Sexual and gender-based harassment is a manifestation of gender discrimination in society that involves a violation of several fundamental rights and must never be confused with a "conflict".
Sexual and gender-based harassment in the workplace is one of the manifestations of gender-based violence in society. This problem stems from a social system that has historically discriminated against women and placed them in a subordinate position relative to men.
Structural discrimination against women is considered to exist because, historically, men have held a position of privilege and dominance on an economic, social, and political level. Therefore, sexual harassment between individuals of the same sex and social groups cannot be considered comparable to sexual harassment perpetrated by men against women, because the latter aims to express and perpetuate this gender asymmetry of power. However, this does not imply that similar behaviour between individuals of the same sex and social groups must not be considered punishable and an infringement of people's rights.
Some protocols for prevention and action against sexual and gender-based harassment do not specify the sex of the active and passive subject (the person who harasses and the person harassed), and this neutrality makes the real reason behind sexual and gender-based harassment invisible: gender discrimination. Yet, the reality is that most people affected by sexual and gender-based harassment are women. According to the Ministry of Equality's Macro-survey on Violence against Women (2019), 40.4% of women living in Spain aged 16 or over have suffered sexual harassment in their lifetime, 3 out of 4 women report having been victims of sexual harassment more than once, 17.3% say that the aggressor was someone in their work environment and 98% of the aggressors were men.
It is therefore necessary to address the protocols for the prevention and action of sexual and gender-based harassment as a problem of structural discrimination against women, and to understand that, in this case, "neutrality" can work against women. It is also important to understand that this type of harassment is not only attributable to individuals’ behaviour, but that it occurs within an organisation and structure that fosters gender inequality. For this reason, a prevention strategy based on training and awareness-raising is necessary to dismantle such a system.
Sexual harassment, conflict, and mediation
Sexual and gender-based harassment in a work environment is a manifestation of gender-based violence at work that refers to unwanted verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature on the part of superiors or colleagues. On the one hand, sexual harassment includes any conduct of a sexual nature to obtain a sexual advantage or conducts regarding the sexual sphere of the person, while gender-based harassment refers to the harassment against a woman because of their specific gender, creating an intimidating, degrading, and humiliating environment that ends up putting her job at risk and conditioning her professional career.
Although this type of behaviour occurs at work, it is important to distinguish sexual and gender-based harassment from workplace harassment (such as “mobbing"), as they are not comparable and should not be dealt through the same procedures. In this sense, the approach to gender-based harassment is often confused with mobbing, which leads to the use of erroneous procedures that do not correspond to the nature of this phenomenon.
In fact, identifying sexual and gender-based harassment as a conflict is a common mistake. It cannot be addressed under the framework of a common conflict management procedure because it is not a conflict. The parties are not in equal positions of power - in addition to the fact that the aggressors are usually men, they can also be hierarchical superiors - and it is not possible to reconcile an event that can involve violations of fundamental rights and be, at the same time, a manifestation of sexist violence against women, for which no mediation is possible, basically because the law prohibits it.
Training as prevention
Faced with this scenario, it is necessary to have a prevention strategy based on training and awareness-raising. Therefore, it is essential to "know in depth how and why systemic violence is exercised against women, which are the contexts and instruments from which this violence is normalised and how to act in order to eradicate it" (Rubio, 2013: 64). All of this is key to generating institutional changes on this issue.
Among others, a question to be debated is whether training should be compulsory. Gender-based violence in the workplace entails a violation of some of the fundamental rights of the individual, including health and psychological integrity due to the impact of these behaviours on the victims. This, in turn, represents a psychosocial risk generated in the work environment. Therefore, in the same way that the Institute's staff are required to take courses on occupational risk’s prevention, they should be required to take courses on sexual and gender-based harassment and equality matters.
In short, to eradicate sexist behaviour, a structural change in the organisation is necessary, which must be promoted by the management and permeate all levels of the institution. For this reason, the ICM's Gender Equality Plan is committed to an organisational culture that promotes prevention in this area, through training and awareness-raising, and has zero tolerance towards sexual and gender-based harassment.