How Individuals Can Take Action

Sexual harassment is, at heart, about power imbalance and gendered cultural expectations. Changing legal structures, cultural norms, and workplace policies, practices, and expectations are key to preventing and ending it. However, change on that scale and to that degree takes time. So it is critical that individuals have tools to engage in making change around sexual harassment right here and right now.

This can take a variety of forms—in helping a target as a bystander, in finding the right words or actions in the moment to respond to a harasser, in working informally toward creating more respectful and civil work environments, and in learning about how to shift mindsets to recognize and disrupt biased thinking and unhelpful behaviors.

Promising Solution 1: Understanding Human Behavior and Shifting Mindsets

Understanding the way the brain works and how that leads to predictable human error can make sexual harassment trainings more effective, as well as give individuals tools to prevent or respond to sexual harassment. For instance, humans aren’t good at predicting how we will feel in the future or react to future events. It’s a cognitive bias called affective forecasting error. It can mean that we struggle to predict how we will actually respond to a high-stress situation, such as sexual harassment. Often, we may think we will respond in a certain—such as reporting the incident immediately to human resources, or talking back to an aggressor—but in reality, we do not.

This bias also means we may expect other victims to have a more assertive response, too, and may judge them more harshly if they react passively. This can be particularly salient for more ambiguous, “gray area” harassment like sexist comments or showing crude photos. Because of the murky nature of these instances, they can also be difficult to respond to, and tend to prompt an adaptive coping mechanism in which the victim acts like it doesn’t bother him or her, or laughs it off.

We struggle to predict how we will actually respond to a high-stress situation, such as harassment.

Imagine that the target tolerates the behavior for months until it becomes unbearable, and then reports to a supervisor. Many targets wait an average of 16 months before reporting an incident. As a result, they may experience more social consequences and increased victim-blaming, including questions like “why didn’t they speak up earlier?”

A big part of the solution is to teach people to reflect on their own thinking. Sexual harassment trainings should include a module about how the way we think and our own cognitive biases can impede our understandings of others’ experiences and alter the steps that we take on behalf of our own health and safety. In other words, we need to be aware of things like overperception bias and affective forecasting error if we’re going to be able to understand our own reactions, and the reactions of others. It’s critical to include examples about the sexual harassment gray zone, and the behaviors that comprise it—such as showing crude photos, telling sexist jokes, or making obscene gestures.

Another part of the solution is to take another person’s perspective, and discuss it with peers. Some research suggests that perspective-taking could be an effective way for individuals to better understand how uncomfortable and challenging it can be to respond to an incident of sexual or gender harassment. Instead of simply giving employees a list of forbidden behaviors, get employees to discuss what it might feel like to experience some of those behaviors, the impact they have on other people, and the roles they play in others’ lives. This also reinforces a crucial concept: harassment is not some abstract idea, but something that colleagues grapple with daily—something that will likely come up in an interactive discussion.

As Stanford Psychology Professors Jamil Zaki and Carol Dweck note, empathy is a choice and can be developed. In practical terms, peers and supervisors could not only learn to recognize their built-in human biases, but also, suspend judgment, listen, offer support, and respond appropriately to complaints.

Moral Licensing: Most of us like to think of ourselves as good, moral people. When our behavior doesn’t match up with this perception, we experience cognitive dissonance until we can justify or rationalize the behavior. One way that we do this is called moral licensing, when we use a virtuous act—like eating a salad for lunch—to offset our decision to eat an extra brownie for dessert.

In a workplace context, an individual may choose to license or excuse bad behavior (sexual harassment, bullying, or assault) by recalling previous good behavior (promoting a woman or someone from a minority group on their team). Given this tendency to consistently judge our actions in a broader context of behaviors, someone may see themselves as a champion of women’s or minority rights, even while harassing those same groups.

Research suggests we can also apply this same behavior to others, licensing their transgressions (like sexually harassing an employee) when we’ve seen them previously perform good deeds (such as mentoring a group of inner city youth). Part of the solution, as the EEOC recommends, is to both promote a broad culture of respect, as well as take a holistic view when evaluating performance, taking civility as well as productivity into account.

We need to be aware of overperception bias and affective forecasting error if we’re going to be able to understand our own reactions, and the reactions of others.

Promising Solution 2: Bystander Intervention

According to the EEOC and other researchers, training bystanders to recognize sexual harassment and learn skills to intervene could have the potential to change workplace cultures. When everyone is silent, offensive and harassing behavior can become normalized. So giving people tools and strategies to have regular conversations about defining appropriate behavior, to recognize and call out interruptions that tend to silence women and minority groups, to speak out or to take action to show which behaviors are out of bounds–either directly or indirectly, verbally or nonverbally, in the moment, or at a later time–can be a powerful way to change culture.

