Handbook on Sexual Violence (86 page)

Conclusion

The implications to be drawn from these chapter
s is that responding to sexual violence is not about focusing on either the offender or the victim, but that as their encounter locks them together, interventions should take a look at the relationship. Responses need to harness both justice and medical resources and ally public and voluntary sectors. Feminist activism may wish to eliminate sexual violence, so activating public awareness and education is a long-haul

project, and maintenance of programmes that support victims and work with offenders in the medium term is a policy priority. The recommendations at the end of Coates’s practitioner contribution are not dissimilar to those evident in other enquiries and reviews (e.g. Stern 2010). Two questions emerge from the analysis presented in the chapters: why is there such a postcode lottery in provision; and can services to victims of violence withstand the financial pressures of the economic downturn?

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Chapter 18
‌

Bullying, harassment and sexual orientation in the workplace

Helge Hoel and Duncan Lewis

Meet Helge Hoel and Duncan Lewis

Helge Hoel is Senior Lecturer in Organisational Psychology at Manchester Business School at the University of Manchester. He carried out the first nationwide survey of workplace bullying in Great Britain in 2000 and subsequently the first evaluation study examining the effectiveness of organisational anti-bullying interventions. He has written and contributed to a number of books, articles and reports in the area of bullying, violence and harassment. Recently, he has embarked on an inter-disciplinary path, contributing to a broadening of the bullying research agenda into the areas of sociology, law and industrial relations. He is currently Principal Investigator of a ground-breaking study of Lesbians, Gay and Bisexuals’ (LBGs) experience of discrimination, bullying and harassment (with Duncan Lewis), sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Professor Duncan Lewis is Professor of Management at Plymouth School of Management and was previously Acas Professor at the Glamorgan Business School near Cardiff. Duncan has spent over a decade researching workplace bullying and was part of a team located at Cardiff University exploring ill- treatment at work with special reference to race and ethnicity which was funded by the ESRC, Acas and the former Commission for Race Equality (CRE). Duncan is working alongside Helge on the new ESRC funded research project which will undertake the UK’s first nationally representative study of bullying, harassment and discrimination at work amongst lesbian, gay and bisexual employees. This major UK study is backed by the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission and supported by Acas, Stonewall and the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development.

Introduction

The issue of workplace bullying has received considerable and growing attention in recent years (Aquino and Thau 2009; Di Martino
et al
. 2003).

Although already referred to as the research topic of the 1990s (Hoel
et al
. 1999), more than 80 per cent of empirical studies about the issue have actually been published since 2000 (Nielsen
et al
. in 2009). In terms of its consequences, bullying and harassment is associated with reduced job satisfaction and a number of mental and physical health problems (Einarsen and Mikkelsen 2003). Unsurprisingly, such experiences also affect organisations by means of increased absenteeism and turnover, as well as reduced productivity, which manifest themselves in substantial organisational and societal costs (Giga
et al
. 2008a). However, one issue which has received little or no attention within the literature is the experience of lesbian, gay and bisexual employees (LGB). This lack of attention exists despite the fact that Stonewall (2007), the gay rights lobbying group, suggests that nearly one in five lesbians and gay men had experienced bullying due to their sexual orientation, with 13 per cent of the population reporting that they had witnessed verbal bullying in the workplace, and nearly four per cent having reported witnessing physical or violent anti-gay bullying. This
chapter aims to address this gap in knowledge. Moreover, responding to the overall approach of the book we will explore the particular nature of violent interactions as experienced by lesbians, gay men and bisexuals in the workplace.

In terms of the structure of the chapter, and having provided some background information, we examine various dimensions of the concept of workplace bullying and its effects on people at work. This is followed by a more in-depth investigation of the LGBs’ experience of bullying and harassment and its impact. In order to throw light on these experiences, theoretical perspectives which may account for their presence will be explored, emphasising in a separate section how the sexuality of recipients might impinge upon the nature of their experience. In a final section we discuss how organisations might respond to and possibly mitigate the problem.

Background

Reviews of the literature of the wider field of bullying and harassment (Aquino and Thau 2009; Einarsen
et al
. 2011; Hoel
et al
. 1999) suggest that an often confusing array of concepts and terms is employed to account for these phenomena, despite the fact that there seemingly exists very considerable conceptual overlap between them (Einarsen
et al
. 2011; Hershcovis, in press). Research carried out by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Di Martino
et al
. 2003) identified some new trends in international research and practice on the issues of violence and harassment taking place: first, there appears to be a shift in focus from physical to psychological violence despite the fact that levels of exposure to physical violence are still high and possibly on a par with psychological violence; second, considerable attention is being paid to repeated negative and unwanted acts, many of which are relatively common in the workplace; and third, there seems to be an expansion of the notion of an employer’s duty of care to incorporate the concepts of dignity and respect of workers to sit alongside employer responsibility for employee safety and health. This reflects

a greater societal concern with issues surrounding human rights and mirrors the 2004 expansion of the scope of anti-discrimination regulations within the European Union (the Treaty of Amsterdam). As such the new inclusion of disability, age and religion mirrors, in principle, US regulation of ‘protected groups’ with one important exception, sexuality. US employers are still free to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality, where the legal principle of ‘employment at will’ still applies (Lewis
et al
. in press). Workplace dignity is already reflected in a move by many employers to replace their policies on bullying and harassment with an all-encompassing so-called ‘dignity at work policy’. This is often portrayed as a positive move by employers, seemingly replacing a focus on something inherently negative with something more positive and upbeat. However, the term ‘dignity at work‘ is more conceptually controversial than the term bullying because, as Bolton (2007) pointed out, its origins lie in dignified or decent work rather than personal undignified interactions. Thus, such a move is not without its problems, an issue we will return to later.

As has often been pointed out by research into violence in the workplace, women appear to be more vulnerable to violence than men (Chappel and Di Martino 2006). However, with exposure rates and relative risk of being the target of violence reflecting labour market segregation and different labour market contexts, with women over-represented in high-risk occupations and occupying different roles and positions compared with men (e.g. Di Martino
et al
. 2003), it is argued that the experience of violence, harassment and bullying should be seen as gendered (Ackers 1990; Simpson and Cohen 2004). In other words, women are over-represented in work with high reported levels of violence, e.g. teaching, health care and social work. Furthermore, women occupy to a greater degree than men low-pay and low-status jobs (Di Martino
et al
. 2003), with fewer women filling supervisory and managerial positions. However, women currently account for more than 50 per cent of the working population, a figure which is unlikely to be reduced given the new opportunity for flexible working arrangements pursued by many employers.