Sexual Harmful in the Workplace

Abstract

The research aims to identify and define the dimensions of sexual harassment that women are exposed to in the workplace and strategies to cope with harassment.  In the research, in-depth interview" was used as qualitative research methods and semi-structured interview form was used as the data collection tool. The study was conducted with 498 women exposed to sexual abuse. The data were analyzed by NVIVO 10 qualitative analysis program. Considering the contents of sexual harassment, although there is a range of harassment forms, in a hierarchy of severity, these can be named as harassment through stalking, physical, verbal, and visual harassment. Women have difficulties in recognizing and identifying harassment in the workplace. In particular, it appears that they have entered into the process of concealing and neglecting with different definitions, which they have used to abuse the words "harassment" and "harasser". Guilt, weakness, humiliation, fear, anger, helplessness, not knowing what to do, denial are the emotions that arise after harassment. After harassment, women who are harassed remain silent due to fear of losing their jobs and receiving negative reactions. Women who are exposed to harassment are trying to protect themselves from harassment by the "self-restraint and avoidance" approach.