We know that sexual harassment at work is an issue. And we also know that while sexual harassment can include unwanted physical overtures from a colleague, it also covers a whole plethora of other things - from indecent or suggestive remarks to jokes with a sexual subtext. And now a new TUC reports - ‘Sexual harassment in the workplace in 2016’ has revealed that over half of all women will experience this sort of sexual harassment at work. That's every second woman at work in the UK today.
It's important to note that those figures increase to two-thirds of women aged 18-24, and almost 80% of women harassed don’t report sexual harassement to their employer. Why? Because they feel embarrassed, they don’t feel safe enough to report it or they feel like it's not something they should 'make a big deal' out of.
But it IS a big deal, and it's happening all the time - as these anonymous testimonies from the report demonstrate:
'Went to HR about sexist and flirty CEO. Told to put up with it as I’m ‘young and pretty and they’re men, what do you expect?’
'On my last day at work, a colleague told me that his biggest regret was that he didn't get the chance to rape me in the store room before I left. For months I had been scared to go into that room on my own because he always said things like, ‘I'm coming to get you’ and ‘don't go in there alone, I'll jump on you.'
'At the job I recently left, a male manager said to me (in front of a female manager) that I would do well in the organization because I have big boobs.'
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.