Sexual harassment in the workplace is less an ordinary act of sexual desire and more of an expression of dominance. The motivation to sexually intimidate, assault, or harass someone stems from the perpetrator’s need for power and control. Workplace harassment typically arises within asymmetrical power dynamics, where the harasser occupies a more powerful position in relation to the victim. While toxic workplaces with unequal power dynamics are everywhere, low-wage workers are often placed in particularly vulnerable positions.
The EEOC has found that about a quarter of sexual harassment complaints came from the service sector, which is dominated by low-wage, female workers. Many low-wage jobs are disproportionally held by women of color or immigrants. These women also often face intersectional disadvantages —burdens posed by race, national origin, gender identity, and other characteristics beyond gender alone — that may trigger biased treatment. Despite these findings, women’s movements like the #MeToo movement have failed to include the experiences of low wage workers, women of color, undocumented immigrants, and other segments of minority communities. Worse yet, many of these workers are not legally protected from sexual harassment. [1]
Legal barriers for low-wage workers in remedying workplace sexual harassment
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace sexual harassment, only applies employers who employ 15 or more individuals- leaving many nannies, house keepers, home health care aides, and other domestic workers, who are already at increased risk because of their physical isolation, without protection. Somewhere between 12 million to 20 million workers are not covered by the federal prohibition on harassment and discrimination simply because they work at a small business. Additionally, because federal anti-discrimination laws only protect workers who are legally recognized as “employees,” workers who are classified as independent contractors are not considered employees and are not protected by the law. Workers who are classified as independent contractors often include many health care workers and domestic workers. These factors bar women from equally achieving protection in the workplace and severely frustrates the purposes of Title VII. Women – particularly women of color – are more likely to work these lower-wage jobs, where power imbalances are more pronounced and where fear of leasing their jobs deters victims from coming forward. Women of color often must confront the combined impact of racial, ethnic, and gender prejudice that can result in degrading stereotypes about their sexual customs or availability and increase their risk of being harassed.
Specific disadvantages facing low-wage workers
The community in which a woman lives and the culture in which she was raised has a significant influence on her reaction to workplace harassment. For example, 77 percent of Latina women say that “sexual harassment is a serious problem in the workplace” because of the objectification of their bodies or because they are considered “weak” individuals in general. Additionally, researchers have found that a Black woman’s failure to report sexual harassment can be linked to perceptions the community has about the justice system. The researchers proposed that negative prior experience and perceptions that Black people are treated unfairly by the justice system play into a Black woman’s decision to remain silent. Because many of these responses are societal and cultural, it requires going beyond the legal system itself, to the larger society, to better address the issue of sexual harassment. Specifically, the unique abuses that occur within specific sectors must be closely examined.
The physically isolated workplaces of domestic workers enable employers to sexually harass and abuse in secret. For example, a female housekeeper or a nanny who is directly hired by a family has no one to complain to if she is harassed, and likely has no witness to the behavior. Unfortunately, domestic workers are part of a larger group of women in the workplace who have little power. According to a 2014 report from the Restaurant Opportunities Center, an organization that supports workers in the restaurant industry, ninety percent of workers said they had encountered sexual advances at work and more than half said the incidents happened weekly. A closer look at this system reveals that workers in this industry, who are mostly females living in poverty, experience an endemic atmosphere of sexual harassment due in large part to the master-servant relationship between customers and their servers.
Congress should pass the Be Heard in the Workplace Act
The BE HEARD Act was introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), and other co-sponsors in Congress in April 2019. The bill both strengthens and expands current antidiscrimination laws while removing barriers that prevent individuals from accessing justice. A key part of the Be Heard Act involves expanding civil right protections to all employees regardless of size of the business. The Act authorizes grants for low-income workers to help them seek legal recourse if they are harassed at work, prohibits employers from entering into contracts with workers that contain certain nondisclosure clauses, prohibits pre-dispute arbitration, provides legal assistance for low-income workers related to employment discrimination, and establishes a system of legal advocacy in states to protect the rights of workers. Additionally, the bill requires employers who have 15 or more employees to adopt a comprehensive nondiscrimination policy. The Be Heard in the Workplace Act would provide a work life free from harassment and violence for American workers who are currently unprotected by the law. The Supreme Court recognized sexual harassment as an actionable form of harassment in 1986 to make it easier for employees to hold employers liable for their misconduct; it’s time for all employees across every industry to be entitled to this right.
[1] Jasmine Tucker, Julie Vogtman, When Hard Work is Not Enough: Women in Low Paid Jobs, National Women’s Law Center, April 2020, https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Women-in-Low-Paid-Jobs-report_pp04-FINAL-4.2.pdf.