To date, most bystander intervention research and training centers on preventing sexual harassment and assault on college campuses and in the military. Some studies have found the training increased awareness and knowledge, improved attitudes and encouraged positive bystander behavior. It’s clear that these interventions have promise when done right, but that more research is needed to determine overall effectiveness.

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, researchers like those at the Prevention Innovations Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and others are seeking to translate the bystander approach to prevent sexual harassment at work. “Bystander intervention is not about approaching women as victims or potential victims, or men as perpetrators, or potential perpetrators, rather, it’s leveraging the people in the environment to set the tone for what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable behavior,” said Jane Stapleton, co-director of the Prevention Innovations Research Center.

Training bystanders to recognize sexual harassment and learn skills to intervene could have the potential to change workplace cultures.

Bystanders at work need to ask themselves key questions, Fran Sepler suggests: “Can I have an impact? Is it safe? What is the best strategy given the culture of the organization and my level of influence?” Bystanders can defuse harassing or offensive language or situations with humor, or verbal or nonverbal expressions of disapproval. They can interrupt a situation by changing the subject, or inserting themselves into the situation. They can also seek out a supervisor or influencer, make a report, or help a target make a report and, if a witness, back them up.

For a harassing boss or someone who holds power over your career or livelihood, where direct confrontation could be riskier, defusion, distraction, or interruption are still possible tools for bystanders in the moment. At a minimum, bystanders can always show support to targets. “Going to someone and saying, ‘I saw how they were treating you. I didn’t like it. Is there anything I can do to help?’ Or, ‘It’s not your fault, let’s go talk with human resources.’ That might be all you can do,” Sepler said. “That’s not nothing.”

“It’s often difficult for the target of harassment to point out that something makes them uncomfortable for fear of repercussions and for concerns about appearing overly sensitive or uptight,” explains UCSD associate professor Pamela Smith. “I’ve found that third parties are … more likely to recognize how a behavior might make someone feel uncomfortable. They also bear less of the burden if they were to say something.”

When talking to a survivor, using helpful language reduces additional trauma: Futures Without Violence, Healing to Action, the Chicago Workers Collaborative, and other organizations that help survivors of sexual harassment and sexual assault, incorporate an understanding of healing in spite of social stigma into the advice and guidance they give to bystanders, witnesses, family and friends of survivors, and policy makers.

The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, RAINN, recommends actions like using supportive statements like: “I believe you,” “It’s not your fault,” and “You’re not alone,” checking in periodically, offering to be present if someone makes a report, and avoiding judgement. Research on victim disclosure and response illustrates that this type of empathic response, sensitive to the trauma of targets of sexual harassment and assault, has positive implications for how victims move forward.

Bystanders can always show support to targets.

Long before an incident of harassment, in informal, unstressed moments, workplace culture experts suggest that workers have discussions about how to treat each other, how they can help each other or make their days better, and practice giving positive feedback. Normalizing talking about behavior and defining respectful behaviors everyone agrees on may make it easier for coworkers to see and give negative feedback if a worker crosses a line.

Promising Solution 3: Taking Individual Action

The fight, flight, or freeze response can kick in when someone is being sexually harassed or assaulted. When we feel like we’re under threat, our bodies’ natural defense mechanisms and our brain circuitry can lead us to being unable to think, act, learn, or respond quickly or clearly. As a result, many targets tend to wrongly blame themselves or feel shame for not doing more to prevent the harassment or assault or not deflecting it in the moment. Research shows that’s particularly true for women with more traditional gender role beliefs.

When you are the target of sexual harassment, experts say there are no magic words to say or scripts to follow. There are certainly anecdotes of targets who’ve responded with a clever or cutting remark to successfully defuse a harassing situation. But not everyone can be clever in the moment. And targets and victims should not be expected to be responsible for managing sexually offensive behavior. “You do not have to do or say anything. It’s not your fault,” Sepler said. “When you’re frozen, sometimes the only thing you can do is physically remove yourself. Just walk away. It’s a way to say, without a word being said, ‘This is not safe, and it’s unacceptable.’’

Considering any response will depend on several factors—the organizational culture, the safety of responding and the power dynamic between the harasser and target. If a target decides to confront a harasser, either verbally in the moment, or later, verbally or in writing, when tension may have eased, Sepler suggests being very specific: “Here’s what you’re doing. Here’s the effect it’s having. If it stops, we’re fine. If it doesn’t stop, it’s going to be a problem.”

Another strategy, experts said, is to start small—don’t wait until annoying or nuisance behavior spirals into chronic or repetitive sexually harassing behavior if at all possible. Give clear feedback to an offender or their supervisor. Seek support. Make a report. Longtime MIT Ombuds, Mary Rowe, initiated a response for targets of bullying, workplace aggression, or sexual harassment she called Drafting a Letter. Targets wrote private letters to offenders or their supervisors clearly and factually laying out the behavior, how it affected the target and their work, and a proposed remedy. The initiative, she said, was successful in stopping harassing behavior at MIT.