"Sometimes offensive, occasional crude, explicit comments in any setting are not considered illegal,"" (Wise 53). Most sexual harassment disputes do not end up as courtroom battles. The widespread use of the term "sexual harassment- sometimes creates confusion as to when the law has been violated. "In popular terms sexual harassment has been used to describe conduct that ranges from annoying, obnoxious behavior up to situations that are nearly indistinguishable from rape,"" (Rosewater 32). It is important, therefore, to define carefully those types of situations that constitute sexual harassment in a legal sense. A government investigating agency or a court will look at many factors to determine whether a person has been sexually harassed. The basic legal issues that will be present in every case will be if the conduct was sexual in nature, unreasonable, severe or pervasive, and unwelcome.
Business History.
The concept of sexual harassment is relatively new; the term was coined in 1976. Of course, it existed long before 1976, but people had no way to identify it since there was no term by which to name it. While twenty years is a relatively short time for development, the topic in recent years it has drawn the interest of academic scholars as well as legal scholars.
Sexual harassment has been around since the beginning of time. The difference between then and now is how women are viewed. Long ago, women had very few rights and also women were not allowed in the workplace. When women joined the corporate world they were viewed .
as nothing more than a plaything. Men did not give them the respect they deserved. Men dominated the working industry and they made the rules. If they hired a women to work in their office and they wanted to pat her on the "bottom- or call her "baby- that was perfectly acceptable. A lot of times it went further than a simple gesture, women were forced into actually having sex with their bosses to keep their jobs.
