Sexual Harassment Retaliation, Backlash, and Victim-blaming
The aftermath worse than the harassment
For many who have been sexually harassed, the aftermath can be more stressful and/or damaging then
the original harassment itself. The combination of retaliation, backlash, and victim blaming can turn
even a mild transgression into a major political event within an institution. While there are usually
policies in place which are supposed to protect the identity of those involved, particularly in academic
institutions, most often confidentiality is not respected, or the harasser or colleagues of the harasser
work to punish the victim for resisting or speaking out.
To date, 50% of respondents to our survey , along with a poll in the SHSF, report that it was the
response of others in the harassment environment--such as coworkers, supervisors, human resources
personnel, school administration, school friends--that caused the most stress, or did the most damage.
Retaliation and backlash
Retaliation has occurred when a sexual harassment victim suffers a negative action as a result of the
harassment. This can involve such actions as being denied a job, being given poor work evaluations or
grades, or being denied professional or academic opportunities (such as a position on a project). A
victim may find their projects being sabotaged, or that they have become the targets of other actions that
undermine their ability to advance at work or school. A victim who speaks out about sexual harassment
may find themselves subject to more sexual harassment. They may be demoted, suspended,
reassigned, or have their hours cut. They may even be fired from their jobs altogether. Supervisors and
professors can use their power to see that a victim is never hired again for another job, or never again
accepted to another academic program. It is not uncommon for an accused harasser to begin stalking
or cyberstalking their victim after a complaint has been made. Threats and attempts at physically
harming a victim have been reported. Retaliation can even involve a gang stalking/harassing of the
victim which may be covert and subtle, or blatant and brutal.
Backlash could be described as a change in attitude towards the sexual harassment victim rather than
a direct action. For example, after a sexual harassment victim files a grievance, coworkers may become
hostile to the victim, spread rumors about them, or even shun them. A student who has filed a
complaint against a teacher or another student may find themselves isolated, with their friends no
longer willing to speak to them. After filing her grievance against Eveleth Mines, Lois Jenson was
shunned by her coworkers both at work and in the small community where they all lived. SHS has
received numerous reports of friends and colleagues shunning a sexual harassment complainant after
a grievance has been filed.
Backlash and retaliation can follow several scenarios. A harasser/s and/or colleagues of the harasser
may retaliate against the victim because of their refusal to submit to sexual harassment. For example, a
target may be denied a promotion, or given an unfavorable job assignment, in retaliation for refusing to
have sex with an harasser (retaliation), then the harasser and their colleagues may begin to spread
rumors about the victim, as further punishment for the rejection (backlash). Backlash or retaliation may
occur after the victim speaks out about the sexual harassment, or after formally reporting the behavior
or filing a grievance. Even if it is a third party who discovers the behavior and reports what is going on,
retaliation can occur; however, while the victim may have remained silent, in most cases they will be the
one to suffer the hostility, not person who did the reporting.
A particularly dysfunctional department or institution may use sexual harassment as a way of bringing
cohesion amongst it's members. Backlash and retaliation against a sexual harassment complainant
may be a convenient way of finding "a common enemy" to unite against.
Women are not necessarily sympathetic to female targets of sexual harassment. Internalized sexism,
along with jealousy over the sexual attention towards the victim, often encourage women to react with as
much hostility towards the complainant as male colleagues. They may show hostility out of fear of
becoming a target themselves, or simply as another way of competing with the victim who they may
have viewed as a professional rival. They may even use retaliation and backlash as a way of bonding
or building trust with their male coworkers. One woman reported to SHS that her female supervisor
refused to speak to her after she filed a grievance against a coworker who had been stalking her.
Employer Liability For Retaliation After A Formal Complaint of Sexual Harassment
Backlash is not illegal, however retaliation is. Indeed, retaliation for complaining about sexual
harassment, or filing a grievance, is as illegal as the harassment itself, but also as difficult to prove.
First, the victim must have reported the harassment to an employer or superior. Afterwards, it must be
clearly shown that retaliation occurred and this was because of the victims' complaint about the
behavior. In other words:
A complainant must show by a preponderance of evidence that
- The employer knew that the complainant reported the sexually harassing behavior.
