What Is Considered Harassment? Definition, Types, and Examples

What Is Harassment?

While harassment might seem like an obvious thing when it happens, it’s reported that 34% of employees truly do not grasp the concept of harassment or behaviors that lead to a hostile working environment. 

Harassment is any unwanted behavior, physical or verbal (or even suggested), that makes a reasonable person feel uncomfortable, humiliated, or mentally distressed.

Depending on state laws, the definition and boundaries for what’s considered harassing behavior may slightly vary.

During a harassment suit, a lot of things come into consideration. While harassment laws differ between states, most states consider these two main factors when deciding the validity of an accusation:

• The perpetrator’s intention (or un-intention) to annoy, threaten, or demean the victim.
• Repetition and severity of the unwanted action.

Types of Harassment and Examples

Harassment covers a wide range of unwanted behavior, including physical contact and verbal abuse that causes emotional distress to the harassed. There are seven common types of harassment charges:

• Domestic Violence
• Elder or Dependent Adult Abuse
• Workplace Violence or Harassment
• Sexual Harassment
• Civil Harassment
• Criminal Harassment
• Cyberbullying or Cyberstalking

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence occurs in a domestic or cohabitation setting, although the abuse itself doesn’t have to happen in a private setting. Abuse can happen between spouses, partners, family members, or even housemates. In some countries, domestic abuse is even part of a tradition, such as child marriage or corporal punishment.

Domestic abuse is hard to detect and report, especially since the victim spends so much time around the abuser and can be reluctant to file a report. Abuse that hasn’t reached a physical level is even harder to detect since there are various manipulation techniques that the perpetrators can use to make it seem like what they’re doing is natural.

Understanding how a healthy relationship looks and how to spot signs of domestic abuse is important to prevent domestic abuse. This article by MedlinePlus may help you identify signs of physical abuse on a person you’re close to, as well as how to get help. 

This United Nations report can also help you identify if you’re a victim of domestic abuse.

Elder or Dependent Adult Abuse

Elder abuse is mostly done by caregivers, such as family or employees at a nursing home. However, elder abuse can also be done by someone close to the elderly, such as fellow residents at a nursing home, neighbors, or family and friends. 

Some state courts (California, for example) define elder or dependent adult abuse as an act of abuse against

• People over 65 years old, or 
• A dependent adult aged 18 to 64 has mental or physical disabilities preventing them from being able to do normal everyday activities or protect themselves.

The scary thing about elder abuse is that it may not be intentional, especially in the case of neglect or abandonment. An example of unintentional elder abuse may be one with an overwhelmed caregiver, such as a working adult with multiple responsibilities or an elderly person who doesn’t want to burden anyone, thus isolating themselves from their caregivers.

Workplace Violence or Harassment

The term “workplace harassment” covers any and all types of harassment that may happen in a professional setting. It’s not limited to sexual harassment either; anything that makes someone feel uncomfortable or unsafe in their work environment is considered an instance of workplace harassment. 

The harasser can be anyone, including co-workers, supervisors, and even customers. The motive also varies, including discriminatory aspects, such as religion, nationality, sexual orientation, physical appearance, and age. Workplace harassment can even occur at job interviews with a candidate.

The culture of the company, as well as regular training and policies, play a big part in preventing workplace harassment.

What’s considered acceptable behavior is also highly subjective, which makes the role of regular training and established policies extremely important in cultivating a productive and safe environment for your employees.

Regular training provides a baseline for appropriate behavior in the workplace, while harassment policies give victims concrete steps on how to report offensive behaviors.

Knowing how to spot sexual harassment and how to handle them can protect your company from liability and your employees from mental distress.

Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment can mean harassment caused by a person’s sex that makes the harassed feel uncomfortable, unsafe, or humiliated. It can also be considered as any unwanted sexual advances, such as inappropriate comments that are sexual in nature, requests for sexual favors, unwarranted physical touch, or even sexual assault.

Sexual harassment can happen to anyone anywhere, which is why it’s important to identify signs of sexual harassment and know how to act.

In the workplace, there are two common types of sexual harassment: quid pro quo and hostile work environment.

• Quid pro quo sexual harassment refers to the action of exchanging sexual favors for something, which can be a benefit or prevention of a detriment.
• A hostile work environment is any incident or event that leads to general discomfort, humiliation, or fear for those involved. Examples are: 
  • Sexual or offensive comments 
  • Sending inappropriate texts, memos, or images that are sexual or crude in nature
  • Sexual innuendos in conversation
  • Unwarranted or unwelcome physical touch such as rubbing, touching, or hugging

Civil Harassment

Civil harassment is often classified as acts of abuse by someone you don’t have a close relationship with. Abuse by a family member that doesn’t fall under the domestic violence case is also considered a civil harassment case.

The harassment that falls under this category are ones that involve violence or a threat of violence, including stalking, assault, and credible threats.

To protect yourself from civil harassment, you can get a restraining order. Cases of civil harassment may overlap with other categories. For example, threats of violence to an elderly of the age 65 years old or more can be considered as both civil harassment and elder abuse.

Criminal Harassment

Criminal harassment suits are linked to harassment against protective groups that are designed to annoy, harm, or terrorize. The protected groups include people of a certain gender, sexual orientation, race, national origin, religion, age group, or disability.

Unwanted behavior that makes people of certain groups feel unsafe can be categorized as a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the severity and frequency of the action, as well as the intention of the harasser.

For example, a hate crime or harassment against a community (such as the LGBTQIA+ community) can be classified as criminal harassment. 

Cyberbullying or Cyberstalking

Cyber harassment, or online harassment, refers to acts that are designed to harm, stalk, or terrorize someone through any form of electronic communications, such as social media, text messages, or phone calls. 

It’s easier to harass people virtually since it will be hard to track the parties involved. Cyber harassment can include harmful comments, derogatory websites, and untruthful posts, as well as hateful or offensive emails intentionally designed to terrorize a person.

While cyberbullying seems light compared to other forms of harassment, especially since there are no bodily injuries caused, cyberbullying causes significant damage to a person’s mental state. It can also escalate into a physical confrontation. 

Cyberbullying can be extremely difficult to detect or identify as there are sometimes privacy laws, restrictions, and rights owners have. This is why it is especially critical to train your entire workforce to avoid and handle all acts of cyberbullying or malicious online activity.

Train Your Workforce to Identify Harassment with Inspired eLearning

A lot of these types of harassment can happen in your workforce. Workplace harassment covers most types of harassment we’ve mentioned in this article, such as sexual harassment and cyberbullying. 

To make sure that you’re protecting your workplace from any kind of harassment, regular harassment training is necessary to help your employees figure out the boundaries in a workplace (see our Harassment Prevention Training Checklist for more on this).

Harassment training, complemented with a policy and swift reaction from the company, creates a safer environment for your employees, ensuring they can perform at their best.

Need comprehensive harassment training to help you build your company culture? Get in touch, and we’ll help you set up a training program with our learning management system.