sexually harassed at work is never a pleasant experience. These situations often come with a lot of uncertainty. People don’t always realize that the mental and emotional turmoil can often be greater than the physical impacts. This is one of the reasons why some people never speak up.

Oftentimes, it takes victims of sexual harassment time to work through their own feelings so they are able to speak up about what happened. This is difficult for some people to understand because they haven’t been through it themselves. In many cases, the victim simply doesn’t want to have to relive the incident through having to discuss it over and over again.

A victim of sexual harassment might feel like they are inferior to their attacker. The attackers usually try to make power plays to ensure that their victim doesn’t feel like they have any options for addressing the harassment.

Sometimes, victims of sexual harassment will try to avoid the harasser and forget about the incident. Unfortunately, this might mean that they are at risk of it happening again. This sets them up for repeated emotional and mental turmoil.

Even though it is difficult, victims of sexual harassment should speak up as soon as possible. Most employers have established a set of rules about who you need to discuss these matters with. While there might be one employee who is charged with handling all reports of sexual harassment, workers should be able to make their report with any supervisor, manager or executive with whom they feel comfortable and who can take action on the report. In some cases, filing a formal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is also necessary.