Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is unwelcome advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. It is a tender subject all over the wolrd. Sexual harassment is a serious problem in Lihuania too and the dimension of the problem is continuing to expand. According to the research accomplished in 2006 by Vilnius university, about 21 percent of women at least one time have felt sexual harassmen. But on the other hand, according to the Equal Rights Inspector Institution only 3 complaints were received in 2005 and only one in 2006. These facts show that women in our society are afraid to say they are sexually harassed. They are afraid to speak about it loudly.

The first reason why women are afraid is that a lot of women think they are guilty by themselves and that sexual harassment is not a men fault, but a women. There exists a wrong attitude between Lithuanian women that this is a women guilty that men harass them sexually and carp to them. Due to this women in Lithuania are used to swallow they feel sexual harassment.

Moreover, our society plays an important role in this situation. The sexual harassment topic is taken in our society not unambiguously. Women who decide to protect themselves are condemnatory by others or even people start calling them like a “woman of easy virtue”. Low levels of our society consciousness determine a little number of women who dare to fight with sexual harassment. The research accomplished this year by Equal Rights Inspector Institution proved the statement that our society think or even keep that women are guilty that men are harassing them sexual.

The third reason why women are afraid to say they feel sexual harassment is a fear of losing one's job. Often the victims are younger women. According to the research, mostly women who are between 20-30 years old feel sexual harassment. They may have been in the job only for a short while and may not have the confidence to make a complaint while others are too embarrassed to report the incident or worry about that no one will believe them. The researches notice that women usually who are young, not married or divorced, working between men often feel sexual harassment. In addition, the situation often is complicated as the faultfinder is their direct manager.

In conclusion sexual harassment is unwanted and unwelcome sexual behavior that is repeated often enough. But what does „unwelcome“ mean? It really depends on a person. What one person calls unwelcome can be perfectly OK to someone else. But there is the important thing : if a woman says she is being sexually harassed, and the man says he is only joking, it is the woman‘s words against man‘s. It is an important thing as in our society there still exists the phenom that men are righter than women especially when it is concerned with sexual harassment.