- The employer (or superior) thereafter subjected the complaining party to an adverse decision (i.
e. suspension, demotion, firing, etc. ), or treatment that would discourage a victim from making a
sexual harassment complaint in the first place.
- There was a causal link between reporting the behavior and the adverse employment decision
or treatment.
You should document retaliation just as you would document sexual harassment. For more
information, see our What You Can Do page.
Blaming the victim
Victim blaming occurs when the harasser or other people in the environment blame the victim for the
sexual harassment, or the resulting controversies and conflicts after the behavior is reported or
discovered. People may believe the victim could stop the harassment if they really tried, or that they
must have done something to cause it--for example, by the way they dress or act. The victim may be
accused of liking to create drama, or cause trouble. They may be accused of being on their own "power
trip" or trying to get attention. If the victim's work or school performance has diminished because of the
stress, they may be accused of using harassment accusations as a cover for incompetence or low
intelligence. In cases where the harassment is proven, often sexual harassment victims are accused
of lying about the extent of the effects. As in the case of sexual assault and rape, the dress, lifestyle and
private life of the victim seem to become more important than the harasser's behavior, and the "victim"
may now have become the "accused." Their past professional and personal lives may come under
intensive, and intrusive, scrutiny.
If women in the environment have been hostile to a female harassment complainant, or have retaliated
against her, others may use this as a way of discrediting her, asserting this is proof she is over-reacting,
or trying to cause trouble. They may believe (falsely) that if "even the women" do not support her, then
the charges must be false.
Since "old school" attitudes about any kind of sex crime also influence how people view sexual
harassment, the victim may be viewed as being at fault simply for speaking up about being harassed.
For centuries, rape and sexual abuse victims have been expected to stay quiet about their experiences,
and people who have been sexually harassed can face the same social pressures. It remains a
common belief that one should "keep their mouths shut" about abuse or suffer the consequences.
Because of this, many sexual harassment victims may find themselves blamed for any retaliation
against them simply because they spoke out about what has been done to them.
The most common type of victim blaming is so pervasive, it has it's own slang name: "nuts and sluts."
This term refers to the common practice of discrediting the complainant by labeling them as either
psychologically disturbed and lying about the harassment, or they are overly-sexual --promiscuous,
dress sexually, etc.--and deserve the harassment. (This is also a common method for discrediting rape
victims, and is a favored courtroom method of lawyers to discredit victims or minimize the effects of the
harassment--see Jenson vs. Eveleth Mines and North Country for a good case example of the "nuts and
sluts" defense.)
Why does it happen? There are various reasons for blaming a sexual harassment victim, besides the
obvious reasons an accused harasser or lawyer would want to discredit a complainant:
- Most people think they would never treat another with so little respect, and they usually find it
difficult to believe that respected colleagues would abuse their position in this way.
- "Higher-ups" may take the word of a senior person rather than that of a subordinate as they are
likely to have known the senior longer, and a manager or teacher usually has more credibility in a
dispute than a subordinate or student.
- Gender bonding: if the superiors concerned are all men, they may not understand the
seriousness of the problem, or may "stick together" out of gender loyalty. At the same time,
women may do the same kind of bonding to support a female colleague who has been accused
of harassment.
- If the person deciding whether to take action or not has been guilty of harassment, they are likely
to go along with a cover-up, or at least give their colleague the benefit of the doubt.
- The harasser may be a high-level or highly-skilled person who is difficult to replace, while the
victim is likely to be lower in the hierarchy, or a student, and thus viewed as being more
expendable.
- Blaming the victim can be a way of protecting the image of the institution where the harassment
occurred. Admitting responsibility can be viewed as "poor public relations."
- The victim may be very embarrassed by the events, or afraid of ridicule or retaliation. They may
wait until matters become unbearable before they complain. Because of this, they may then be
blamed for having played along or be viewed as having condoned the behavior initially.
- Many harassment victims are also inclined to excessive guilt and self-blaming, and may even
believe that they unknowingly did or said something to invite the harassment. They may be
ashamed or afraid, and don't discuss the problem. They may have extreme feelings of anger, or
even violent feelings, towards the harasser. The victim may be ashamed of having these
feelings, and may mistake them as being proof that they deserve to be blamed for what has
happened.
