- by Grey-Bruce Community Legal Clinic
A sleazy pub owner slithers up behind a pretty bartender and offers to “improve her technique.” A senior law firm partner in an invitingly loosened tie takes a young associate by both hands and tells her he’d be happy to help advance her career. A grinning, cigar-chomping businessman sends a startled secretary on her way with a robust slap to the rear.
When we think of sexual harassment in the workplace (“SHIW”), these are the images that often come to mind. Whether or not we recognize it, suggestive scenes in prime-time office dramas and canned-laughter bits in black-and-white comedies have played a major role in shaping our communal view of what it means to be sexually harassed at work.
This is not to say that these stereotypical depictions of workplace sexual harassment are entirely inaccurate. According to a 2018 study conducted by Insights on Canadian Society in partnership with Statistics Canada1, young female employees - especially those in subordinate positions - are among the most likely to suffer sexual harassment at work, and senior male employees in positions of authority are sometimes the perpetrators. However, this is only one form that SHIW may take. And despite what the popular media may tell us, it is not the most common dynamic.
The above-noted study found that just 15% of women2 who reported SHIW over the past 12 months were targeted by supervisors or managers. 44% reported that they had been harassed by colleagues or peers. Most surprising of all, perhaps, is the fact that a whopping 56% of women reported having been targeted by clients or customers.3
Yet when one takes into account certain longstanding societal beliefs, perhaps this actually isn’t all that surprising. After all, our society decided decades ago that “the customer is always right.” This concept has pervaded not only the collective consciousness of many customers, but of many employers and employees as well. For example, a customer who feels justified in berating a young server for food he deems unsatisfactory may also believe he has free rein to make sexual comments about her body. The server’s employer may decide it is better for business to keep this customer happy than it is to defend their employee. Even the server herself may believe that this kind of harassment is simply something she must put up with in her line of work.
“I thought it was part of the job,” admits Mackenzie4, a former waitress who experienced persistent sexual harassment from a customer while working at a large chain restaurant. “He’d come in two or three times a week and tell me how sexy I was, how nice my chest was, how much he enjoyed looking at me from behind. It made feel embarrassed and ashamed, but I tolerated it because I believed I had to. Also, this guy was a regular at the restaurant and the owners knew him well, and I was afraid I’d get in trouble if I reported him.”
It took Mackenzie some time to find the courage to tell her employer about the harassment. The employer was sympathetic, but did very little to remedy the problem. “She told the hosts not to seat him in my section, but that was about it,” says Mackenzie. “It didn’t really do much to improve the situation. He would still leer at me from across the room, and if I had to pass by his table, he’d make the same kinds of comments.”
The customer’s behaviour was upsetting enough that Mackenzie seriously considered quitting her job, even though she otherwise enjoyed her work. She eventually left the restaurant when she moved to another city for university. Although she now works in a completely different field, her memories of the harassment remain. “I wish I’d known back then that what that man was doing was not only wrong, it was against the law,” she says. “I also wish I’d known that my employer had a legal responsibility to do something – and I mean really do something – about the way he was treating me.”
Mackenzie is correct in stating that there are laws designed to protect employees from experiencing the same sort of sexual harassment she endured. Under the Ontario Human Rights Code, employees have the right to be free from sexual harassment in the workplace. Although the legislation specifically references harassment carried out by an “employer, agent of the employer or by another employee”5, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario has ruled that employees likewise have the right to be free from discrimination or harassment where the perpetrator is a customer.6
Regardless of whether the harassment is perpetrated by an employer, a colleague, or a client/customer, all Ontario employees have the right to a SHIW-free work environment. If you have been sexually harassed at work and would like to know what to do next, contact the Grey-Bruce Community Legal Clinic at 519-370-2200 for free, confidential legal advice.
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1 Hango, Darcy and Melissa Moyser. 2018. “Harassment in Canadian workplaces”. Insights on Canadian Society. December. Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 75-006-X.
2 Men, too, can be victims of sexual harassment in the workplace, and their experiences in this regard should not be dismissed. However, when the data collected for the above-noted study was analyzed, researchers found that >1% of Canadian men reported having experienced SHIW compared to 4% of Canadian women. Because the number of men who reported experiencing SHIW is not sufficient to support a detailed analysis, both the study and this article will focus on the SHIW experiences of women.
3 Multiple responses were possible.
4 Name has been changed.
5 “Every person who is an employee has a right to freedom from harassment in the workplace because of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression by his or her employer or agent of the employer or by another employee.” Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, s. 7 (2).
6 Ankamah v. Chauhan Food Services, 2010 HRTO 2024
