BADM 340 Fall 2018

Prof. Fricke

Samantha White

Final Project-Individual Paper

Sexual Harassment in the Work Place

For a majority of history sexual harassment has been going on with little to no

punishment and is now coming out in big scandals that are having hugely negative impacts on

large companies. Since the initial wave of the #metoo movement there has been an astounding

50% increase in the amount of sexual harassment suits being filed. Because the companies

were not used to handling these types of lawsuits it has caused huge damages in income as

well as reputation. What were once minor infractions that could be shoved under the rug are

now coming out as huge scandals that have had irreparable consequences for some

companies. While this shift has been the eventual downfall of multiple large corporations,

there are solutions that can be regulated and enforced in order to keep companies thriving and

minimize the damages that stem from these accusations.

Before being able to find solutions to this issue, it is important to analyze how it came

to be this bad in the first place. While the #metoo movement was the tipping point as far as

consequences and publicity go, the reason that it was able to blow up to the extent that it did

was because there were plenty of incidents being committed and covered up prior to. Because

there is no universal definition to what sexual harassment is, it is easy to rationalize what you
are doing on smaller infractions. This especially becomes an issue when looking at

international corporations because there are different standards for what counts as harassment

across different borders. For example, France addresses “moral harassment” in their definition

which differs from the American perspective, which is less strict. Because of this, individuals

can argue that what they were doing was a ‘gray area’ and that they weren’t sure if it was

against the law.

These small offenses that are easy to be rationalized can then lead to bigger incidents

which is often where the major scandals stem from. Through incrementalism, things that starts

as small harassments can lead to big consequences that blow up for a company. An example is

Harvey Weinstein who kept paying off woman that he harassed and assaulted for years. As he

did this for less extreme offenses, like answering the door to his hotel for an interview in a

robe, and kept being able to make settlement deals and keep his success, this eventually

escalated until he had an explosion of woman coming forward with accusations including

m u l t i p l e a c c o u n t s o f r a p e . T h i s t h e n l e d t o t h e e n t i r e We i n s t e i n

company having a prosecution with the New York state prosecutors over not protecting their

employees in February of 2018 and in March of 2018 the company filing for bankruptcy.

What started as a seemingly ignorable problem for the sake of an artistic genies led to the

downfall of a multi-million dollar company.

There are also issues figuring out how to get woman to come forward when the events

happen in order to avoid big blowups that can cause irreversible damage to a company.

Because of Pressure from the System and Pressure for Authority, this can lead many woman
to not come forward. According to a study done by Forbes in 2018, about a third of woman

currently do not declare their sexual harassments when they occur. This could be another issue

with the problem. If there were clear guidelines, it could make it easier for employees to

overcome these pressures and if there was more transparency with those who came forward it

could shift the group pressure to be helpful rather than harmful.

When the public does not find out about the harassments this could create a sense of

invincibility in the company higher ups which then causes the activity to escalate. When

leaders have this feelings of being untouchable by law, it can also lead to a toxic company

culture where employees don’t feel as if they can stand up to their boss.

In order to fix these problems and escalations that have been present for years, there

need to be major changes in the ethical laws of major businesses. If there was more

transparency than huge blowups could be averted. While there isn’t a forceable time where

we can completely eliminate this problem, by being open about what is being done and the

policies that are in place it can stop huge scandals from happening. To make it government

mandated to have all non-disclosure settlement amounts for sexual harassment claims able to

be viewed by the public could be extremely beneficial. Without giving away names or details

of victims, it would allow future employees to see how much effort the company puts into

keeping sexual harassment files quiet and therefor give a the applicants a glimpse of what the

company culture regarding this is like. This would then lead to companies that are more

vigilant in keeping their company safe of sexual harassment to have a more competitive
applicant pool and thus, give companies capitalistic incentive to have a zero tolerance policy

in regards to this.

There also needs to be a universal definition for sexual harassment, at least in terms of

corporations. It differs from country to country which could make it hard to regulate in

international corporations. This could lead to cases falling through the cracks and companies

choosing to just pay for a non-disclosure agreement rather than dealing with the differing

cultures around this topic.

At our current state, laws are basically ineffective at preventing sexual harassment in

the workplace. Not only are there steep visible financial costs, as seen in the Fox case where

they had to pay roughly 90 million dollars in November of 2017 to provide payouts after a

sexual assault scandal, but the invisible costs are immeasurably high. From poor company

cultures creating low productivity and high turnovers, to reputations being harmed and

management being too distracted by cover ups in order to properly run their branch of a

company, it is indisputable that a company without the burden of harassment claims is far

better off. Not only do the moral reasonings make this issue pressing, it is also an economic

black hole that large companies are edging closer and closer into falling into if drastic

measures aren’t taken soon.

 Works Cited

“Harvey Weinstein Timeline: How the Scandal Unfolded.” BBC News, BBC, 19 Sept.
2018, www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41594672.

Insights, HEC Paris. “Sexual Harassment At Work: What The Law Says.” Forbes,
Forbes Magazine, 22 Oct. 2018, www.forbes.com/sites/hecparis/2018/10/22/sexual-
harassment-at-work-what-the-law-says/#446bbab723c7.

Kantor, Jodi, and Megan Twohey. “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment
Accusers for Decades.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Oct. 2017,
www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html.

Paul, Kari. “One Year after Weinstein and #MeToo, Sexual Harassment Financial
Settlements Have Soared.” MarketWatch, MarketWatch, 7 Oct. 2018,
www.marketwatch.com/story/one-year-after-weinstein-and-metoo-sexual-
harassment-financial-settlements-have-soared-2018-10-05.