The "Just World" mythology: Another reason for victim blame could be explained with the "just world
hypothesis, " which is the most well known theory behind victim blaming. Individuals that have a strong
belief in a just world are resistant to accept that a victim did not bring about their own misfortune. As
Andre and Velasquez (1990) write:
"According to the hypothesis, people have a strong desire or need to believe that the world is an
orderly, predictable, and just place, where people get what they deserve. Such a belief plays an
important function in our lives since in order to plan our lives or achieve our goals we need to
assume that our actions will have predictable consequences. Moreover, when we encounter
evidence suggesting that the world is not just, we quickly act to restore justice by helping the
victim or we persuade ourselves that no injustice has occurred. We either lend assistance or we
decide that the rape victim must have asked for it, the homeless person is simply lazy, the fallen
star must be an adulterer. These attitudes are continually reinforced in the ubiquitous fairy tales,
fables, comic books, cop shows and other morality tales of our culture, in which good is always
rewarded and evil punished."
In his address to the 1995 International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies conference, Jonathan Shay
echoes this mythology:
"Plato (Apology, 41d) has Socrates say, in his famous defense before the court that condemned
him to death, 'nothing can harm a good man either in life or after death,' and again in the
Republic we hear extensively argued that the good person cannot be harmed by the world."
These mythologies lead people to believe that bad things happen only to bad people. In this sense, the
sexual harassment victim must have provoked their harassment by their own behavior towards the
harasser/s, or their own bad character. He or she has provoked the retaliation because of their false
accusations of sexual harassment, or their lying about the extent of the damage done. If people can
believe this is true, then blaming a sexual harassment victim may give them a feeling of safety in their
own lives, and probably, a feeling of superiority--"I don't act the way s/he did, so I will not ever have these
kinds of events happen to me."
The "good people do not do evil" myth: In his address, Shay goes on to say:
"By the time we get to the Roman Stoics, however, this possibility of unshakable goodness, now
called virtue, has been democratized so that even a slave could possess it, having acquired it by
good upbringing in childhood. In this form Christianity took up the idea and clothed it with the
doctrine of God's grace. By the late 18th Century it had been set in stone by Immanuel Kant, who
said that which is truly deserving of ethical praise, blame, or true moral worth cannot be
augmented or diminished by fortune. In the 20th Century, psychoanalysis offered us as a
"scientific" result what the culture had already embraced, that no bad events could shake good
character, once formed in childhood. When a previously good person engages in horrible acts,
we must have been deceived; there had been a hidden flaw...."
This sets ups another mythology, that good people do not do bad things. A person who is friends with
the harasser, or views them to be a trusted colleague or employee, may have great difficulty accepting
that they could do so much harm to another person, particularly if the victim is a subordinate or student.
They may know this person to be a "good person" and a good person would not sexually abuse anyone.
They may be worried about how it reflects on themselves to be connected with someone who would do
"evil." Blaming the victim can protect the institution and it's members, and friends and colleagues of the
harasser, from the stigma of being connected with someone who has done "evil."
The "good people do not do evil" myth can also protect the belief that people in power do not abuse this
power, and that they have risen to their position, not only because of their competence, but because they
have an innate strength of character--because they are "good." Like beliefs described in the "just world
hypothesis," this myth inspires trust in authority figures and gives people a feeling of safety in their
world. These factors can make it difficult for people to believe that someone in a position of power
would abuse anyone sexually, or in any way, for that matter. It can also make it difficult to believe that
someone in a position of authority would retaliate against a sexual harassment complainant. It is much
easier, and more comforting, to convince oneself that the sexual harassment victim isn't a victim at all.
(Sources: 7, 9, 45, 47, 50, 51, 71, our survey, and reports from our visitors and SHS members )
“Facing up to the
crime and
having to deal
with it in public
is probably
worse than
suffering in
silence. I found
it to be a lot
worse than the
harassment
itself.”
-harassment
victim report to
social worker
Helen Watson
Sexual Harassment Support
|
Support and information for anyone who has experienced sexual harassment.