While sexual harassment occurs in virtually all California industries, your chances of falling victim to it increase if certain variables hold true in your place of employment. Everything from where you work to with whom you work has the potential to affect how likely sexual harassment is to occur in your work environment and how likely you and others who work there are to report it.
According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the following three environmental factors raise the chances of sexual harassment happening at your place of business.
A young staff
Sexual harassment is often common in work settings where many young people work together at the same time. According to the EEOC, this may be due at least in part to the fact that younger workers have less knowledge about what is and is not acceptable in a professional environment. Young workers may also be less likely to make formal reports about sexual harassment, which may make them frequent targets of this type of behavior.
Organizational hierarchies
If your work environment has low-ranking employees working closely with higher-ranking authorities, this too increases the chances of sexual harassment. In some cases, higher-ranking employees may exploit lower-ranking ones. This is especially common if there are language barriers or related factors at play.
Physically isolated work environments
Sexual harassment also tends to happen more in isolated work settings, where there are fewer witnesses around to witness or report the behavior.
When you experience sexual harassment on the job, it may do more than make you uncomfortable. It may also lead to emotional and physical symptoms that have a serious impact on your overall well-being.