Factor influencing sexual harassment in the malaysian workplace

Sexual harassment is a universal problem in all over the world. Most of the sexual harassment happen in western country but it’s also happen in Asian country such as Malaysia. In Malaysia, sexual harassment happened at workplace and is target on female workers by their male colleagues. There was getting more articles, report and news indicate those female workers are subjected to sexual harassment nowadays. In additional in year 2000 onwards the numbers of female worker start rising and entering male oriented job such as engineering, medicine and management. From the rise of female worker in all types of industries the management and policymakers consider that sexual harassment is vital for female.

Slowly, when the female worker faced sexual harassment and the situation getting serious, immediately the Code of Practice on the Prevention and Eradication of Sexual Harassment officially launch by Malaysian government in 1999. Workshop taking effort by drawing out guidelines to prevent incidences of sexual harassment. New amendment and guidelines are added by government through its Ministry of Human Resources. For examples, the Employment Act 1955 makes the sexual harassment officers compulsory to investigate any allegations of sexual harassment. Thus the guidelines of sexual harassment for civil service employees have also been issued and giving out counseling for the victim and punishing the perpetrator if sexual harassment happened. Every females worker have the right to free from a unsolicited harassment environment and atmosphere to avoid decrease the morale, productivity and quality of workers.

The research on sexual harassment show that men and women can also be victim but men frequently pose as harassers and women pose as victim in sexual harassment. Even the problem existed for many decades but the research start in late 1970. Now studies focus on the consequence of the organization and individual. In the organization, women with lower job got harassment than women in high job so this make those women in low job make excuses to take leave to avoid harassment. For the individual, the victim can be emotional stress and all this can bring effect on motivation, effectiveness at work and breaking family relationship. In the natural attraction of human and the men behavior shows that men has stronger and aggressive sex drives than women so that sexual harassment in workplace is an extension of human sexuality. Furthermore men with dominant power usually exploit their power to approach women in addition women usually have less power and control than men in workplace.

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There are four factors model influencing sexual harassment in Malaysia and because of it is cover with social cultural, organizational and individual causes so it is more comprehensive and realistic. Thus the social cultural considerate the three main ethic group which is Malay, Chinese, Indian and other Malaysian worker. Furthermore the sensitivity level of sexual harassment towards entire females is different. In workplace female can involve themselves in sexual harassment on how they dress themselves. However the dressing types are different due to their religious and culture between Malay and non Malay. For Malays they wear ‘tudung’ with long dress but non Malay prefer western fashion. Besides, that sex ratio, sexist attitudes and available workspace easy to happen sexual harassment.

The first factor risk is motivation which means that the victim can be the motivator of the harasser. Furthermore, if the victim physical attractive attract that could be the force to motivate the harasser. In additional, the male colleagues may took action or establish unwanted sexual attention to female worker. The hypothesized show that female works who wear more attractive will easily get sexual harassment than the female worker that wears less attractive.

Factor two is the overcoming internal inhibitions against harassment. The harasser morality and sympathy is very important in this factor because if a harasser do not feel his act towards the victim are sympathy , wrong and immoral it will increase the cases of sexual harassment. There for female workers will experience some offensive jokes and unwanted sexual attention from the behavior of harasser.

Third factor is overcoming external inhibitions against harassment. Thus there are five working environment could contribute to sexual harassment. For example the privacy of workplace usually occurred because in private workspace that could not be witness by outsider. The hypothesized shows females that work in open workspace has lower chances encounter with sexual harassment compare to females that work in a private workspace. In addition, knowledge of grievance procedure so that females worker can do their complaint towards harassment and with this kind of system harasser will be punished and prevent harasser. Besides, that sexist attitude is a very valid problem and reported in sexual harassment because females that wear physically sexy easy be targeted as sex object by male’s worker. Other than that an unprofessional working environment bring u a vulgarism, alcohol consumption, disrespect among employees, and employees involve in non-work activities climate while u working and it will bring u sexual harassment. The hypothesized show that women that work in professional work place suffer less sexual harassment than females that work in unprofessional work place that suffer serious sexual harassment. The final is skewed gender ratios that mean males workers are many than females worker and is unbalanced. The hypothesized tell us that if the males workers more than females worker, the chance for females to encounter sexual harassment is higher than a balance ratio worker.

The last factor is overcoming victim resistance. The prevention and ability to recognize the behavior of a harasser toward the victim and the variables is related to the jobs status and sex roles of the victim. The hypothesized shoe those women employees who hold lower position and power will experience sexual harassment than women that hold higher position in a organization. Women that resist or not being cooperative will meet with threat from male employees that hold higher position.

Sexual harassment occurred in Malaysian workplace is causes by few factor and the factor has been confirm and the prediction is pretty accurate. The reason being sexual harassment occurs is the education background of female worker, unprofessional working environment, and sexist of male worker. The females dressing could be the key element cause sexual harassment. All this factors will interrupt with company progress. For examples, the relationship among worker, team spirit and cooperative of employees. Beside that that it will appear a unequal power between males and female workers. Finally one organization should consider the risk or women workers by setting some rules and regulation. For examples, proper dress for females, open space office for women and tighten the discipline among workers.

Feedback

This has taught me more in depth about sexual harassment in social psychology and let me more respect female. The sexual harassment happened in Malaysian workplace is too serious and endanger the moral and living style of a female. Furthermore women who experience it will mentally suffer. Therefore, prevent is better than cure.

The definition of hypothesized is the argument and investigation of a cause and effect. For examples, smoker gets shorter living life than a non smoker because smoking is bad for health. From the journal show that if women that wear more attractive will experiences sexual harassment than women that wear less attractive. Eventually the dependent variable will be how the females dress themselves and the independent is the sexual harassment. The theory I use for this journal about sexual harassment is self-fulfilling prophecy. The definition of self-fulfilling prophecy is your expectation toward a person and how u treats them to judge that your expectation is true or false. For examples, you expect that man will be every nice person so u a treats him very friendly at the same time he treats u the same way, eventually your judgment come true. But in this journal the theory is, if a male judge that if a girl wear more attractive, they will judge them as a very open minded and easy to handle women so they will make some sexual intention towards the female.

Finally all this hypothesized and theory is connecting to social psychology because all the factors and examples is effect and the cause happened among social cultural and human behavior around us. This assignment is very challenging and let me think out of the box.