Sexual harassment: relation to other forms of discrimination and to health among women and men

During the last years, harassment experiences have more often than earlier been included in the framework of work stress, thereby being seen more as a result of how the work organisation function rather than being a result of poor characteristics among individuals. The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between sexual harassment, gender discrimination, bullying, conflicts and informal decision structures. The study took place at a large university in the northern part of Sweden, and data was collected by a questionnaire. Lack of equality and conflicts were significantly related to sexual harassment among women, but none of the studied factors to sexual harassment among men. Common among both women and men were that gender discrimination, bullying, conflicts, being negatively affected by informal decision structures, that women are given preferential treatment and lack of information were related to poor health. To summarise, the results in the present study support earlier studies in their conclusions that work organisation is closely related to the occurrence of harassment. This is especially important to point out when planning for interventions against for example sexual harassment, which very often focuses on the harassed individual, rather than the organisation.